that our legislators should avail themselves thereof. The relation that should be maintained by an outraged institution, towards the class of criminals of unsound mind, constitutes at the present moment, to the eye of the philosophic observer, that which the annals of jurisprudence show it to have been from time immemorial, a great stumbling block: the quæstio vexata of the past, the present, and it may be the future; one, which it is wrong to leave, yet difficult to touch, so intricate and tortuous are its several bearings. The subject appeals with force and power to the sympathies as well as the minds of all; protection to life and property alone, is a principle in which every one is deeply interested, no matter what the rank or station he occupies in society; the blessings and the sweets of life and its belongings are as highly esteemed by the peasant in his lowly cot, perhaps even more so, than by the monarch on his throne. To ensure this protection to life and property, so far as can be effected by legislation, it becomes requisite to admit another principle, viz., that any offences against either the one or the other shall be visited with punishment. But it so happens that occasionally these offences are the result of a diseased and distempered mind, a condition to which every human being is more or less exposed; and the folly and injustice of treating criminal sanity and insanity upon the same footing being too apparent, the law very properly recognises irresponsibility in consequence of mental

imperfection as a legitimate and lawful defence. With a provision so correct and just, it may well be matter of regret that abuse should creep in; but the self-evident benefit of the plea of irresponsibility naturally led to the too frequent and unjustifiable adoption of the same, whilst the wide scope of the subject offered great facilities for the evasion of justice, and thus it became necessary to define, as precisely as could be accomplished, the degree of madness or unsoundness which should shield from the retributive consequences of the act.

Definitions, accurate and correct in all their parts, are of extreme value, but when imperfect are apt to generate error. "Animal bipes et implume," a twofooted animal without feathers, was Plato's celebrated definition of man, the fallacy of which was exposed by Diogenes throwing a plucked fowl into the schools, and exclaiming, "behold Plato's man." This serves to illustrate an occurrence by no means rare in the history of definitions, viz., one inadequate to the thing defined. The belief that much of the obscurity investing this subject, giving origin to such multiform discrepancy of opinion, is attributable to the attempt to enclose within the limit of an incomplete definition all the relations of a vast and comprehensive condition, has led me to this digression.

This plan of fixing the premise upon which action is founded, is the natural suggestion to the mind of the individual trained up to the examina

tion of the technicalities of legal evidence, expert in detecting fallacy, prompt in perceiving truth; nor does insanity, to one unacquainted with the peculiarities of mental organization, seem to oppose insuperable or even serious objections to such a mode of procedure. Nothing on the surface appears more easy than to decide whether a person be sane or mad; and the inference is natural that a condition admitting such ready detection ought to allow of satisfactory definition. Whereas the physician who has devoted a lifetime to the long and laborious study of this particular branch of his profession, confesses his inability to define insanity, and believes we might with equal propriety attempt to define red, yellow, blue, or any other abstract essence. The habitudes of thought of the two professions will, on consideration, possibly furnish a key to the source of this disagreement. Vice, in its many hydra-headed forms, aided by its twin sister Folly, has rendered the legal profession a necessary shield to suffering humanity, to screen virtue and innocence from their attacks. The lawyer is accustomed, in the exercise of his calling, to combat these evils through the medium of the fixed and unswerving laws of his country; he thinks on certainties, and deals with certainties; and, having nothing to make him undecided in his opinions, he is in action what we should expect to . find him-positive and practical. The medical practitioner, on the other hand, is surrounded by un

certainty; it is for him to investigate and control the ravages of principles which can be neither seen nor traced, otherwise than by the observation of the effect produced upon that complex piece of machinery the human body; to study a mechanism which he can understand, in unison with a principle of life which baffles comprehension; from the knowledge he has acquired, he endeavours to reason up to that which he does not possess; he finds obscurity in the origin and causes of diseases, as also in their progress and decline, and in the application of remedies much of dubious ground. The mind thus habituated to the contemplation of subjects of such practical import, though speculative tendency, demanding investigation as they do in an enlarged and philosophical spirit, acquires facility in seeking out and grappling with all the material difficulties investing the topic, which habit, although doubtless in accordance with the true genius of philosophic investigation, still unquestionably must be admitted to have a tendency to divert the mind from the practical consideration, which is really that which should be most attended to. When clouds of doubt are then, as we have seen, necessarily so constantly passing and repassing before the vision of the physician, can it be matter of surprise or wonder, that if he properly appreciate his position, hesitancy and caution stamp the man? And it is no doubt owing to the widely different training to which these two sepa

rate classes of mind are subjected, as well as to the diversity in the opportunities for observation possessed by each, that we find that want of cordial sympathy and agreement between the opinions of these two parties, viewing this self-same subject from different aspects. The objects of both are alike-viz., to uphold the law, to punish the criminal, to rescue the lunatic; and hence, how very desirable to combine in action, if possible, forces whose aim is identical, but whose operation at the present is, alas, oftentimes antagonistic. Now, this essay proposes for its object, not to exhibit insanity in the most comprehensive view, but, what appears to the author to be the most correct view of the relation that should be maintained by the legislative power towards those of unsound mind that have committed criminal acts, and he hopes to be enabled to prove that a correct and truthful estimate of every disputed point is not incompatible with an efficient practical conclusion, and in reality a more efficient one, than that depending on a contracted view of the matter.

The interrogatory which first presents itself, and upon the answer to which a large amount of the difficulty clothing the inquiry hinges, is, what is unsoundness of mind? The moralist, who looks

to perfection of thought and action as the true. standard of soundness of mind, knowing the depravity of the human heart, that it is by nature, in the best and brightest specimens of mankind,