THE LAW OF INSANITY.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1367, 3 July 1878, Page 3

THE LAW OF INSANITY.

In Dr. Bucknill’s concluding Liunlein lecture, delivered at the College of Physicians on April 17th, he discussed the question of motive. Ho said there was always some motive for insane action, except when it was unconscious or automatic, and that the motives of lunatics very frequently showed malice of some kind or other, but that they were unreasonable and incommensurate with their conduct. But an evil motive was not necessarily a sane motive, which, indeed, could not exist in a man thoroughly insane. He insisted upon the necessity in lunacy (rials of taking into consideration the state of the whole mind as affected by disease—that is to say, of the disposition, the intellectual conception of the object, the desire to obtain it, or that form of wishing which is called will, and which combine to produce those muscular movements by which the act is consummated. It is only by considering the mind in the solidarite of its functions that a true answer can be given to the questions. Did he know it was wrong ? Could he help it ? But this consideration of the mind as a whole was aided by the study of different states of mind, which the lecturer considered under the heads of states of unconsciousness, of ignorance, of delusion, and of passion. States of unconsciousness were due either to somnolence or to epilepsy. Some recent trials had caused epileptic unconsciousness to be much discussed, A homicide might, no doubt, bo committed in in such a state. Elizabeth Carr, in December, 1876, was tried and properly acquitted. She had a knife in her own hand, and was about to cut bread when the fit seized her, during which she automatically cut off the hand of the child she had in her arms. But there was a vast difference between this genuine case and also between similar non-criminal ones which had been recorded from clinical experience and such cases as that of Frederick Treadaway, who shot John Collins last year, and of Frederick John Baton, the Norwich post-office clerk, who was tried last January for letter stealing, both of which cases had been defended on the theory that the criminal acts were unconscious and automatic, and who were, as the lecturer thought, rightly convicted. Another mental state arising from disease and leading to criminal acts was that of ignorance, of which there infinite degrees and two distinct kinds ; the simple ignorance of the idiot who might not know the very nature of the act, and the incomprehension of the demented or incoherent lunatic who has lost that quality of reason which looks before and after, and cannot appreciate the wrongfulness or the consequences of his conduct. Attempts had been made to lay down a rule for the degree of ignorance which should exonerate. Lord Hale thought it ought to be defined as ignorance beneath that of a child of fourteen, and Mr Warren ignorance equal to that of a baby ! Delusion in certain cases was conclusive proof of irresponsibility, but the difficulty was to prove its existence, for no mental state was so easily simulated. A common mode of argument was that the man is insane because he has delusions, and his oninions are delusions because he is insane. Standing by itself the expression of the most absurd opinion was an untrustworthy test, but combined with other symptoms of insanity a most efficient one. Its influence over the loss of self-control ought to bo estimated, like, that of other mental states, by the circumstances in each individual case. The state of passion or desire could not in itself constitute insanity, although its excess or defect caused by disease was an element in insane conduct which could not be disregarded. It was, however, omy in connection with morbid intellectual states that passion became part of insanity, forming that state of the whole mind which was significantly called mental derangement. To say that passion itself can constitute madness and excuse crime vould be to endorse that foolish and wicked vindication of Lord Leitrim’s murder which the “Times” has quoted from the “Nation ” newspaper :—“ There are such things as the fierce logic and the wild Justice of revenge. The law puts some restraint upon the exorcise of that wild justice and religion forbids it, but passion mounting up to madness will sometimes overleap these barriers and lead to terrible results.” No better proof could be given that the restraint of the law should not be weakened by allowing the theory of insane passion to be an excuse for crime.