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educate? It is not to useful, but to useless, knowledge that wè object. Knowledge, it is true, is power; but it furnishes the power to do evil as well as good; and as there is a greater proneness in human nature to the one than to the other, so unassisted knowledge is mischievous in proportion to its extent. While learning is put forth in every shape, wisdom is almost wholly neglected. Does any man believe, that, to furnish the future weaver or carpenter with the education of a scholar or a man of science, will make him more contented in the sphere in which he is thrown? Is it not, rather, palpable, that the more fitted he is for a higher station in society-the more talents he has acquired the greater the effort of mind must be to keep him happy and contented in that to which fortune has fixed him? A few minds, of heroic strength and elevation, will stand such trials as these triumphantly: Granted-but what comes of the great, the immense, the miserable majority? Is it right to tamper with the happiness of mankind in this fashion? Ask any physician what classes of persons are most largely represented in the madhouse he will answer, unless we be sadly mistaken, private tutors and (still more wretched) governesses.

A second erroneous opinion, generally entertained in society, is, that madness and great wit are nearly allied. This versified dictum of Dryden is as true, as that great light and darkness are nearly allied, or great strength and weakness, or any other similar nonsense. The mistake has arisen out of the vague analogy between the energy of genius and the energy of madness. In both, the ideas are vigorous and copious; but in the one they are arranged and collected-in the other, disjointed and incoherent. That men of undoubted talents become insane, there can be no question; but it is monstrous to connect the want of mind with strength of intellect—and the ravings of madness with extreme clearness, precision, and vigour of thought. The causes of the insanity of gifted men may be easily traced to some excess of study or feeling, or some injurious habit of body. So far is the proposition from being true, that the reader may soon convince himself, by turning to any biographical work, that they who have been most remarkable for intellect, have retained it the longest and worked it the most.

There is a third error, the extension of which we cannot answer for, but which seems to have been entertained by some of the select committee on lunatics and lunatic asylums-viz., that insanity, being a bodily disease, is always curable by medicine. There are so many bodily ailments incurable by physic, that the very statement of the proposition disproves it. The general health in scrofula shall appear to be excellent, and the mind and body

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working well, yet the experienced physician not only knows the malady, but knows that the constitutional taint, which lurks under the fair outside, is not remediable by art. When the disorder of the mind is unaccompanied by any disorder of the body, medicines have little power over mania.

The validity of the prevalent notions on insanity, considered as a subject of medical jurisprudence, we must at present pass very briefly in review. In the trial of Bellingham for the murder of Mr. Perceval, Sir Vicary Gibbs, the attorney-general, made this

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'A man may be deranged in his mind-his intellect may be insufficient to enable him to conduct the common affairs of life, such as disposing of his property, or judging of the claims which his respective relations have upon him-yet such a man is not discharged from his responsibility for criminal acts. I say this upon the authority of the first sages in this country, and upon the authority of the established law at all times-which law has never been questioned-that, although a man be incapable of conducting his own affairs, he may still be answerable for his criminal acts, if he possess a mind capable of distinguishing right from wrong.'

The presiding judge, in his charge to the jury on the same trial, makes a similar avowal :

There was another species of madness, in which persons were subject to temporary paroxysms, in which they were guilty of acts of extravagance-this was called lunacy. If these persons were to commit a crime, when they were not affected with the malady, they would be to all intents and purposes amenable to justice. So long as they could distinguish good from evil, so long they would be answerable for their conduct.'

If the above statements amount to this, that whatever delusion a lunatic may labour under, he is responsible for crime, if he can distinguish right from wrong, we do not think the principle holds good. Nothing can be better than what Lord Erskine has said on this head.

Let me suppose that the character of the insane delusion consisted in the belief that some given person was a brute animal, or an inanimate being, (and such cases have existed,) and that, upon the trial of such a lunatic for murder, you firmly upon your oaths were convinced, upon the uncontradicted evidence of an hundred persons, that he believed the man he had destroyed to have been a potter's vessel; that it was quite impossible to doubt that fact, although, to all other intents and purposes, he was sane. Suppose, further, that he believed the man whom he destroyed, but whom he destroyed as a potter's vessel, to be the property of another, and that he had malice against

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such supposed person, and that he meant to injure him, knowing the act he was doing to be malicious and injurious; and that, in short, he had full knowledge of all the principles of good and evil-yet would it be possible to convict such a person of murder, if, from the influence of his disease, he was ignorant of the relation he stood in to the man he had destroyed, and was utterly unconscious that he had struck at the life of a human being? I only put this case, and many others might be brought as examples, to illustrate that the knowledge of good and evil is too general a description.**

In the same speech, however, Lord Erskine has ventured to define the true character of insanity, and founded upon it a conclusion which we think will scarcely hold good.

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Delusion, therefore, where there is no phrenzy or raving madness, is the true character of insanity; and where it cannot be predicated of a man standing for life or death for a crime, he ought not, in my opinion, to be acquitted.'

Suppose a woman imagines that her husband is unfaithful to her, and that she, labouring, quoad hoc, under no delusion, becomes mad and murders him-is she a subject for the cell or the gallows? Without pretending to decide this question legally, it is certain that madness is not always accompanied by delusion, and that it is not necessary to prove insane belief to make out insanity. On this subject, Dr. Gooch has the following pertinent observations.

'I attended a deranged lady, whose predominant belief was that her husband was unfaithful to her. The notion, so far from being unreasonable, was, I believe, true; and she had known it for many years without any unnatural disquietude, but now it engrossed all her thoughts. She neglected her ordinary pursuits, took a dislike to her friends, felt no interest about her children, and sat silent and motionless from morning till night. After continuing deranged for many months, she recovered, although she still retained the same opinion. In what, then, consisted her insanity? Not in the groundlessness and unreasonableness of the predominant belief, but in its withdrawing her attention from all other thoughts and pursuits, in its overwhelming influence over her feelings and conduct.

Dr. Johnson, who seldom touched any subject without lighting on the truth, perceived this principle. "Madness," says he, "frequently discovers itself merely by unnecessary deviation from the usual modes of the world. My poor friend Smart shewed the disturbance of his mind by falling upon his knees, and saying his prayers in the street, or in any other unusual place. Now although, rationally speaking, it is greater madness not to pray at all than to pray as Smart did, I am afraid that there are so many who do not pray, that their understanding is not called in question.''

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* Speech for James Hatfield, p. 24.

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We shall cite another case from Haslam, in which the murderer seems to have had a keen sense of right and wrong (the opening sentence proves it), and certainly laboured under no delusion when he committed the crime, and yet he was mad. The narration was made by the maniac to the doctor.

'The man whom I stabbed richly deserved it: he behaved to me with great violence and cruelty; he degraded my nature as a human being; he tied me down, handcuffed me, and confined my hands much higher than my head with a leathern thong; he stretched me on a bed of torture. After some days, he released me. I gave him warning, for I told his wife I would have justice of him: on her communicating this to him, he came to me in a furious passion, threw me down, dragged me through the court-yard, thumped me on the breast, and confined me in a dark and damp cell. Not liking this situation, I was induced to play the hypocrite. I pretended extreme sorrow for having threatened him, and, by an affectation of repentance, prevailed on him to release me. For several days I paid him great attention, and lent him every assistance: he seemed much pleased with the flattery, and became very friendly in his behaviour towards me. Going one day into the kitchen where his wife was busied, I saw a knife-(this was too great a temptation to be resisted)-I concealed it, and carried it about me. For some time afterwards, the same friendly intercourse was maintained between us; but, as he was one day unlocking his garden door, I seized the opportunity, and plunged the knife up to the hilt in his back.'

In cases of this class, the shades of madness run into the excesses of reasonable and accountable creatures, with so slight a variation of tint, that the utmost caution is required to distinguish between them, and with the utmost caution it is often scarcely possible to do so. It is in this class of cases that counsel either deceive themselves, or the jury, by resorting to one or other of the following modes of defence. They attempt to prove a madman not mad, by taking some mode of thinking in sane people similar to that in the maniac, only less in degree, and then arguing that, as the one is not madness, the other cannot be. Here the very excess should excite suspicion sufficient to cause the strictest investigation to be made touching the general habits of the supposed lunatic, his health, and whether there is madness in his family. It is only on a long and patient scrutiny that many mono-maniacs (or persons mad on a single point) are to be detected.

A second mode of defence, equally sophistical, is resorted to by asserting that the madman is only an eccentric man. The observations on this head as to the rise and characteristics of eccentricity, as distinguished from insanity, already quoted from Dr. Gooch, will assist materially those who wish to determine the question of

* On Madness, p. 160, apud Beck, Med. Juris.

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lunacy honestly. The whole of the author's remarks on this part of his subject are admirable; many a case turns on the distinction between eccentricity and insanity; and definite notions on this head are of the highest value.

The persons (he says elsewhere) who have passed for eccentric, and whom I have had opportunities of observing, I would divide into three classes; 1st, Those who differ from the rest of mankind chiefly in their objects and pursuits, instead of desiring and aiming at the common objects of human wishes,-namely, rising in life, the attainment of a competence, the acquisition of wealth and power;-they are contented in these respects to remain stationary, and they dedicate the whole of their lives and talents to the cultivation of their minds, and the acquisition of knowledge.. This peculiarity of pursuit, unless counteracted by much intercourse with polished society, generates various peculiarities in their appearance, habits, manners, and modes of expression: they are careless, often slovenly in their dress, awkward in their manners, singular, and often pedantic in the topics and language of their conversation. Such persons are called eccentric, but their eccentricity consists only in their pursuits and manners; it is the simplest and most unquestionable form of eccentricity, and is compatible with the healthiest, happiest, and most vigorous state of mind. The second class consists of persons who differ from the rest of mankind in the singularity of their opinions-with the same materials they draw inferences widely different from those of sensible and competent judges: they are persons of great confidence in their own judgment, defective either in knowledge or comprehensiveness of mind, and by separating those facts which are favourable to their opinions, by frequent meditation on them, and by keeping out of sight the opposite facts, they attain the firmest conviction of their peculiar notions. This process will sometimes carry a man a great way. There is at this time in America, a Captain Symes, who is convinced that the earth is perforated from pole to pole-that the sea flows through it, that the perforation is navigable;-and he is said to be planning a voyage to explore it. This form of eccentricity, in a minor degree, is very common. The persons subject to it are often clever and zealous; but they never possess very superior minds; they have the zeal for knowledge without corresponding sagacity: still they are eccentric, not mad, for they arrive at their conclusions through an intellectual process, though a crooked one. It is a law of the human understanding, that a little evidence perpetually presented to the mind will produce as much conviction as a greater quantity presented rarely.

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There is still another class, who are called eccentric. whom I have had an opportunity of observing closely have been remarkable for a high opinion of themselves, quite disproportionate to their apparent powers or actual achievements, and for rashness of conduct never corrected by experience; some of them have had singularly calm and sweet dispositions, others have been of stormy tem

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