so deranged that he was attended by a keeper from a lunatic asylum till within a few months of the date of the first will, and frequently manifested absurd delusions during the period including both wills, the above proof was not considered as sufficient for the purpose, reasoning upon the general principles of insanity. "It is clear," said the court," that persons essentially insane may be calm, may do acts, hold conversations, and even pass in general society as perfectly sane. It often requires close examination by persons skilled in the disorder to discover and ascertain whether or not the mental derangement is removed, and the mind again become perfectly sound. When there is calmness, when there is rationality on ordinary subjects, those who see the party usually conclude that his recovery is perfect. . . . Where there is not actual recovery, and a return to the management of himself and his concerns by the unfortunate individual, the proof of a lucid interval is extremely difficult."1 Whatever confidence the civil law may reposo in the evidence furnished by the character of the testamentary act touching the mental condition of the testator, it is distinctly enough inculcated in the above quotations that such evidence is not necessarily to prevail over that which is drawn from his daily walk and conversation. When, however, sanity is confessedly doubtful merely, then " the agent is to be inferred rational, from the character broadly taken of his act." 2 1 Groom and Thomas v. Thomas and Thomas, 2 Hagg. 433. In White v. Priver, 1 Phillimore, 81, however, a lucid interval was held to be established, on much less proof than was offered in the above case, though far more, certainly, than was admitted in Cartwright v. Cartwright. In a more recent case, Chambers v. The Queen's Proctor, 2 Curteis, 415, the court, as if following the principle laid down in Cartwright v. Cartwright, established the will of a man who was admitted to have entertained insane delusions during the three days immediately preceding its execution, and to have committed suicide the next day after. * Scruby and Finch v. Fordham, 1 Addams, 74. § 417. It has been admitted that, with certain reservations, the civil responsibilities of the insane are unimpaired during the lucid interval, because the mind is sufficiently restored to enable the individual to act with tolerable discretion in his civil relations. In respect to crime, however, the matter is altogether different, for reasons that will not be without their force, we trust, to those who have attentively considered the preceding remarks. These reasons are, that the crimes which are alleged to have been committed in a lucid interval are generally the result of the momentary excitement produced by sudden provocations; that these provocations put an end to the temporary cure, by immediately reproducing that pathological condition of the brain called irritation, or mperexcitation, and that this condition is the essential cause of mental derangement which absolves from all the legal consequences of crime. The conclusion is, therefore, that wo ought never perhaps to convict for a crime committed during the lucid interval, because there is every probability that the individual was under the influence of that cerebral irritation which makes a man insane. The difference between a person in the lucid interval and one who has never been insane, on which we particularly insist, is that, while in the latter provocations stimulate the passions to the highest degree of which they are capable in a state of health, though still more or less under his control, they produce in the former a pathological change which deprives him of everything like moral liberty. It is scarcely necessary to do more than barely state these views, since their correctness seems to have been universally recognized in practice, not a single case having occurred, so far as can be ascertained, where a person has been convicted of crime committed during a lucid interval. Burdened as the criminal law is with false principles on the subject of insanity, the time has gono by when juries will return a verdict of guilty against one who is admitted to have been insane, shortly before aud after the criminal act with which he is charged.1 § 418. We should be careful not to confound the period intervening between the perfect cure of one attack of insanity, and the occurrence of another attack, with a lucid interval. The renewal of the disease does not prove that it never has been cured, for in this respect insanity follows the same pathological laws as gout, rheumatism, colic, or any other disease. True, persons who have experienced repeated attacks of insanity generally labor under a certain irritability of the nervous system, which should lead us to be cautious in forming opinions relative to their moral liberty under particular circumstances. Whether the absence of the disease arise from a lucid interval, or a complete cure, the occurrence of certain exciting causes equally exposes the patient to a renewed attack of the disease in all its original severity. Whenever, therefore, the criminal acts of one subject to repeated attacks of insanity are called in question, and it appears that the accused was under the influence of violent or harassing moral emotions, such as anger, grief, or sense of responsibility; or of certain physiological conditions, such as menstruation, lactation, or the repulsion of other diseases; or exposed to the noxious influence of certain physical agents, such as insolation, deprivation of sleep, or blows on the head, — we are justified in considering him as not having been morally free at the time when the act was committed. If, on the other hand, there appear to have been no causes of this kind in operation, and the usual signs of insanity were not present, and especially if the act obviously serves some interest of the accused, we can hardly avoid the conclusion that he is responsible for his criminal acts. 1 We have been so long accustomed to the severity that characterizes the spirit of the English criminal law, that we look with no little jealousy on any attempt to circumscribe the range of its operation. In Germany, however, where no such influence is felt, more humane and scientific views on the subject of responsibility during the lucid interval have found distinguished supporters. "The state of mind during the lucid interval is such," says Dr. Friedreich, " that a circumstance which would have passed unnoticed at any other time, here excites the individual to violent, illegal acts." "Who can positively decide whether the criminal act really happened during a lucid interval, or was the result of a paroxysm prematurely provoked by some internal or external cause of excitement (for during the lucid interval the susceptibility to excitement is greatly increased), and which paroxysm might not have occurred at all without such provocation ?" — Uebar Zurechnung tm lucido intervallo, Neues Archiv des Criminalrechts, xiv. 268. CHAPTER XVI. SIMULATED INSANITY. § 419. The supposed insurmountable difficulty of distinguishing between feigned and real insanity has conduced probably more than all other causes together to bind the legal profession to the most rigid construction and application of the common law relative to this disease, and is always put forward in objection to the more humane doctrines that have been inculcated in the present work. That some difficulty has been experienced, and given rise to much perplexity and mistake, cannot be denied; but it is to be considered, whether it has not arisen less from the obscurity of the subject than from the imperfect means that have been generally applied to its elucidation. The opinions of physicians, which are ordinarily taken in doubtful cases, have often been received with a deference that was warranted more by general professional reputation than by superior knowledge of this particular disease. The treatment of insanity is now so much confined to the heads of extensive establishments in which its subjects are congregated, that opportunities for studying it are comparatively limited in ordinary practice, so that a physician may be justly celebrated in the knowledge and treatment of other diseases, and at the same time be poorly qualified to decide upon questions relative to insanity, especially when every effort is made to perplex and mystify his mind. This truth cannot be disguised, and though physicians are frequently unwilling to believe it, and are disposed to act on the popular notion that all medical subjects are equally familiar to them, this is no reason why courts and juries should ever forget it. Nothing, indeed, requires a severer |