Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 8.djvu/70

 INSCRIPTIONS

42

INSCRIPTIONS

subject of their delusion are unable to determine their wills and direct their actions accordingly. In an un- sound mind normal intellection is not always accom- panied by normal volition. We should expect to find this true from the \'ery nature of the case. For if a diseased brain can interfere with normal thinking it can undoubtedly interfere likewise with normal willing. And there is in the nature of the situation no reason why this deranged condition of the will may not manifest itself in connexion with normal, as well as with abnormal, intellectual action. To assume that the victim of an insane delusion has perfect control over those actions that are apparently not affected by the delusion — actions that he clearly perceives to be wrong, for example — is to assume that the opera- tions of intellect and will are as perfectly harmonized in an unsound as in a sound mind. As a matter of fact, the presumption would seem to lead the other way, that is, to the conclusion that the action of the will as well as that of the intellect will be abnormal.

Insanity experts do not, indeed, contend that all the consciously immoral acts of a partially insane person are unfree. They merely insist that these acts cannot be presumed to be free on the simple ground that the patient is aware of their immorality. In their view, the question of freedom and responsi- bility can be answered only through an examination of all the circumstances of the particular case. The laws of one American state, and of some foreign countries, are in substantial harmony with this doc- trine. According to the laws of New York, " No act done by a person in a state of insanity can be punished as an offence." The French law is slightly more specific: "There can be no crime nor offence if the accused was in a state of madness at the time of the act." More specific still is the law of Germany, yet it does not introduce knowledge or advertence as a criterion of responsibility: "An act is not punish- able when the person at the time of doing it was in a state of unconsciousness or disease of mind by which a free determination of the will was excluded". In passing it may be observed that the laws of all coun- tries assume that freedom of the will and moral re- sponsibility are realities, and declare that punishment is to be inflicted only when the will has acted freely.

The discussion in the last two paragraphs refers especially to delusive insanity, or to what is some- times called partial intellectual insanity. There is another variety which is even more important as regards the question of moral responsibility. Inas- much as it involves the will and the emotions rather than the intellect, it is called affective insanity, and it is subdivided into impulsive and moral. According to medical authorities, impulsive insanity may occur without delusions or any other apparent derangement of the intelligence. Those suffering from it are some- times driven irresistibly to commit actions which they know to be \VTong, actions which are contrary to their character, dispositions, and desires. Many suicides and homicides have in consequence of such vmcon- trollalile impulses been committed by persons wb_o were apparently sane in all other respects. Obvi- ously, they were not morally responsible' for these crimes. Although this theory runs counter not only to English and American legal procedure, but also to the opinions of the average man, it seems to be estaln lished by the history of numerous carefully observed cases, and to provide an explanation for many sui- cides and murders that are otherwise inexplicable. Moreover, it is inherently probable. Since insanity is a disease of the brain which may affect any of the mental faculties, there seems to be no good reason to deny that it can affect the emotions and the will almost exclusively, leaving the intellectual proces.ses apparently unimpaired. The theory does, indeed, seem to liisagrce with the doctrine of our textbooks of moral philosoi)hy and theology, which maintains

that freedom of the will can be diminished or de- stroyed only through defective or confused action of the intellect. There is, however, no real opposition except on the assumption that the will and intellect in a diseased mind co-operate and harmonize as per- fectly as in a mind that is sane. In the latter the will has power to determine itself in accorflance with the ideas and motives presented by the intellect; in the former tliis power may sometimes be lacking. The inference from intellectual advertence to volitional freedom may, as noted above, be valid in the one case, and quite invalid in the other. This considera- tion is manifestly of great importance in determining whether a suicitle is worthy of Christian burial. If he is afflicteil with ideational or impulsive insanity, the mere fact that his intelligence seemed to be normal, and all his acts deliberate, at the time of liis self- destruction, is not always conclusive proof of volitional freedom and moral guilt. In what is called moral insanity there is sometimes the same lack of self- control as in impulsive insanity, together with a per- version of the feelings, passions, and moral notions. It constitutes, therefore, an additional obstacle to freedom in so far as it interferes with normal intel- lectual action through abnormally strong passions and false ideas of right and wrong. Obvaously, how- ever, the mere fact that the affections, passions, or moral notions are perverted, for example, with regard to sexual matters, is not always evidence of true insanity, still less of that variety of insanity that directly hampers freedom of the will.

Adults who have always been insane can receive baptism, since, as in the case of infants, the Church's intention supplies what is lacking. If they have ever been sane, they can be baptized when in danger of death or if incurable, provided they had when sane a desire for the sacrament. The insane cannot be sponsors at baptism. They may receive confirma- tion. Conmiunion should not be given to those who have always been insane. Those who, before becom- ing insane, were pious and religious, should be given Communion when in danger of death. When there are lucid intervals. Communion may then be admin- istered. The same applies to extreme unction. In Holy orders, insanity is an irregularity under the head of defect. A candidate temporarily insane through some transient and accidental cause may, after recovery, be ordained. One deranged after ordination may exercise his orders, if he regains his sanity. The perpetually insane cannot marry. But "if the patient has lucid intervals, the marriage con- tracted during such an interval is valid, though it is not safe for him to marry on account of his inability to rear children." (St. Thomas, In IV Sent., dist. xxxiv, q. i, art. 4.)

CoNOLLY, Construction and Government of Lunatic Asylums (London, 1S47); Bucknill and Tdke, Psychological Medicine (London, 1879); Hammond, Treatise on Insanity (New York, 189.'!); Maudslet, Responsibility in Menial Disease (New York, 1899): Church and Peterson, Nervous and Mental Diseases (Philadelphia, 1901); Walsh, The Popes and Science (New Y'ork, 1908); Ebuuirol, Des maladies mentales (Paris, 18.38); Gaupp, Die Entxvickeluna dcr Psychiatrie im 19. Jahrhunderi (Berlin, 1900); BROCKBAns in Konversationslejrikon, s. v. Irren- anstalten. JOHN A. RyaN.

Inscriptions, E.viiLy Christi.^n. — Inscriptions of Christian origin form, as non-literary remains, a valu- able source of information on the development of Christian thought and life in the early Church. They may be dividid into three main classes: sepulchral inscriptions, epigrapliic records, and inscriptions con- cerning private life. The material on which they were written was the .-iame as that used for heathen inscrip- tions. For the first two and most important classes the substance commonly employed was stone of dif- ferent kinds, native or preferably imported. The use of metal was not so common. When the inscription is properly cut into the stone, it is called a Ululus or