Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 10.djvu/183

 GXIITEAU'S CASE. 171 �that he has a glass artn, or that he is pursued by enemies, or that he is inspired by God to do something. �In most cases, as I understand it, the fact believed is sometfaing affecting the senses. It may also concern the relations of the party with others. But generally the delusion centers around himself, his cares, sufferings, rights, and wrongs. It cernes and goes independ- ently of the exercise of will and reason, like the phantasms of dreams. It is, in fact, the waking dream of the insane, in which facts present themselves to the mind as real, just as objecta do to the distempered vision in delirium tremens. �The important thing is that an insane dehision is never the resuit of reasoning and reflection. It is not generated by them, and it can- not be dispelled by them. �A man may reason himself, and be reasoned by others, into absurd opinions, and may be persuaded into impracticable schemes and vicions resolutions, but he cannot be reasoned or persuaded into insan- ity or insane deiusions. �Whenever convictions are founded on evidence, on comparison of facts and opinions and arguments, they are not insane deiusions. �The insane delusion does not relate to mere sentiments or theories or abstract questions in law, politics, or religion. AU these are the sub- jects of opinions, which are beliefs founded on reasoning and reflec- tion. These opinions are often absurd in the extreme. Men believe in animal magnetism, spiritualism, and other like matters, to a degree ' that seems unreason itself, to most other people. And there is no absurdity in relation to religiousi political, and social questions that has not its sincere supporters. �These opinions resuit from naturally weak or ill-trained reasoning powers, hasty conclusions from insufficient data, ignorance of men and things, credulous dispositions, fraudulent imposture, and often from perverted moral sentiments. But still, they are opinions, founded iipon some kind of evidence, and liable to be changed by bet- ter external evidence or sounder reasoning. But they are not insane deiusions. �Let meillustrate further: �A man talks to you so strongly about his intercourse with departed spirits that you suspect insanity. You find, however, that he has witnessed singular manifestations, that his senses have been ad- dressed by sights and sounds, which he has investigated, reflected on, and been unable to account for, except as supernatural. You see, at ��� �