Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 36.djvu/95

Rh and bodily symptoms which, our experience has taught us, correspond with complete paralysis of will.

A lunatic may unquestionably commit a crime under ordinary motives. It can not be contended that every mental oddity and isolated delusion is to put a man beyond the pale of the law, but it is to be remembered that a really isolated delusion is a rarity, and that most delusions are but local manifestations of a constitutional vice, involving weakening of will. Most lunatics are, it has been said, mad to their finger-tips; and what appear to be their sane acts are generally more or less tinctured with insanity.

I can not pause here even to sketch the several stages of mental dissolution, but I would suggest that there are practically three levels of these in connection with lunatic crime. They are—the ideational level, the impulsive level, and the automatic level. On the first, the ideational level, the criminal act is committed under the influence of an insane motive or a delusion or hallucination, with consciousness at the time and remembrance afterward of all that has taken place, but in consequence of a diminution of inhibitory or resisting power. On the second, it is committed under the stress of a sudden and irresistible impulse, which is often a reversion to a mere animal instinct, with vague or imperfect consciousness at the time, obscure remembrance afterward, and under a still more grave paresis of inhibitory power. On the third, it is committed under the influence of accidental or reflex suggestion, without consciousness at the time or remembrance afterward, and during the complete abrogation of inhibitory power. As illustrations, I may mention on the first level the case of a man who kills his friend with elaborate preparation to spare him suffering, because he has been told by the archangel Michael that the death of that friend is necessary to the extinction of Freemasonry, which is the curse of the human race, and who afterward describes the homicide' in detail, and with evident pride and satisfaction; on the second level, the case of a puerperal woman, who, seeing a glittering knife by her bedside, suddenly cuts her baby's throat, without afterward having any clear recollection of the event or being able to say why she did it, although the knowledge that she had done it fills her with grief and remorse; and on the third level, the case of an epileptic, who, while recovering from a fit, kills whoever happens to be nearest to him, while still unconscious, and who retains afterward no trace of recollection of the tragedy.

It seems to me that nothing has more retarded an approach to a just appreciation of the relations of responsibility and disease than the assent, tacit or explicit, generally given to the dogma that the existence of insanity is a question for men of common sense—a question which they are quite as capable of deciding as medical men or experts. The late Lord Shaftesbury, who, by his