Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 5.djvu/90

80 Bellingham's case, an absence of knowledge of right and wrong generally, not in respect of the particular act, was deemed necessary to exempt the individual from punishment; the latter theory being entirely inconsistent with the former, and neither of them being consistently acted upon in subsequent trials. Most often a knowledge of right and wrongs without reference to the particular act, was plainly declared by the judge to be the simple and sufficient criterion of responsibility, and the jury was instructed accordingly; but this criterion was sometimes modified by the qualifications which judges introduced to meet their individual views, or to prevent the conviction of a person who was plainly insane and irresponsible. There was no settled principle, no actual uniformity of practice, no certainty of result.

In this uncertain way matters went on until a great sensation was made by the murder, in 1843, of Mr. Drummond by McNaughten, who shot him under the influence of a delusion that he was one of a number of persons whom he believed to be following him everywhere, blasting his character and making his life wretched. McNaughten had transacted business a short time before the deed, and had shown no obvious symptoms of insanity in his ordinary discourse and conduct. He was, however, acquitted on the ground of insanity. Thereupon the House of Lords, participating in the public alarm and indignation which were occasioned by the acquittal, propounded to the judges certain questions with regard to the law on the subject of insanity when it was alleged as a defense in criminal actions; the object being to obtain from them an authoritative exposition of the law for the future guidance of courts. The answers of the judges to the questions thus put to them constitute the law of England as it has been applied since to the defense of insanity in criminal trials.

It is not necessary to quote the questions and answers at length; the latter are somewhat confused, and the substance of them may be correctly given in fewer words. "To establish a defense on the ground of insanity, it must be clearly proved that at the time of committing the act the party accused was laboring under such a defect of reason from disease of the mind as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing, or, if he did know it, that he did not know he was doing what was wrong." It will not escape attention that the question of right and wrong in the abstract was here abandoned, being allowed quietly to go the way of the wild-beast form of the knowledge-test; the question of right and wrong was to be put in reference to the