Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/784

 770 V. BENCH AND BAR of the mind, every one must be conscious that the faculties and functions of the mind are various and distinct, as are the powers and functions of our physical organization. The pathology of mental disease shows that while, on the one hand, all the faculties, moral and intellectual, may be involved in one common ruin, as in the case of the raving maniac, in other instances one or more only of these faculties may be disordered, leaving the rest undisturbed — that while the mind may be overpowered by delusions which utterly de- moralize it, there often are, on the other hand, delusions which, though the offspring of mental disease, and so far constituting insanity, yet leave the individual in all other respects rational and capable of transacting the ordinary affairs of life. On the law of libel — particularly with respect to the public press — Cockburn made a durable impression. In the leading case of Wason v. Walter, 4 Q. B. 73, he established the reservation in favor of privileged publications on its true foundation ; i. e. that the advantage of publicity to the com- munity at large outweighs any private injury that may be done. He also gave a strong impulse to the prevailing rule with respect to the limits of public criticism. His general principle was perfect freedom of discussion of public men, stopping short, however, of attacks on private character and reckless imputation of motives. When, therefore, a writer goes beyond the limits of fair criticism in making im- putations on private character, it is no defence that he be- lieved his statements to be true. " It is said that it is for 'the interests of society that the public conduct of men should be criticised without any other limits than that the writer should have an honest belief that what he writes is true. But it seems to me that the public have an equal interest in the maintenance of the public character of public men ; and public affairs could not be conducted by men of honor with a view to the welfare of the country if we were to sanction attacks upon them destructive of their honor and character, and made without any foundation. Where the public con- duct of a public man is open to animadversion, and the writer who is commenting upon it makes imputations upon his