Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume X.djvu/723

 LUNACY 717 ble of that criminal will which is the essence of the offence ? From the nature of the case the law has found it difficult to answer these questions ; and perhaps it has not always an- swered them well. The doctrine of Sir Matthew Hale has exerted a large influence on the course of English decisions. He was disposed to de- termine the criminal responsibility of a mind affected with insanity by its strength and capa- city ; and said : " Such a person as, while la- boring under melancholy distempers, hath yet ordinarily as great understanding as usually a child of 14 years old hath, is such a person as may be guilty of treason or felony." But such a rude test could not be permitted when juster views of mental disease had come to prevail among scientific men ; and accordingly we find the nicety of the test a little advanced when the inquiry became whether the accused had so far lost the use of his understanding as not to know right from wrong. With the single qualification that this test should be applied to the particular act committed, this criterion has been long in use, with only slight and imma- terial variations, in the English criminal law. It was laid down in Bellingham's case, by Sir James Mansfield, in 1812. In that case the court went to what is now considered an ex- treme length, and instructed the jury that if a person affected by that species of insanity in which the patient fancies the existence of in- jury and seeks an opportunity of gratifying his revenge by some hostile act, be yet capable in other respects of distinguishing right from wrong, this would be no excuse for any act of violence which he might commit under this species of derangement. So Baron Eolfe, in the case of the queen against Stokes in 1848 (and he was quoted and followed by Baron rarke in Barton's case in the same year), said the subject had been lately carefully considered by the judges, and the law was now clear; every man is responsible for his acts by the law of his country if he can discern right from wrong. In the trial of Pate (1850) for an assault upon the queen, in which an uncon- trollable impulse was urged in defence, Baron Alderson said in summing up : " It is not be- cause a man is insane that he is unpunishable ; and I must say that upon this point there ex- ists a very grievous delusion in the minds of medical men. The only species of insanity which excuses a man for his acts is that spe- cies of delusion which induced to, and drove him to the commission of the act alleged against him. The jury ought to have clear proof of a formed disease of the mind ; a disease existing before the act was done, and which made the accused incapable of knowing at the time that it was a wrong act which he was about to com- mit. The law does not acknowledge the doc- trine of an uncontrollable impulse, if the person was aware that the act which he contemplated was wrong. The question you have to decide is : Was the accused at the time suffering from a disease of the mind which rendered him in- capable of judging whether the act he com- mitted was a right or a wrong act ? " In one class of cases the test of responsibility is there- fore to be, whether the prisoner knew that the act which he committed was wrong, and right and wrong in these cases are probably to be understood as Lord Brougham explained them in McNaughten's case, viz. : right must be un- derstood of right according to the law, and wrong of an act condemned and punishable by law. Another class of cases is that in which responsibility is modified by the existence of delusion. This form of insanity was first brought before and recognized by the courts in the celebrated case of Hatfield in 1800. In that case the prisoner was put upon his trial for firing at the king. Mr. Erskine defended him successfully, and procured the acquiescence of the court in his views of the irresponsibility of the accused. Hatfield labored under the delusion that it was his duty to sacrifice him- self for his fellow men, and he conceived that the best mode to draw upon himself the pun- ishment of death was to make an attempt upon the life of his sovereign. It was not denied that Hatfield knew right from wrong, and that the act which he contemplated was punishable by the law ; indeed, it was just that which he did know and directly contemplated; yet so powerful was his delusion, that the act which it prompted could not be said to proceed from the motion of his own free will. So clearly and forcibly did Mr. Erskine present the grounds of the defence, that the court, Lord Kenyon, advised the withdrawal of the prosecution, and the argument of the eminent counsel became a precedent and authority in the law. This same plea of delusion was successfully urged for Martin, who set fire to the minster of York, in obedience, as he said, to the command of Heaven. In 1843 the English law upon this matter was set forth in the case of McNaughten by the judges in the house of lords. The judges say that if there be only a partial delusion, and the party is not in other respects insane, he must be considered in the same situation as to responsibility as if the facts with respect to which the delusion exists were real. For ex- ample, if, under the influence of such a delu- sive idea, one supposes another to be in the act of attempting to take his life, and he kills that other, as he supposes in self-defence, then he would be exempt from punishment. But if the delusion were that the deceased had inflict- ed a serious injury upon his character and for- tune, and he therefore killed him in revenge, then the aggressor must be held guilty. It was also the opinion of the judges that, notwith- standing a party accused did an act which was in itself criminal under the influence of insane delusion, with a view of producing some pub- lic benefit, or of redressing some supposed wrong, yet he was responsible if he knew that he was acting contrary to the law of the land. In Massachusetts, in the well known case of Rogers, delusion was admitted to be a legal