Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 09.pdf/479

 440

as "The Rules in McNaghtcn's Case" — established what has been called the " par ticular right and wrong theory," whereby the test of responsibility in mental disease is made to consist in the prisoner's knowledge, not of the difference between right and wrong in the abstract, but of the nature and moral quality of the particular crime with which he is charged. These rules have, since 1843, been riddled with medical and legal criticism, for Henry Maudsley, in his " Pathology of Mind," pointed out the absurdity of expecting lunatics to reason sanely from their delusions as premises. The late Sir James Stephen argued that the word "know" was wide

enough to excuse a man who was prevented by mental disease from taking a clear and comprehensive view of the consequences of his actions. Dr. Ira Ray, the great American medical jurist, collected innumerable cases where the will and not the intellectual faculty of insane persons is diseased. Judge Palmer of Alabama, in his memorable opinion in Parsons v. The State, restored the sound view indicated by Chief-Justice Kenyon in Hadfield's case. Other American judges have followed suit, and the English Bench itself is now ripe for the admission of loss of self-control arising from mental disease as exculpatory plea in criminal cases.