the madman lasts longer; but in every other respect, it is like the night-visions of the perfectly healthy intellect. He has the command of his limbs, also, but he walks in his sleep, and has as little perception of external things as the common somnambulist.

The application of this theory to the cases of moral idiocy and impulsive insanity is very easily made. Our position is, that mental disease is nothing more than the suspension of the ordinary power of the will over the other powers of the mind. The thoughts and actions then become entirely irrational, not because reason and judgment, properly speaking, cease to exist, but because they are both acts consequent upon attention, and, of course, cannot manifest themselves when the attention is no longer under control. These noble faculties, then, neither decay nor are subject to disease; they are simply suspended from the exercise of their functions by the impairment of another power which is a prerequisite to their use; and when the madman's sleep is ended, they revive and perform their accustomed office. In the same way, the loss of power in the will suspends the exercise of the moral faculty. In moral mania, the conscience" is not dead, but sleepeth." The desires and propensities then exist with no more than their usual force; but they are entirely free from restraint by the will. All the active principles of our nature then reign unchecked, and one is quite as likely to be governed by the more noble, as by the more debasing, among their number. In the instance already cited from Pinel, brutal and violent as were most of the actions of the young man, we learn that he readily gave way, at times, to motions of beneficence and compassion. He was literally the creature of his impulses, and blindly followed them, whether they pointed to good or evil. His condition, then, was very like that of other maniacs, who are commonly said to be subject to insane impulses; only, in his case, the will seemed to be absolutely bereft of its rightful authority over the passions, while in theirs it is powerless only at intervals, or under particular excitement. Strictly speaking, the impulse is not a mark of insanity, nor unusual in its character. The thought of killing may frequently enter the mind of a passionate but perfectly sane person; but it is instantly put aside, as an idle or wicked fancy, by the conscience. The will masters such vague but

horrible thoughts almost without the consciousness of effort. But as the gradual approach of disease weakens its command over the succession of ideas, the devilish thought intrudes more frequently, and will not " down at his bidding." An air-drawn dagger becomes visible to his "heat-oppressed brain," and he clutches the real weapon at last, in what is, for the moment, an uncontrollable frenzy.

But we return from this long digression to our proper subject, the jurisprudence of insanity. Our definition or theory of insanity, like that of Dr. Conolly, whatever may be thought of its general soundness, is merely speculative in this respect, and throws no light upon the difficult question, how far the responsibility of crime is taken away by the apparent disease of the intellect. Indeed, enough has been said to show, that it is impossible to frame a definition which shall be of use for this purpose. The only feature which the different forms of the nalady have in common is of so hidden and mysterious a character, that it cannot be detected, by observation from without, with that degree of assurance which is requisite for legal decisions. Meanwhile, the frequency with which the plea of insanity has been successfully put forward of late, in criminal cases, is quite remarkable, and tends to agitate the community with contradictory fears, either lest the guilty should in this way escape unpunished, and the peace of society be endangered, or lest the extreme vengeance of the laws should fall on the heads of those who are wholly unconscious of crime. The evil is aggravated by the view of some absurdities in the law regarding insanity, which had their origin at a time when our knowledge of the disease was far less complete than it is at present, and which are preserved through the lawyer's respect for precedents, and his belief in the necessary rigidity of legal maxims. One of the most flagrant of these is, the distinction made between civil and criminal cases, according to which, a man may be incapacitated for the management of his own concerns, but is still held answerable for acts affecting the peace of the community. He may be declared incapable of making a will, but if the imbecility of his mind betrays him into an act of violence, he is still deemed a proper subject for the gallows. It is not surprising, that juries are sometimes found to disregard instructions from the bench, when they are of this character.

In view of all the difficulties of the subject, we cannot but think, that respect for the laws, confidence in the legal tribunals, and the peace of society, will be best secured by the entire abolition of the punishment of death. Juries shrink with a just and natural horror from the idea of taking the life of a human being who has been hurried into crime by a terrible and inscrutable malady, brought upon him by the act of God. The indications of the disease may be so faint, that even the medical witnesses will hesitate to pronounce the man insane. But the reluctance to take life under any circumstances impels the jurors to avail themselves of the slightest doubt, and the accused is acquitted, though he has committed an unprovoked murder, attended with circumstances of such shocking barbarity, that the feelings of the whole community have been strongly excited against him, and the demand for condign punishment has been loud and incessant. The more terrible the nature of the crime, the more savage and motiveless, the more destitute of palliating circumstances, the greater is the probability that no one but a madman could have committed it. So reason the persons who are charged with the awful responsibility of deciding upon the fate of the accused, and to whom alone are directly made known the multitude of little facts, which obscurely intimate the derangement of his intellect. But the community at large, acquainted only with the broad and obvious features of the case, reason far differently. They murmur that the laws are not enforced, that guilt is triumphant, and the life of no man is secure. And yet, so wavering and inconsistent is this popular judgment, that, if the person has been convicted and sentenced, before the gibbet can be erected, a morbid sympathy for his case affects the minds of men, and they now clamor as loudly for his pardon, as they formerly did for his condemnation.

Acquittals on the ground of insanity have been frequent of late, both in England and this country; and much uneasiness is felt, lest the administration of the laws should fail to do justice to the accused, or to prevent the commission o crime. The recent cases of Oxford and McNaughton in London, which excited so much clamor, that the Lords required the twelve judges to declare what was the law respecting insanity, and thus to quiet the public mind, — and

those of Mercer at Philadelphia, and of Abner Rogers at Boston, have done much to develope this feeling. The cry now is, that there will be a reaction, and that juries will no longer listen to the vague plea so easily preferred, that the accused was not of sound mind, and therefore not amenable to punishment. Yet, in most cases, the subsequent history of the accused has shown that the suspicion of insanity was well founded. Abner Rogers, after his acquittal, was removed to Worcester hospital, where the indications of his malady became very apparent, and the close of his life left no doubt upon the subject. One day, when the inmates of the institution were collected together in the chapel, a fit of frenzy came upon him, and, before he could be prevented, he plunged through a window, which was fifteen feet from the ground, and was killed by the fall. The concurring testimony of all keepers of lunatic asylums is, that, in the cases of persons committed to their charge, who had been acquitted of crime, because believed to be insane, with hardly an exception, such decided symptoms of mania have appeared, that it was held unsafe to dismiss them from the institution. Dr. Woodward had doubts in one case, but expresses himself with perfect conviction respecting all the others. His evidence upon this head, and that of several others equally well qualified to form an opinion, are given in a note by Dr. Ray, to which we refer our readers.

Still, the belief is general, that insanity may be feigned, or eccentricity or waywardness may be mistaken for it, and thus crime will escape the retribution which is its due. The existence of this belief tends to impair confidence in the action of the legal tribunals, and is, therefore, in itself an evil of no slight magnitude. Take away the punishment of death, and the whole difficulty disappears. Then, if the plea of insanity be brought forward, the only question will be, whether the accused ought to be incarcerated for life in a prison or a lunatic asylum; and so far as the safety of the community is concerned, the determination of this question is a matter of no importance. The jury will come to the consideration of it with minds entirely free from bias or prejudice. In England, we believe, the insane homicide is never again permitted to go at large, and this certainly ought to be the rule in our own country. The admitted maxim, that the certainty of punishment is of much greater weight in de

terring from crime than its severity, adds much force to these considerations.

Mr. Sampson, an English writer of some authority upon criminal jurisprudence, even endeavours to prove, that the operation of the law, as it now stands, is to awaken and encourage the homicidal propensity. His arguments derive weight from the explanations we have endeavoured to give of the nature and tendency of the different forms of mental disease. The sight of an execution, or even the knowledge that one has taken place, tends to develope the destructive impulse in the minds of those who are prone to it, and to excite that obscure operation of sympathy which was alluded to in speaking of the cases of suicide from the monument. Thus the punishment, instead of having a beneficial effect upon the minds of those who labor under homicidal tendencies, actually stimulates them to the crime.

"He infers, from an attentive examination of the subject, that, at least in two out of three instances, suicide has been attempted previously to the perpetration of the murder, and that the state of mind which impels them to commit murder renders them desirous of self-destruction. Those who are found most frequently at executions are persons in whom the destructive propensity is in a state of morbid excitability. The fact mentioned by Mr. Ewart in the House of Commons, and referred to by Mr. Sampson, certainly strengthens his position. It appears, that, out of 167 persons who had been executed during a certain period, 164 were found to have been present at executions." Winslow on Insanity, p. 81.

We have considered but a small number of the topics which are treated at length in Dr. Ray's valuable and interesting work. His views in relation to all of them Jare entitled to much respect, from the abundant opportunities which he has enjoyed for observation, and from the candor, acuteness, and sound judgment, which he displays in discussing all the mooted points of his subject. The book abounds with curious information and food for thought, and may be heartily commended to the attention of the general student, as well as of those whose professional pursuits give them an immediate interest in the matters of which it