Lecture Viii.

THE LEGAL ASPECTS OF INSANITY.

In our last lecture, gentlemen, we considered the nature and causes of delusional insanity. We saw that its essence lies in mistaking imaginations for realities with a firmness of conviction which no argument to the contrary can shake. The reasoning of the insane man may be logically faultless, we said, but he reasons from false premises supplied to him by the phantasms of a diseased imagination. The cause of the disease I showed to lie in an abnormal action of the brain, which is the storehouse of the phantasms or brain-pictures. And this abnormal action may itself proceed either from a local lesion of the brain, or from a sympathetic affection due to indisposition in other parts of the human body. I finished by examining the responsibility of an insane man for his actions, and arrived at this practical conclusion, that a victim of delusional insanity should not be held responsible for any acts which he insanely thinks right, but should be held responsible for all his other human acts.

I. This teaching of psychological and ethical science is to-day the received rule of action followed by the courts of justice in England and the United States. Sound philosophy and positive law are in perfect agreement on this subject. But it was not so a hundred years ago. It is wonderful to us now how strange and erroneous were the views of insanity formerly entertained by English jurists. For instance, when, in 1723, Arnold was tried for shooting at Lord Onslow, the instruction given to the court was that, for one to be exempt from punishment in such a case, "it must be a man that is totally deprived of his understanding and does not know what he is doing, no more than an infant, than a brute or a wild beast." On such a theory, very few lunatics indeed would be acquitted; few ever are so totally demented.

The first jurist that pointed out the true test of insanity was Lord Erskine, who, in 1800, when Hudfield was tried for shooting at the king, delivered a celebrated speech, in which he maintained that the real test of insanity was in delusion: if delusion existed the man was insane; else, he was not insane. The deluded man, he said, might reason with admirable logic from his false principles; he was nevertheless demented if he mistook his imaginations for realities, and did so irresistibly and persistently.

Erskine's test has been, from that time on, followed in the courts of England. But you will notice, on careful consideration, gentlemen, that while the principle is correct so far as it goes, it does not go far enough to cover all cases of disputed responsibility. It will apply, indeed, to all cases of total insanity, that is, when the delusion existing in a lunatic's mind affects a variety of subjects; then his premises are never reliable, and therefore he cannot be held accountable for any of his acts.

But what if his insanity is partial only, if he is a monomaniac, deranged on one point and sound in mind on all other matters? This was not clearly understood till about the middle of the present century. In order to secure uniform views and action on this important matter, the British Parliament, in 1843, proposed various questions to the judges, with a request that they would agree upon and report answers. This investigation, and in fact the whole history of English legislation on insanity, is briefly and yet clearly explained in an article of Rev. Walter Hill, S.J., which appeared in the "American Catholic Quarterly Review" for January, 1880. The first question was: What was the law respecting the crime of one who is partially deluded but not insane in other respects, when he commits what he knows to be a crime in order to redress some wrong or obtain some public benefit? The answer was that such a one, even though insane, is to be punished for the crime which he knew he was committing.

To another of those questions the judges answered, that a person partially insane was to be treated as if the facts were just what he imagined them to be, as if his delusions were realities. His conduct was to be judged by his own premises. This was accepted as law by England, and is the law now both there and here, and, I suppose, throughout the civilized world. Now, these are exactly the conclusions about an insane man's responsibility which we had arrived at before, reasoning from psychological and ethical first principles.

It is therefore for the consequences of an insane delusion only that a man is not responsible before the inward court of conscience and the outward courts of justice.

But the case is altogether different when the error is not the result of insane delusion. When a man, sane or partially insane, has reasoned himself into a false opinion or conviction, not the result of his insanity, that the crime he is going to commit is justifiable, such conviction being his own free act does not exempt him from punishment. This was the precise point on which turned the celebrated case of Guiteau, the murderer of President Garfield. His trial before the Supreme Court, District of Columbia, December, 1882, was one of the most interesting that have ever occurred in this country or elsewhere in connection with the plea of insanity. In his very able and exhaustive instructions to the jury on that occasion, Judge Cox states the rule that is to guide the jury in these words: "It has been argued with great force on the part of the defendant that there are a great many things in his conduct which could never be expected of a sane man, and which are only explainable on the theory of insanity. The very extravagance of his expectations in connection with this deed--that he would be protected by the men he was to benefit, would be applauded by the whole country when his motives were made known--has been dwelt upon as the strongest evidence of unsoundness. Whether this and other strange things in his career are really indicative of partial insanity, or can be accounted for by ignorance of men, exaggerated egotism, or perverted moral sense, might be a question of difficulty. And difficulties of this kind you might find very perplexing if you were compelled to determine the question of insanity generally, without any rule for your guidance.

"But the only safe rule for you is to direct your reflections to the one question which is the test of criminal responsibility, and which has been so often repeated to you, viz., whether, whatever may have been the prisoner's singularities and eccentricities, he possessed the mental capacity, at the time the act was committed, to know that it was wrong, or was deprived of that capacity by mental disease."

What furnished the clearest proof, gentlemen, that Guiteau's opinion concerning the expediency of killing the President resulted not from an insane delusion but from his own reasoning is contained in a paper which he had himself drawn up to justify the murder.

It is an address to the American people, published on June 16, in which he says: "I conceived the idea of removing the President four weeks ago; not a soul knew my purpose. I conceived the idea myself and kept it to myself. I read the newspapers carefully, for and against the Administration, and gradually the conviction dawned on me that the President's removal was a political necessity, because he proved a traitor to the men that made him, and thereby imperilled the life of the Republic." Again he says: "Ingratitude is the basest of crimes. That the President under the manipulation of the Secretary of State has been guilty of the basest ingratitude to the Stalwarts, admits of no denial. The express purpose of the President has been to crush Senator Grant and Senator Conkling, and thereby open the way for his renomination in 1884. In the President's madness he has wrecked the once grand old Republican Party, and for this he dies.--This is not murder. It is a political necessity. It will make my friend, Arthur, President, and save the Republic," etc.

When instructing the jury, Judge Cox told them clearly that, if they found, from all the testimony presented, that the culprit had been led to commit the murder by an insane delusion, they were to acquit him; but that reasoning one's self into an opinion or conviction was not acting upon an insane delusion. "When men reason," he said, "the law requires them to reason correctly, as far as their practical duties are concerned. When they have the capacity to distinguish between right and wrong, they are bound to do it. Opinions, properly so called, that is, beliefs resulting from reasoning, reflection, or examination of evidence, afford no protection against the penal consequences of crime." On this precise point of the question then the verdict was to depend.

But to understand this matter thoroughly there remains one more important point to notice in the instructions of Judge Cox. It relates to the question on whom rests the burden of proof regarding the existence of insanity in the culprit. Is the prosecution bound to prove that insanity did not influence the crime? Or is the defence to prove that it did? And, in case neither party can prove its point to a certainty, so that the jury remains in doubt as to the existence or the influence of insanity in the crime, is the doubt to weigh in favor of the culprit or against him? The judge, after a careful exposition of the conflicting views on this subject by different courts, and after weighing their respective claims, favors the opinion which holds that "the sanity of the accused is just as much a part of the case of the prosecution as the homicide itself, and just as much an element in the crime of murder, the only difference being that, as the law presumes every one to be sane, it is not necessary for the government to produce affirmative proof of the sanity; but that, if the jury have a reasonable doubt of the sanity, they are just as much bound to acquit as if they entertain a reasonable doubt of the commission of the homicide by the accused."

But the jury, enlightened by the lucid instructions of the court, were convinced that Guiteau had not been led to commit the murder by an insane delusion, but by his own reasoning and his own free will, and that, therefore, he was to bear the consequences of his own deliberate choice. Their verdict was "guilty," and the political crank was hanged.

II. We have now done with the study of mental or delusional insanity; it remains for us to speak of moral insanity. Of late years, the legal and medical professions have been much divided upon the question whether there exists a disease which may properly be called moral, emotional, or affective insanity, and which can justly be pleaded as an excuse from legal responsibility.

Dr. Pritchard, and later on, Dr. Maudsley, with very many followers, have maintained the existence of such a disease, and have claimed that, even when it is not accompanied by any delusion, it ought, nevertheless, to free a man from all punishment for crimes committed under its influence. Moral insanity consists, they say, in a perversion of the will, which by this disease is deprived of its liberty, so that the morally insane man does what he knows to be wrong, but cannot help doing it. And they claim that therefore he cannot be blamed nor punished for the crime he thus commits, although he commits it knowingly and willingly.

But I absolutely deny that such a state of insanity is possible. It is against those clear principles of psychology and ethics which are not only speculatively evident, but practically necessary to maintain the fabric of human society. I do not deny that there exists an emotional insanity of another kind, which I will explain further on, but not an insanity of the will, as they understand it, which would excuse a man from the consequences of his wilful acts. Upon this subject Dr. Chipley justly remarks: "If one is born with all the emotional endowments of our nature, but destitute of understanding, his irresponsibility is unquestionable. The same is true when the faculties of the understanding are perverted, impaired, or destroyed by disease.

"In every aspect in which man's accountability is viewed, we arrive at the same point that its sole basis is the existence and soundness of the intellectual powers. Those wonderful endowments which so eminently distinguish man from other animals, which enable him to discriminate between good and evil, right and wrong, and to choose the one and avoid the other; or in the language of Judge Robertson, he is accountable because he has the light of reason 'to guide him in the pathway of duty, and a free and rational presiding will to enable him to keep that way in defiance of all passion and temptation.'

"If then accountability is a structure erected solely on the intellectual power, must it not remain unshaken so long as its foundation is sound and unbroken? Is it not illogical to set out with the fundamental proposition, that man is made responsible for his acts only because he is gifted with an understanding and then arrive at the conclusion that he may become irresponsible without the impairment or disease of any of its powers?" (Wharton and Stillé, "Mental Unsoundness," p. 170.)

Gentlemen, let me give you a specimen of the false reasoning used in support of their theory by those who believe in the insanity of the will. "It would be as rational," says one of their leading writers in this country, "to punish a schoolboy whose antics and grimaces, the result of chorea [St. Vitus' dance], are a source of laughter and distraction to his schoolmates, as to inflict punishment upon the insane criminal who, knowing the difference between right and wrong, has it not in his power to execute that which his judgment dictates. One is under the dominant influence of insanity of the muscles, the other is under the influence of insanity of the will. To punish one would be as cruel as to punish the other." This is indeed a very illogical argument. The reason why we do not blame the boy is because his will is not in it; he moves against his will. The reason why we blame the other is because his will is in it; he does what he wills to do.

The will being a spiritual power can no more be diseased than can the intellect. But as the imagination, an organic power, can be disorganized by an affection of the brain, and by delusion deceive the intellect, thus producing mental insanity, similarly I fully admit that a man's passions, which are also organic powers, common to us and to brute animals, can become disordered by bodily disease; and the passions, when excited, will strive to drag along the consent of the will, as we all experience. A man whose passions are abnormally influenced by bodily disease, so that he is constantly inclined to act very unreasonably, may well be called morally insane. Such a state of insanity is not a rare occurrence, and there is no objection to denominate it emotional, affective, or moral insanity.

But in such a disease the will remains free; if a man does what he knows to be wrong and criminal, he then sees reasons for not doing it; and in this lies the root of his liberty. For seeing himself drawn in one direction by one motive and in another by another motive, he is not determined in his choice but by the act of his free will. A merely organic faculty must be determined by the stronger attraction, as is the case with brutes; but a spiritual faculty, as our will is, acts freely in choosing between two opposing motives of action. This is the philosophical or psychological explanation: and I am well pleased to find that here again, as in the matter of mental insanity, the courts of England and the leading courts of the United States follow the sound teachings of philosophy.

The nearest advance I know of, that has been made towards the recognition of this moral insanity as a total bar to responsibility, was made in 1864 by the court of appeals in Kentucky, and again in 1869 under the same presiding Judge Robertson. But Chief Justice Williams rebukes this strange ruling in most emphatic language. He says: "In all the vague, uncertain, intangible, and undefined theories of the most impractical metaphysician in psychology or moral insanity, no court of last resort in England or America, so far as has been brought to our knowledge, ever before announced such a startling, irresponsible, and dangerous proposition of law, as that laid down in the inferior court. For, if this be law, then no longer is there any responsibility for homicide, unless it be perpetrated in calm, cool, considerate condition of mind.

"What is this proposition if compressed into a single sentence? that, if his intellect was unimpaired and he knew it was forbidden both by human and moral laws; yet if at the instant of the act his will was subordinated by any uncontrollable passion or emotion causing him to do the act, it was moral insanity, and they ought to find for the plaintiff?... If so, then the more violent the passion and desperate the deed, the more secure from punishment will be the perpetrator of homicide or other crimes.... The doctrine of moral insanity, ever dangerous as it is to the citizen's life, and pregnant as it is with evils to society, has but little or no application to this case. Too uncertain and intangible for the practical consideration of juries, and unsafe in the hands of even the most learned and astute jurist, it should never be resorted to for exemption from responsibility save on the most irrefragable evidence, developing unquestionable testimony of that morbid or diseased condition of the affections or passions, so as to control and overpower or subordinate the will before the act complained of" (ib., p. 172).

You will notice, gentlemen, that Chief Justice Williams does not deny the existence of every kind of moral insanity. As I explained before, not the will but the passions may really be diseased or insane, and they may prompt the lunatic to commit very unreasonable and even criminal acts. When the impulse of a passion is violent, so that a man is carried along by it before he has had time to reflect on the criminal nature of his act, or at least before he could do so calmly and deliberately, the courts readily recognize such passion as a partial excuse: murder thus committed in a moment of strong provocation becomes manslaughter, not murder in the proper sense of the word. It is not justifiable; but yet it is far less criminal and less severely punished than when committed in cold blood, or, as the law terms it, with malice prepense or aforethought. This practice of our courts is right and highly reasonable, because on such occasions the will of the culprit is partly overpowered, or deprived of freedom.

It is a matter of much discussion among jurists whether a passion can ever be so violent as to overpower the will absolutely, so as to deprive it of all freedom at the moment. If it can, then the culprit should be totally acquitted for doing what he could not help doing. In several States of the Union, such an invincible impulse has been recognized by the courts of justice, and men have been acquitted for acting on what was supposed to be an invincible impulse to commit crime; the courts considered this as an extreme form of moral insanity.

I have shown above that on sound principles of philosophy the will can never be compelled to do wrong; at most it could be said that, in the cases just referred to, the will was not in the act. Now this, I suppose, is the case in hydrophobia or rabies, in which terrible disease the biting of the sufferer appears to be spasmodic, not voluntary. It is very doubtful whether such excuse can be substantiated in what is called moral insanity.

The courts of England and the leading authorities in the United States have never departed from this correct rule, that a man is accountable, to some extent at least, for whatever he does willingly and without the influence of delusion.

Moral insanity thus understood, as a derangement of the passions lessening a man's full mastery of himself, but not destroying it altogether, assumes various forms. There are kleptomania, or an abnormal impulse to steal; pyromania, an impulse to set things on fire; dipsomania, or an abnormal fondness for intoxicants; nymphomania, or the tyranny of lustful passions; homicidal mania, or a craving to commit murder; etc. In all these the nature of the disease is the same, it would appear. The imagination seizes the pleasure vividly, yet, it is claimed, without delusion: and the passion, owing to organic disorder, is abnormally excitable. The organic derangement is supposed to be in the brain. For the human brain, a masterpiece of the Creator's wisdom, is now generally believed to consist of various portions which are the organs of the passions, of motive power and the phantasms, erroneously called ideation. Hence it is easy to understand how it may happen that one portion is diseased while the other parts are in a normal condition. And on the other hand it thus appears very probable also that a brain partially diseased is liable to be soon affected in the other parts as well. Hence we may suspect that moral insanity is likely to bring on delusional insanity, and vice versa. In fact, I find that a medical expert of note, who had for many years taught that moral insanity was quite a distinct disease and separate from mental insanity, has in his old age changed his mind to some extent on this subject. "Of late years," says Dr. Bauduy, of St. Louis, in his learned work on "Diseases of the Nervous System," "I have believed, notwithstanding the doctrine of Pritchard, that a careful study of moral insanity will enable us to detect some evidence, although, it must be confessed, often very feeble, of mental weakening. Even the classic cases of Pritchard," he adds, "who first defined the so-called moral insanity, when carefully examined, will confirm this statement" (p. 227). Usually, as the same Dr. Bauduy explains, those who are morally insane are at least on the high road to mental insanity (p. 228). Moral insanity is known to exist when there is a sudden change of character which can have no other source than bodily disease; as when a most honest man becomes of a sudden an habitual thief, a decent man openly profane, a miser becomes extravagantly liberal, an affectionate father a very tyrant to his children, without any traceable causes for such transformation. The disease is made more manifest if such a sudden change is preceded by certain physical conditions, such as epilepsy, hereditary taint, suicidal attempts, "the insane temperament," as it is called, and other influences which are to be taken into consideration.

If ever you be summoned, gentlemen, to testify or pronounce on a person's insane condition, let me give you one piece of advice which may spare you much unpleasantness: be unusually cautious of what you say. If you appear as an expert or a witness, and you make a mistake unfavorable to the patient, he will be your enemy for life; even he may at times recover damages for libel. If he is really crazy, he may be all the more dangerous. Do your duty, of course, as an honest man must always do; but do it very prudently.

Dr. Bauduy is very emphatic on the assertion that moral insanity is not moral depravity. He is perfectly right; yet we must not forget that moral depravity is often screened before the courts by the plea of insanity. When a man of bad antecedents commits a crime, and is known to have been sane just before and after the deed, he ought not to be excused on the plea that he may have been insane at the moment when he committed the act; there is no reason for such a plea. And with the victims of kleptomania, dipsomania, and other moral manias, it is well known that a sound whipping will often stop the nuisance. The rod for the juvenile offender, and the whipping-post for adults, would cure many a moral leper and be a strong protection for society at large, especially if applied before bad habits freely indulged have demoralized the person beyond the usual limits. All of us have our passions; they are an essential part of our nature and even an indispensable part. But they should be controlled by reason and will, whereas they are often indulged with guilty weakness. They are much strengthened by indulgence, especially in those predisposed to certain vices by hereditary transmission. No doubt some children have worse passions to contend against than others. It is still worse if, at the same time, their surroundings are unfavorable to virtue; and this is a constant source of increase to the criminal classes.

Wise statesmen will study the ways in which temptations to vice may be diminished; but it is mistaken mercy and dangerous to the community to spare the guilty when once they have committed criminal acts. If ever the principle were admitted in our courts of justice that the possible existence of mental insanity ought to protect a culprit from punishment, crime would soon increase tenfold both in the sane and in the insane. Both classes must be kept impressed with the conviction that the law rules supreme and will not tolerate the destruction of public safety. Your profession, gentlemen, in this matter as in many others, by its sound views on Jurisprudence and Ethics, is one of the strongest bulwarks of the common good.