eult." 1 Whatever confidence the civil law may repose in the evidence furnished by the character of the testamentary act touching the mental condition of the testator, it is distinctly enough inculcated in the above quotations, that such evidence is not necessarily to prevail over that which is drawn from his daily walk and conversation. When, however, sanity is confessedly doubtful merely, then "the agent is to be inferred rational, from the character broadly taken of his act." 1 § 339. It has been admitted, that, with certain reservations, the civil responsibilities of the insane are unimpaired during the lucid interval, because the mind is sufficiently restored to enable the individual to act with tolerable discretion in his civil relations. In respect to crime, however, the matter is altogether different, for reasons that will not be without their force, we trust, to those who have attentively considered the preceeding remarks. These reasons are, that the crimes which are alleged to have been committed in a lucid interval, are generally the result of the momentary excitement produced by sudden provocations; that these provocations put an end to the temporary cure, by immediately reproducing that pathological condition of the brain called irritation, and that this irritation is the essential cause of mental derangement which absolves from all the legal consequences of crime. The conclusion is, therefore, that we ought never perhaps to convict for a crime committed dur ing the lucid interval, because there is every probability, that the individual was under the influence of that cerebral irritation which makes a man insane. The difference between a person in the lucid interval and one who has never been insane, on which we particularly insist, is, that while in the 1 Groom and Thomas v. Thomas and Thomas, 2 Hagg. Eccl. Rep. 433: In White v. Driver, 1 Phillimore, 84, however, a lucid interval was held to be established, on much less proof than was offered in the above case, though far more certainly than was admitted in Cartwright v. Cartwright. 1 Scruby and Finch v. Fordham, 1 Addams, Ecc. R. 74. latter provocations stimulate the passion to the highest degree of which they are capable in a state of health, though still more or less under his control, they produce in the former a pathological change which deprives him of every thing like moral liberty. It is scarcely necessary to do more than barely state these views, since their correctness seems to have been universally recognized in practice, not a single case having occurred, so far as can be ascertained, where a person has been convicted of crime committed during a lucid interval. Burdened as the criminal law is with false principles on the subject of insanity, the time has gone by when juries will return a verdict of guilty against one who is admitted to have been insane, within a short period of time before the criminal act with which he is charged.1 § 340. We shall be careful not to confound the period intervening between the perfect cure of one attack of insanity and the occurrence of another attack, with a lucid interval. The renewal of the disease does not prove that it never has been cured, for in this respect, insanity follows the same pathological laws, as gout, rheumatism, colic, or any other disease. True, persons who have experienced repeated attacks of insanity, generally labor under a certain irritability of the nervous system, which should lead us to be cautious in forming opinions relative to their moral liberty under particular circumstances. Whether the absence of the disease arise 1 We have been so long accustomed to the severity that characterizes the spirit of the English criminal law, that we look with no little jealousy on any attempt to circumscribe the range of its operation. In Germany, however, where no such influence is felt, more humane and scientific views on the subject of responsibility during the lucid interval have found distinguished supporters. "The state of the mind during the lucid interval is such," says Dr. Friedreich, "that a circumstance which would have passed unnoticed at any other time, here excites the individual to violent, illegal acts." "Who can positively decide whether the criminal act really happened during a lucid interval, or was the result of a paroxysm prematurely provoked by some internal or external cause of excitement, (for during the lucid interval, the susceptibility to excitement is greatly increased,) and which paroxysm might not have occurred at all without such provocation."— Ueber Zurechnung im lucido intervallo, Neues Archiv des Criminalrechts, xiv. 268. from a lucid interval, or a complete cure, the occurrence of certain exciting causes equally exposes the patient to a renewed attack of the disease in all its original severity. Whenever, therefore, the criminal acts of one subject to repeated attacks of insanity, are called in question, and it appears that the accused was under the influence of violent or harassing moral emotions, such as anger, grief, or sense of responsibility; or of certain physiological conditions, such as menstruation, lactation, or the repulsion of other diseases; or exposed to the noxious influence of certain physical agents, such as insolation, deprivation of sleep, or blows on the head, we are justified in considering him as not having been morally free at the time when the act was committed. If, on the other hand, there appear to have been no causes of this kind in operation, and the usual signs of insanity were not present, and especially if the act obviously serves some interest of the accused, we can hardly avoid the conclusion, that he is responsible for his criminal acts. CHAPTER XV. SIMULATED INSANITY. § 341. THE Supposed insurmountable difficulty of distinguishing between feigned and real insanity has conduced, probably more than all other causes together, to bind the legal profession to the most rigid construction and application of the common law relative to this disease, and is always put forward in objection to the more humane doctrines that have been inculcated in the present work. That some difficulty has been experienced, and given rise to much perplexity and mistake, cannot be denied; but it is to be considered, whether it has not arisen, less from the obscurity of the subject, than from the imperfect means that have been generally applied to its elucidation. The opinions of physicians, which are ordinarily taken in doubtful cases, have been received with a deference that was warranted more by general professional reputation, than by superior knowledge of this particular disease. The treatment of insanity is now so much confined to the heads of extensive establishments in which its subjects are congregated, that opportunities for studying it are comparatively limited in ordinary practice, so that a physician may be justly celebrated in the knowledge and treatment of other diseases, and at the same time be poorly qualified to decide upon questions relative to insanity, especially when every effort is made to perplex and mystify his mind. This truth cannot be disguised, and though physicians are frequently unwilling to believe it, and are disposed to act on the popular notion that all medical subjects are equally familiar to them, this is no reason why courts and juries should ever forget it. Nothing, indeed, requires a severer exercise of a physician's knowledge and tact, than a case of simulated insanity; but the same might be said with quite as much truth, of other diseases that men have been led to feign, but which, nevertheless, are every day investigated and understood. § 342. The workings of an insane mind—such as attract the popular notice are apparently so confused and discordant, so wild and unnatural, as to have given rise to the notion as prevalent as it is unfounded, that insanity may be easily imitated. The method that is in madness, the constant and consistent reference to the predominant idea, which the practised observer detects amid the greatest irregularity of conduct and language, is one of those essential features in certain forms of the disease, which is generally overlooked, or at least very unsuccessfully imitated. Those who have been longest acquainted with the manners of the insane, and whose practical acquaintance with the disease furnishes the most satisfactory guaranty of the correctness of their opinions, assure us that insanity is not easily feigned, and consequently that no attempt at imposition can long escape the efforts of one properly qualified to expose it. Georget does not believe, "that a person who has not made the insane a subject of study, can simulate madness so as to deceive a physician well acquainted with the disease." Mr. Haslam declares, that, "to sustain the character of a paroxysm of active insanity, would require a continuity of exertion beyond the power of a sane person." Dr. Conolly affirms, "that he can hardly imagine a case which would be proof against an efficient system of observation." Another writer, while admitting that attempts to deceive are sometimes successful, on account of the imperfect knowledge of the operations of the mind in health and disease possessed by medical men in general, observes, however, that when we consider the "very peculiar complex phenomena which 1 Des Maladies Mentales, 60. 2 Medical Jurisprudence as it relates to Insanity, 322. |