The medical jurisprudence of insanity / J.M. Pagan.

  • Pagan, J. M. (John MacMichan), 1802-1868.
Date:
1843
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The medical jurisprudence of insanity / J.M. Pagan. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    distempered fancy. To measure every case of insanity in which that disease was set up as a defence, by such standards as these, would be a great error indeed. There are certainly cases of moral derangement, to use the term of Rush, wherein crimes are committed which are alto- gether inexplicable, except upon the supposition of un- soundness of mind. Even were an acknowledgment of a distinction between right and wrong to be considered as the proper criterion of soundness or unsoundness of mind, how are we to find out that he really knows the difference between them? We must form an opinion of the moral responsibility of persons accused of having committed crimes—not by ascertaining whether they acknowledge a distinction between right and wrong—not by measuring the case by any legal standard—but by examining the person himself, and endeavouring to form an opinion from all the facts we are able to collect, whether he was insane or not at the time the act was committed. In civil cases, the English law recognises two classes of incompetent persons: viz. idiots and lunatics. An idiot, according to Blackstone, or natural fool, is one that hath no understanding from his nativity, and therefore is pre- sumed by law as never likely to obtain any. And then he endeavours to define what degree of intelligence shall prevent a person from being considered an idiot: and he says, if he hath any glimmering of reason, so that he can tell his parents, his age, and the like common matters. This definition is far from being satisfactorj'. There are many poor creatures of weak intellect, who could not be considered as morally responsible for any act they might commit, and in whose cases the law might justly interfere, either to restrain their personal liberty, or to take charge of their property, and who are possessed of a greater share of intelligence than is presumed by Black-