The plea of insanity, in criminal cases / [Forbes Winslow].

  • Winslow, Forbes, 1810-1874.
Date:
1843
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The plea of insanity, in criminal cases / [Forbes Winslow]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    The malady assumes so many forms, and exhibits itself in such Protean shapes, that it is out of our power to give anything bearing the semblauce of a correct or safe definition of the disorder—such a definition that could be referred to as a standard in doubtful cases of deranged mind. [If it be difficult to embrace within the bounds of one sentence any- thing like a true description of the symptoms of general mental aberration, a fortiori how abortive must be the attempt to lay down any rule by which we are to test in any particular case the presence or absence of moral responsibility. After a considera- tion of the cases which have been brought forward in this work, it must be evident, that the capability of “distinguishing between right and wrong,” is not an unerring test to which to appeal. A person may be perfectly competent to draw a correct dis- tinction between right and wrong, and yet labour under a form of insanity which ought unquestionably to protect him from legal or moral responsibility. I allude to cases of insanity where the patient is driven, by an irresistible impulse, to destroy, after struggling, for some time, against the morbid desire, being, at the same time, perfectly conscious that he is impelled to do what is wrong both in the sight of God and man. Were the legal test to be rigidly applied in this case, the unfortunate maniac would have no chance of escaping. To my conception the law draws a most absurd distinction between civil and criminal insanity. A person who exhibits the slightest aberration of mind, is considered to be in-