of designedly destroying one's own life. To constitute
suicide, the person must be of years of discretion and of sound mind."

In a case submitted to the Supreme Court of the State of New York,
Chief-Justice Nelson settled the whole question. A life company
resisted payment of the amount specified in their policy, on the ground
that the assured had committed suicide by drowning himself in the Hudson
River. To this it was replied, that, when he so drowned himself, he was
of unsound mind, and wholly unconscious of the act.

Judge Nelson, after stating the question to be whether the act of
self-destruction by a man in a fit of insanity can be deemed a death by
his own hand within the meaning of the policy, decided that it could not
be so considered. That the terms "commit suicide," and "die by his own
hand," as used indiscriminately by different companies, express the same
idea, and are so understood by writers in this branch of law. That
self-destruction by a man bereft of reason can with no more propriety be
ascribed to the act of his own hand, than to the deadly instrument that
may have been used for the purpose. That the drowning was no more the
act of the assured, in the sense of the law, than if he had been
impelled by irresistible physical power; and that the company could be
no more exempt from payment, than if his death had been occasioned by
any uncontrollable means. That suicide involved the deliberate
termination of one's existence while in the full possession of the
mental faculties. That self-slaughter by an insane man or a lunatic was
not suicide within the meaning of the law.

This opinion of Judge Nelson was subsequently affirmed by the Court of
Appeals.

The whole current of legal decisions, the suggestions thrown out by
learned judges, and the growing opinion that no sane man would be guilty
of self-slaughter, have induced several new companies to exclude this
proviso from their policies, while many older ones have revised their
policies and eliminated the obnoxious clause. It is not that any man
contemplates the commission of suicide; but every one feels that, if
there should be laid upon him that most fearful of all afflictions,
insanity, or if, when suffering from disease, he should, in the frenzy
of delirium, put an end to his existence, every principle of equity
demands that the faithful payments of years should not be lost to his
family.

Another important principle, which has involved much di