as insane only those who
frothed at the mouth.

But the particular individual out of whose case in 1843 arose the rule
that is in 1908 applied to all defendants indiscriminately was the
victim of a clearly defined insane delusion, and the four questions
answered by the judges of England relate only to persons who are
"afflicted with insane delusions in respect to one or more particular
subjects or persons." Nothing is said about insane persons without
delusions, or about persons with general delusions, and the judges limit
their answers even further by making them apply "to those persons who
labor under such partial delusion only and are not in other respects
insane"--a medical impossibility.

Modern authorities agree that a man cannot have insane delusions and not
be in other respects insane, for it is mental derangement which is the
cause of the delusion.

In the first place, therefore, a fundamental conception of the judges
in answering the questions was probably fallacious, and in the second,
although the test they offered was distinctly limited to persons
"afflicted with insane delusions," it has ever since been applied to all
insane persons irrespective of their symptoms.

Finally, whether the judges knew anything about insanity or not, and
whether in their answers they weighed their words very carefully or not,
the test as they laid it down is by no means clear from a medical or
even legal point of view.

Was the accused laboring under such a defect of reason as not to know
the nature and quality of the act he was doing, or not to know that it
was wrong? What did these judges mean by know?

What does the reader mean by know? What does the ordinary juryman mean
by it?

We are left in doubt as to whether the word should be given, as justice
Stephens contended it should be, a very broad and liberal interpretation
such as "able to judge calmly and reasonably of the moral or legal
character of a proposed action,"* or a limited and qualified one. There
are all grades and degrees of "knowledge," and it is more than probable
that there is a state of mind which I have heard an astute expert call
upon the witness stand "an insane knowledge," and equally obvious that
there may be "imperfect" nor "incomplete knowledge," where the victim
sees "through a glass darkly." Certainly it seems far from fair to
interpret the test of responsibility to cover a condition where the
accused may have had a hazy or dream-like real