he courts of
England. But you will notice, on careful consideration, gentlemen, that
while the principle is correct so far as it goes, it does not go far
enough to cover all cases of disputed responsibility. It will apply,
indeed, to all cases of total insanity, that is, when the delusion
existing in a lunatic's mind affects a variety of subjects; then his
premises are never reliable, and therefore he cannot be held accountable
for any of his acts.

But what if his insanity is partial only, if he is a monomaniac,
deranged on one point and sound in mind on all other matters? This was
not clearly understood till about the middle of the present century. In
order to secure uniform views and action on this important matter, the
British Parliament, in 1843, proposed various questions to the judges,
with a request that they would agree upon and report answers. This
investigation, and in fact the whole history of English legislation on
insanity, is briefly and yet clearly explained in an article of Rev.
Walter Hill, S.J., which appeared in the "American Catholic Quarterly
Review" for January, 1880. The first question was: What was the law
respecting the crime of one who is partially deluded but not insane in
other respects, when he commits what he knows to be a crime in order to
redress some wrong or obtain some public benefit? The answer was that
such a one, even though insane, is to be punished for the crime which he
knew he was committing.

To another of those questions the judges answered, that a person
partially insane was to be treated _as if the facts were just what he
imagined them to be_, as if his delusions were realities. His conduct
was to be judged by his own premises. This was accepted as law by
England, and is the law now both there and here, and, I suppose,
throughout the civilized world. Now, these are exactly the conclusions
about an insane man's responsibility which we had arrived at before,
reasoning from psychological and ethical first principles.

It is therefore for the consequences of an insane delusion only that a
man is not responsible before the inward court of conscience and the
outward courts of justice.

But the case is altogether different when the error is not the result of
insane delusion. When a man, sane or partially insane, has reasoned
himself into a false opinion or conviction, not the result of his
insanity, that the crime he is going to commit is justifiable, such
conviction being hi