biting of the sufferer appears to be spasmodic, not
voluntary. It is very doubtful whether such excuse can be substantiated
in what is called moral insanity.

The courts of England and the leading authorities in the United States
have never departed from this correct rule, that a man is accountable,
to some extent at least, for whatever he does willingly and without the
influence of delusion.

Moral insanity thus understood, as a derangement of the passions
lessening a man's full mastery of himself, but not destroying it
altogether, assumes various forms. There are kleptomania, or an
abnormal impulse to steal; pyromania, an impulse to set things on fire;
dipsomania, or an abnormal fondness for intoxicants; nymphomania, or the
tyranny of lustful passions; homicidal mania, or a craving to commit
murder; etc. In all these the nature of the disease is the same, it
would appear. The imagination seizes the pleasure vividly, yet, it is
claimed, without delusion: and the passion, owing to organic disorder,
is abnormally excitable. The organic derangement is supposed to be in
the brain. For the human brain, a masterpiece of the Creator's wisdom,
is now generally believed to consist of various portions which are the
organs of the passions, of motive power and the phantasms, erroneously
called ideation. Hence it is easy to understand how it may happen that
one portion is diseased while the other parts are in a normal condition.
And on the other hand it thus appears very probable also that a brain
partially diseased is liable to be soon affected in the other parts as
well. Hence we may suspect that moral insanity is likely to bring on
delusional insanity, and _vice versa_. In fact, I find that a medical
expert of note, who had for many years taught that moral insanity was
quite a distinct disease and separate from mental insanity, has in his
old age changed his mind to some extent on this subject. "Of late
years," says Dr. Bauduy, of St. Louis, in his learned work on "Diseases
of the Nervous System," "I have believed, notwithstanding the doctrine
of Pritchard, that a careful study of moral insanity will enable us to
detect some evidence, although, it must be confessed, often very feeble,
of mental weakening. Even the classic cases of Pritchard," he adds, "who
first defined the so-called moral insanity, when carefully examined,
will confirm this statement" (p. 227). Usually, as the same Dr. Bauduy
explains, those who are morally in