LIBRARY^) I CAL SAN , THE INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME Murderer (right-band figure) previous to his trial feigning insanity ; walking arm in arm with a demented patient in the asylum grounds. THE INSANITY OF PASSION & CRIME WITH 34 PHOTOGRAPHIC REPRODUCTIONS OF CELEBRATED CASES BY L. FORBES WINSLOW M.B., LL.D. CANTAB., D.C.L. OXON., ETC. LONDON JOHN OUSELEY, L TD - FLEET LANE, FARR1NGDON STREET, E.G. (All rights reserved) DEDICATION When in Paris a short time ago, my attention was directed to the statue of PINEL, the distinguished and kind physician, who died there in 1826. He was the first French physician to introduce the merciful treatment of the insane into his own country. The statue represents Pinel removing the manacles from the 'wrists of the inmates of Salpitriere, to which Hospital he ivas attached, and whose statue is erected in its vicinity. To my father, in England, belongs the honour of establishing the plea of insanity in criminal cases, and together with Dr. Conolly, in initiating the same kind and humane treatment as that inaugurated by their French colleague. They established a loving, persuasive, and gentle treatment of the insane, instead of bolts, bars, chains, and manacles, which previous to this had been used as the only remedial agents. The University of Oxford was not behind in recog- nising this by conferring the greatest distinction possible, the Hon. D.C.L. of that University, upon my father. The works of such men live after them. " Exegi monumentum are perennius," might be said of these great and good men. Gratitude and immortal honour rest on the memory of these physicians. Philanthropy was never directed to a more Christian and deserving cause, and grateful nations recognise this. To the memory of these revered psychologists this book is dedicated in affectionate remembrance by the Author. PREFACE SOME years ago I published a book entitled Mad Humanity. In the preface introducing this book, I men- tioned the fact of my intention at a later date of writing a book on The Insanity of Passion and Crime. I have now completed this work. It is the result of great practical experience, and deals with the matter, I trust, in a sufficiently clear and comprehensible manner to be under- stood by the lay reader for whom the book is intended. I have avoided, beyond merely casually alluding to certain medical matters, discussing any of these in extenso. The various cases given are good illustrations of the subject matter. They prove, as practical examples generally do, the correctness of views and conclusions arrived at as a consequence. Every form of passion described by me I consider as a " tragedy " : hence the adoption of the name previous to discussing the same. As to the photographs : the collection is a most unusual and an unique one. Many are taken in the actual viii PREFACE objective attitude of the individual patients, thus showing the exact descriptive nature of the maladies. To the courtesy and kindness of Dr. Bertillon, Directeur des Recherches Anthropome*triques, Prefecture de Police, Paris, and to Dr. Magnan, the illustrious head of St. Anne's Asylum, Paris, I am indebted for many of the photographs produced. For those relating to the motor bandits and their imitators I have to thank M. Jules He"derman of Le Matin, who had them specially struck off for me. The photographs are sad, as illustrating fallen humanity; they are instructive, as actually depicting the very types which it is my intention to describe, and I beg to represent them as such. They speak for themselves and are a warning, I hope, to many, and a terrible reflection to others, especially those illustrating alcoholic criminality. In conclusion, I bring this book to the notice of the sane world, to show the terrible effects of abnormality in its various phases. L. FORBES WINSLOW, M.B., LL.D. Cantab., D.C.L. Oxon. CONTENTS The human mind Plato on immortality Small voice of conscience Stigma of insanity Misguided notion of insanity Insanity of vice Erroneous views of insanity Disordered passions Three divisions of the passions Moral insanity Partial moral per- versions A perfectly healthy mind Reason in crime and in madness Susceptibility of minds varies Virtue Virtue subservient to will power Instinct Insanity often originates in physical disorder Antagonising passions in the treatment of insanity Pride Emulation Ambitious ideas a symptom of insanity Sudden joy sometimes causes insanity Ambition Stoicism Vanity The pride of woman Bohemian and artistic eccentricity a vanity The deformed and dwarfed are vain Various types of vain persons Vanity even on the scaffold Anger Unchecked anger and its consequences Physical signs of anger Diseases provoking anger Revenge Disease of brain from anger Revenge unsatisfied Hatred Envy Jealousy Madness and anger alike Hope A great solace in disease Consumption and hope Trusting in Providence Disappointed hope Erroneous ideas respecting the same Relations mistrusted Exalted hope frus- trated Confidence Cases illustrating this Effect of confidence during epidemics Faith Prayer and patience Joy The Bible on its influence Physical signs of joy Joy and hope intermingled Fear Cures effected by fear Dread forebodings Dread re- sponsible for contagion Apprehension Renders the body susceptible to disease Hair turned from black to white by sudden fright Potency of charms, their power Insanity cured by sudden fright Folie de doute a common complaint Want of con- ix CONTENTS PACES fidence and control Cases illustrative of it Case of morbid apprehension in a doctor Anxiety Gambling Monte Carlo types of gamblers In- tellectual covetousness Fiction Conceit Love . Influence of love Blighted love Suicides from love Power of beauty Passion for drink Melancholy Moroseness Apathy Emotions Nostalgia The Swiss a susceptible nation Suicide of one Jealousy Remorse Youthful precociousness . 3-64 TRAGEDY OF INCIPIENT INSANITY Premonitions of crime and insanity Leading indications of insanity Hallucinations of hearing Obeying imaginary voice leads to murder The ingress of criminal insanity Popular view as to insanity Ingress of criminal insanity Distinction between insanity and reason Line separating insanity from reason Religious insanity Its symptoms Growth of criminal insanity Division of special symptoms Bodily functions Important functional forewarnings Functions of the mind Neglect of recognition of important indications Eccentricity not madness Crime a diseased condition Physical indications of criminality Mental abnormality without physical signs Ingress of crime Love of mischief Distinc- tion between a criminal act and an insane one Apathy to danger identical in criminal or lunatic Important symptoms in criminal insanity Ignorance Want Corruption A bad symptom in children Cruelty to animals a forerunner of suicide Criminal insanity connected with perverseness in habits Passionate- ness Inherited Natural and abnormal passion Weakness Deficient will power leads to crime Power of imitation Imitators of Eugene Aram Craving for notoriety The force of imitation Mental epidemics Of superstition Of Mahommedanism Of fanaticism Of chastisement Of the dancing mania Of demonomania Of suicide Of voluntary mutilation Misdirected strength Fanaticism Coolness of murderers Argument used in justifica- tion of crime Special deficiency Compunctious horrors Murderers appeal to the Deity Criminal indecision Insane criminals as cowards Criminal propensities Moral consciousness Test of re- sponsibility Unwillingness of lunatic to admit his irresponsibility Moral perception Sane on every point but one General perception Indifference. of lunatics to crime Instinctive insanity Self-control in the insane Lunatics sometimes open to reason Lord Shaftesbury defines a lunatic .... 67-107 CONTENTS xi TRAGEDY OF IRRESPONSIBILITY PACKS Dean Swift describes his recovery from madness Life without reason The pathos of mental collapse Madness makes no discrimination Human instinct never fails Nebuchadnezzar driven to eat grass Our inference therefrom Correlation of the passions Passions like a machine soon put out of order Passions uncontrolled by reason Gratification of animal wants Of the passions The wealthy and the pauper sensualist Restraint of the passions Indulgence in passions The limit to Use and abuse of passions Reason beyond control Folly Reason contends with passion Evidence of insanity in some cases most masked Acts of insanity multiply Drug- taking a first symptom Struggle between passion and reason Insane excesses uncontrollable Morbid indulgence The superiority of reason Indulgence to excess in passion Young clergyman driven mad by drink Recovery therefrom Right and wrong Crucial tests of the same Judges fail to discrimin- ate Neglected consequences Graduality of criminal insanity Vindictiveness The barometer of morals Difference of thefts by poor and by rich The moral offender Passion in children Reason Self-pre- servation conspicuous in the animal world The instinct of reason Of the child Of the animal Effect of solitude on the mind Development of the will Effect of physical restraint Exercise of reason in early life Excessive self-indulgence Smoking Struggle between volition and reason Insanity of children a painful subject Pathos of old age Mind gradually decays Follies of old age Arrest of virility Body withers up Marriage of old dotage Old age more painful to the associates than to the individual himself Contentment in old age as second childhood approaches 111-158 TRAGEDY OF MENTAL OBSCURITY Latent insanity Confine between sanity and madness Concealment of delusions The grave result of this temporary derangement of brain Case of sudden insanity and its subsidence Case of sudden homi- cide in a woman Absence of all premonitory symp- toms The abnormal brain Brains of criminals after execution Negative results Human brain Its weight Comparison with that of animals Negro's want of intelligence shows itself in his brain Size of skull and large brain no criterion of intelligence xii CONTENTS PAGES Brain : its weight in insanity Cerebral localisation Dr. Brown-Sequard's views and conclusions on this Quantity versus quality of brain Abnormal judg- ment Masked insanity Deception practised on commissioner in lunacy by asylum patient Confes- sion of murder by a lunatic woman of her own free will Madwoman drowns her three children Non- admission of symptoms of insanity in person examined Case of delusions of persecution and suspicion Precocious school-boy breaks down mentally Woman kills her child without any premonitory symptoms Confesses Cruelty to children often an obscure mental symptom A woman kills three chil- dren No premonitory symptoms Graphically and coherently describes her murderous actions Solicitor charged with criminal offence Grandiose ideas bad symptom in insanity Temporary insanity in magistrate Misery and crime connected with the non - detection of incipient insanity Pinel and Salpe"triere Hospital, Paris Description of cases seen in an asylum ward Solidarity of the mind Physical manifestations Morbid perceptions Cases to illustrate the same Monomania and its leading forms Theomania Demonomania Pantophobia Hypochondriacal monomania Erotomania Dypsomania Pyromania Kleptomania Suicidal monomania Homicidal monomania Criminal re- sponsibility Softening of the brain more common than formerly Symptoms of brain-softening The love of life Napoleon and the dying French marshal 161-202 TRAGEDY OF CRIMINAL ABNORMALITY Statistics of crime and lunacy A mad world in three hundred years Statistics to show this Insanity undetected in prisons Prisoners convicted though insane Non-recognition of insanity in prisons Prisoners convicted more than once before real mental state is recognised Abnormal symptoms in prison Uncertainty of criminal law in America Murderers at large Effect of imprisonment on abnormal minds Influence of solitary confinement on the mind Incurable insanity produced by this Mistaken view of insanity The healthy mind : its essentials, mental and bodily Brain like the body requires nourishment Mental apathy the result of imprisonment Case to illustrate this Insanity varies in degree Line of demarcation between criminals and lunatics obscure Percentage CONTENTS xiii PAGES of prisoners whose mental state is doubtful Prison discipline may cause insanity Partial insanity in prisoners Restraint of freedom of whatever character depresses mind and body Obscure mental symptoms in prisoners Discrimination in treatment of prisoners Strange case of criminal insanity Cases occupy- ing a neutral line between reason and insanity Illustrations of the same Doubtful sanity in prisoners Broadmoor Criminal Asylum not for doubtful cases Advantages of an institution between a prison and asylum Discrepancies between laws for rich and poor Reasons for crime in the poor Inequality in sentences Ignominy in the higher classes of society Struggle between reason and excess Indulgence in latent passion a cause of crime Criminals antici- pate escape from detection Dislike to prosecute in many instances Inequality of sentences Classifica- tion of criminals Danger of raising the plea of insanity 205-243 TRAGEDY OF EARLY MENTAL COLLAPSE Forewarnings of insanity in children Statistics of insanity in children Insanity rare in children The age when it generally shows itself in children Premonitory symptoms Intermediate residential schools required Distinction between a naughty child and an abnormal one Means to prevent crime in children Cruelty Obstinacy Moroseness Solitude I rrita- bility and peevishness Obscenity Dishonesty Keeping the change Sadness Excitement Habits Morality Arson Nervous muscular twitchings Certain anomalies should prohibit school-life The danger of not recognising this Over-pressure in children Dizziness A precursor of epilepsy Grave consequences follow passion The recklessness of children Exaggeration in children Talented chil- dren Earliest age in which insanity has evinced itself in children Musical prodigies Cases of insanity combined with crime in children Power of heredity in children Premonitory symptoms of heredity in children Suicide in children Cases illustrating this Danger of the non -recognition of premonitions Drunken parents often responsible Malformation of the body often seen in insane children The preco- cious child Mistaken ideas concerning the same Certain diathesis responsible for disease Mental training of youthful abnormality Environment with children Teacher's duties Genius and madness Training of youths Elevation of youthful tendencies 247-275 XIV CONTENTS TRAGEDY OF WOMAN Woman's life a drama The abnormal woman Female brain Development of the same Increase of crime and insanity in women Women more liable to insanity than men Statistics of female insanity Chief varieties of madness in women The klepto- maniac woman Impulsive thefts Premeditated thefts Static melancholia in women Women with morbid religious ideas Criminal woman worse than criminal man Abnormal criminal woman Forma- tion of heads Women during the French Commune Revolution " Pe"troleuses" and their mad impulses Case of woman driven mad during the French Revolu- tion Proportion of insanity with regard to thesexes Drunkenness in woman Women in society as chief drinkers Maternal instinct responsible for women's crimes Infanticide and reasons for it False accusa- tions by women Hysteria in women associated with crime Total indifference to husband's wishes Sel- fishness in women Its results Neglect of home a symptom of insanity Puerperal cases in women Folie circulaire in women Percentage of recoveries in women The normal woman The position she should hold Man impedes her progress Man's mistaken notion of woman Woman's determination in life Learned professions open to women Material and spiritual relations of woman A perfect woman Description of the same The position woman holds in creation The ancients' notion of the two sexes Harsh voice in woman The effect on man Female opinion and its weight Woman rules man Rights of woman Celibacy The typical old maid Educa- tion of women The injustice of interfering with her Women competing with men 279-313 TRAGEDY OF HEREDITY Crime, drink, and insanity inseparable Peculiarities of heredity in transmitting diseases Children resemble parents Which child is most likely to be affected by heredity Which child is the strongest mentally Power of heredity in producing insanity Alarming heredity statistics of insanity Influence of heredity in London's lunatics Statistics of the same The most common mental inheritances When heredity evinces itself How heredity shows itself Infantile abnormalities Gross ignorance in parents in not recognising the same Ignorance of a judge in "deal- ing with a homicidal case Heredity traceable in many families Drink and heredity Children of drunkards CONTENTS xv either mad or drunkards themselves Burton's views on drunkenness Idiots the result of drunkenness Crime and heredity Inherited greatness of lunatics and criminals Effects of hereditary nature of crime and drink Heredity affects members of families in different ways Interchangeableness in diseases Correlation of morbific force in disease When hereditary disease wears itself out Predisposition very liable to be influenced by exciting causes The hereditary nature of suicide The law of hereditary transmission Sins of the fathers fall upon the children Insanity from heredity occurs at the same age in mother and child Cases of hereditary suicide Father generally responsible for a deformed or abnormal child Mental horror of this Imprudent marriages Certain family peculiarities and characteristics due to heredity Case of brilliant classical scholar who became mad His five children were all insane or dissolute The psychology of monarchs Inherited politics Mad kings innocuous Compared to mad politicians Heredity as conveyed by father and mother individually Records of such cases Results of heredity in imprudent marriages Peculiarities of monarchs due to heredity from intermarriages Same in secluded and stationary tribes London's inhabitants as they appeared to a foreigner Statistics of relationship between patients confined in asylums Further statistics bearing on the question Trans- mission of heredity Heredity the most important factor in producing disease Heredity must advance until civilisation improves 3 1 7-350 APPENDIX Statistics of 2457 cases of insanity distributed among the sexes and divided into decades, showing the period and sex in which each is most liable to occur. In this table insanity is divided into three great divisions, in which every variety is classified . . 351-352 THE TRAGEDY OF THE PASSIONS THE TRAGEDY OF THE PASSIONS The Human Mind. The mind is indeed a won- drous and awful thing. It is an enigma. Those who have deeply studied its phenomena and who have regarded the scope with which it conceives and accomplishes, its intimacy with the Deity or the Demon, must admit this. The beauty with which its God has once endowed it ; the depravity to which the wiles of Satan have reduced it ; the thrill of happiness or the agony of remorse with which conscience, the essence of the soul, is blessed or agitated, as piety or sin have swayed its actions ; and, above all, the final state to which it will be welcomed or doomed in its everlasting existence, is for ever uppermost in our thoughts. Since Plato discoursed on immortality, and deduced his chief argument, even for the exist- ence of a Deity, from the nature of the mind, the unfolding of its constitution and faculties has been discussed by philosophers of all ages. Some of the ancient writers affirmed the soul to be a subtle matter composed of one or more of the elements ; others believed in its immateri- ality. The passions, like perturbed spirits, 4 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME dragging reason from her path, the life of man becomes an " Intelligence fallen from its high estate." How frequently, alas! is the organic stimulus triumphant, although the still, small voice of conscience is for ever whispering in our ear, " Life is a battle, of which our goal is heaven" ! The Stigma of Insanity. Insanity is frequently so closely allied to crime that some imagine that sin and madness are one and the same. How often do we see, especially among the higher classes of society, a repugnance to let the world know that any of its members can in any way be regarded as being irresponsible agents ! Many a scion of a noble house prefers that a son and heir may be branded as a criminal rather than a lunatic, and hi many instances which have come under my personal observa- tion they have allowed imprisonment to take place rather than that a plea of insanity should be raised, even in cases when the evidence and history of the accused warranted this being done. Their eyes are doubtless opened when they find their relatives pronounced by the surgeon of the prison to be of unsound mind, and after a transfer to Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum has taken place and a subsequent diffi- culty to obtain a release after sanity has evinced itself, even then, in many cases, this fails to convince them of their mistaken" judgment ; whilst a second offence, after liberation, will not THE TRAGEDY OF THE PASSIONS 5 induce them to acknowledge that their progeny is an irresponsible individual. It is considered, therefore, by many that madness is far more repugnant and disgraceful than sin. They appar- ently forget that insanity is as much a disease as consumption. It is a visitation of God. Whereas sin, except when allied to insanity and therefore the effect of this, is a wilful commit- ment of an illegal act which not only brings disgrace on the perpetrator of the offence, but is a sad and lasting reflection on the family escutcheon. The Insanity of Vice. Some have supposed that insanity is an involuntary viciousness ; but it implies a very superficial notion of the subject that leads to such a supposition. In- sanity is a disease, and a disease, too, not only of the mind, but also of the body. As to insanity being an " involuntary viciousness," such a phrase is both a contradiction in terms and a solecism in morals. It is an intellectual absurdity. There is no doubt that an immoral life leads to insanity as one among the number of its many rueful deserts ; but it does so by leading to organic changes in the brain, the result of organic excesses. The nearest approach to involuntary viciousness is hysteria, which seems to be a pathological suspension of the will ; but hysteria is a peculiar disease, nor would one venture to affirm that hysteria and insanity are one and the same. The criminal, who violates the law, designs his breach of it for a particular 6 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME end, under the presumptive belief that he will be clever enough to elude the penalty due to his transgression ; such a man is not a lunatic, but a culprit. Disordered Passions. Besides the intellect which may become deranged, there are likewise the passions or affections which are liable to their own particular disorders and excesses. It is admitted that mania, dementia, and idiocy are disorders or excesses of the intelligence. Those of the passions may be included under three headings : 1. Pride, which includes emulation, ambition, anger, envy, hatred, and malice. 2. Desire, which comprises covet ousness, lust, theft, and parsimony. 3. Apathy, which embraces the negative, but not less dangerous, emotions of aversion, dislike, misanthropy, and solitariness. The criminal is one whose pride, desire, or apathy is neither less nor weaker, neither stronger nor more powerful, than that of other men ; only through his neglect of self-govern- ment, or from the uncontrollable stimulus of disease, the one or other of these three energetic motives of action run wild and loose, till they end in the perpetration of more crimes, errors, and failings which the history of mankind fully records. Without passion man is an emotionless statue ; for it is passion properly regulated and properly conceived that binds society together in one THE TRAGEDY OF THE PASSIONS 7 family ; whereas, it is passion in excess and unrestrained that actually is, or else leads to, madness. Moral insanity includes such instances as those just referred to, but the expression is vague and indefinite. This obscurity arises from the adoption of phrases of no precise meaning. If by moral insanity is intended merely an obliquity of the moral perception, as to the precise boundary between morality and immorality, there are very few people who can stand acquitted of some taint of it ; it is, in fact, only the self-delusion of a hardened conscience. But if the expression refers to the moral as opposed to physical causes of mental derangement, it may be doubted whether it is applicable to any case but that of monomania, as in all other forms of insanity moral and physical causes seem to combine. A partial perversion of the moral principle appears to me a solecism in ethics, yet in these cases the perversion is said to be restricted to some particular offence. All the degrees of morality would appear to be so intimately allied, so inseparably linked together, and mutually dependent, that it is difficult to conceive a per- versity that holds murder to be an act of duty, founded on moral principle, and yet condemns intemperance, dishonesty, or incendiarism as a violation of morality and religion. Yet such is frequently the case ; although, if the matter be 8 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME thoroughly sifted out, the same moral perversity will betray itself on every point of virtue, though less intensely than in the one which gives a name to the kind of madness present. In a healthy mind the consciousness of right and wrong is intuitive an innate idea given at the same time with the faculty of reason ; and therefore moral insanity is not congenital, but a disease acquired in after life. A perfectly healthy mind, with perfectly well-regulated passions, is a chimera such a paragon has never been known or heard of. The understanding is defective in one faculty or another, and the passions likewise are too strong or too weak in each individual or class of in- dividuals. In all, there is a mixture of good and evil ; no malefactor is so bad but that some virtues are discernible in the darkest moments of his career ; and, short of absolute fatuity, no madman is so mad but that some show of reason breaks forth in the midst of his wandering thoughts. Reason in madness is a proverb in the same way as virtue associated with crime is a fact. The susceptibility of different minds varies according to the intensity and vigour of the nerves, the general health, the habits of life, the environment, the race they spring from, the education they have received, and the pursuits in which they are engaged. One brain differs from another as widely as one climate varies from another. What is unfelt by one person is destruction to a second ; and the excitement THE TRAGEDY OF THE PASSIONS 9 which is but the stimulus of health to this set of nerves is to that the string of madness, a stroke of palsy, or a fit of apoplexy. Calami- ties or events irritate some, while they merely animate others ; and crime or innocence equally spring from the same catastrophes, according to the susceptibilities of the nerves in which they occur. It is then that insanity is evolved by events ; it has been already existent in its latent state, but it becomes active the moment it is exposed to its proper stimulant ; and when the moral perception is naturally weak and oblique, the disease is said to be moral insanity. The passions are thus the stepping-stones to insanity or crime the interval between them being so narrow and obscure that it is all but inappreciable. Virtue. During a violent gust of passion, exalted to its highest pitch, reason is abolished. It is a brief fury, Ira furor brevis est, and it is in these moments that some of the deadliest of crimes have been rashly committed, and the rest of a life has been embittered by the remorse arising from the horrible recollection of them. The burst of passion has at times struck the subject of it with the blight of permanent and incurable mania ; disease of the brain has been inflicted, and its victim has descended to the grave a raving maniac or an imbecile. Passion is the disorder of the soul, the dark side of human nature ; yet virtue, in its purest state, is itself a passion subject to the rules of right reason and io INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME amenable to the guidance of a well-ordered will. Virtue, by some, has been considered to be the happy medium between vice and nonentity ; but this is lowering the standard of perfection to a very degraded mediocrity ; for virtue is something far nobler than a mere negative medium ; it is a positive quality, as its title shows, and it is the superior part of the soul, that which overrules the lower animal propensities- suggests to the will what it is proper to do, in the best manner for the well-being of the in- dividual. It is evident that, when passion gains the mastery, virtue must relinquish her benign sway, and give place to more rebellious sentiments which work out nothing but iniquity, ruin, and woe. Instinct. Instincts are passions that point out to us our wants, and prompt us to the satisfaction of them. In their due proportion they are only motives of action. When some of them are in excess or in abuse, the instinct passes into an unnatural or preternatural state which is expressed according to the particular object it aims at. Our wants may therefore be worked up into passions, animal, social, and intellectual. Now, every sentiment must be, in multiform degrees, pleasurable or painful. The partition which separates the two opposite feelings is so delicate that pleasure will often become pain in a moment, as the smile of a tickled child will turn into a sob, of the tears will end in a smile, for all the passions or affec- THE TRAGEDY OF THE PASSIONS n tions are capable of disturbing the natural functions of the body as well as the healthy faculties of the mind, instantaneously, and some- times permanently. Thought conceived in the brain hurries or depresses the heart, and throws into disorder the ganglionic nerves of the digestive organs. Every emotion affects the heart's action, by which the circulation in the brain is influenced ; and this is the real essence of passion. So, by a converse reasoning, every organic or even functional change in the brain, the heart, or the other organs, influences the mind ; and this in a certain sense is the explanation of insanity beginning in physical disorder. The passions affect not only the large viscera and the vital organs, but they also extend to the very skin and surface of the skin itself ; as, for instance, the goose-skin of terror, where the hair stands on end through fright. We may thus deduce the principle of treating mania by antagonising passions, playing off the one against the other. It is a good principle in the education of children, but it requires great tact and discernment in its just application. The passions express themselves by gesture and attitude. Every artist knows this, and so does every actor on the stage, and every hypocrite in the world. Pride. The passion of pride is the bane of so many others, and of the natural sentiment of self- respect, which, when confined within its proper 12 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME limits, is the parent of self-control, magnanimity, fortitude, perseverance, and every kind of virtuous achievement. Without it, the man is nobody, and will in all probability end by doing something mean, ignoble, and dastardly. There is no strength of character without it ; while with it in excess everything becomes rash, precipitate, and unsuccessful. Emulation, a subdivision of pride, is a desire to excel by a noble effort ; ambition is a desire to be installed in the first place of honour. The first may be a virtue, but the second is a fault or a crime. The highest natures are both emulous and ambitious. The maniac travesties or distorts either the one or the other. Some forms of madness begin with ambitious ideas- boundless notions of wealth and dominion, immense self-esteem, and rashness of purpose. Some stages of disease are responsible for the feeling of excess of pride, as in the delirium of acute fevers. Some chronic diseases produce the same effect, as chronic irritation of the hemispherical ganglia. Some unexpected good news does the same, as the sudden acquisition of wealth, which most likely acts as a direct irritant on the brain or its surface. So also do some drugs, as alcohol, opium in certain doses, veronal, and tobacco in its first effects. In Italy there is a well-recognised disease of an eruptive character coupled with ambitious mania and ending in general paralysis. Ambition. At the shrine of ambition a man THE TRAGEDY OF THE PASSIONS 13 sacrifices not only the holier thoughts of his soul, that might have ensured his passport to the gates of heaven, but wrecks even his earthly happiness. Stoicism. A component part of pride is stoicism, that stern resolution of purpose, un- swayed by external circumstances, popular clamour, and private persuasion. In one sense, it is the characteristic of the hero and the saint ; but in the opposite sense, it is the sign of a madman or a fool. In a great and good cause stoicism is an exalted virtue ; but, as it is not always easy to discern what cause is really good and great, or the contrary, so we may regard it as often in the light of obstinacy as of firmness. Some diseases and habits of the body simulate stoicism ; such as the stupidity occasioned by long abstinence and hunger, the irritability of the brain being deadened by lack of nutrition. Hence arises one of those forms of insanity induced by defective nourishment of the brain pulp. Long and trying experience in the affairs of life teaches stoicism in its surest and safest form : the nothingness of this world and the greatness of the next. This stoicism is entirely removed from fanaticism, and is too temperate ever to terminate in insanity ; it suffers, hopes, and, above all, endures all things. But most stoicism which ends in madness is generally connected with religious insanity. Vanity. Vanity is a lighter form of pride. Pride esteems itself, but vanity seeks to obtain i 4 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME the esteem of others. It might be classed under the head of desire, but it is more allied to self-esteem than to sensuality. Like the other passions, it is a useful one in the social circle, for within the bounds of moderation it places the individual upon a good footing with those around him. When in excess it becomes an offensive and likewise a dangerous fault, by betraying the vain person into the trap of crafty swindlers, so well exemplified in the fable of the fox, the raven, and the cheese. Vanity, the pride of woman, is an anxiety to surpass others in beauty and personal attractions, in order to be the most admired. Eccentricity, as of the Bohemian and the artist, is but a slighter form of vanity. "I see your vanity," said Socrates to Diogenes, " in the holes of your coat, in your rags." How essential is it to check these sentiments in the bud, by speaking truth and avoiding flattery when dealing with children, when we know how perilous are these grand errors of the mind if encouraged ! Con- firmed pride, and vanity wounded or curbed by real superiority, may end in death. The pride of Cain murdered his brother ; the wounded pride of John Keats was a fatal shock to his own life. Would that the preacher could convince us all of the littleness of worldly thoughts, and turn them to futurity and heaven ; then pride and vanity would live but as shadows of the past, and we should exclaim, " Why all this toil for triumph of an hour ? ' THE TRAGEDY OF THE PASSIONS 15 Some diseases give rise to this levity of the mind. Deformed and diminutive people, especi- ally those who are dwarfed or crooked in the spine, are prone to vanity of their appearance, account for it as we please. On the other hand, it is as often connected with distinguished beauty of form and brilliancy of wit. But this excellence is not requisite for its manifestation, since cripples are vain, and they have nothing to boast of. It is likewise the moral product of the tuberculous diathesis. The sanguineous temperament is usually a vain one. People with red hair are mostly vain, and those bald on the forehead are also as a general rule vain. People who are bald very early in life are given to per- sonal vanity, and the vain person's forehead is usually a round one. Vanity is a despicable vice that implies ignorance or a defective educa- tion. The adept is never vain of his own calling. This base mania, spurious passion, half-witted excitement, or whatever term will best designate it, attained its height and perfection in a crime perpetrated by a man named Hocker, a teacher in a Sunday-school, who, in imitation of Eugene Aram, resolved to become a " hero " of some kind, and committed a murder solely, as it appeared, from this cause. He was most anxious about his dress and appearance before execution, as he wished to make an interesting appearance on the scaffold, and even begged that his heap of hair, in which he had always been conspicuous, might not be cut too short, 1 6 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME " as they would not know him when he came out." Anger. The proud man is always an angry one. As pride is self-esteem in a high degree, so everything that tends to lower the proud man and thwart his self-esteem immediately raises in his breast the feeling of wrath, resentment, indignation, and anger. But anger is a natural sentiment of self-preservation, by which we maintain what is rightfully our own, or protect what rightfully belongs to us against the aggres- sions of robbery, or the encroachments of design- ing knaves. Under proper management, anger is one of the highest virtues, inasmuch as it is but justice, and the principle of judgment awarded between man and man. Without it, the moral and political world would go to ruin. But as in its proper bearing it is the grandest of virtues, so in its unguarded display it leads to the deadliest of crimes hatred, revenge, and bloodshed. Unchecked anger leads to terrible physical signs, full of danger to the health, and sometimes destructive to the life of him who gives way to it. The veins in the forehead swell, the face flushes, the eye flashes, the muscles are convulsed, the teeth clenched, the liver gorged, and the head oppressed. Con- vulsions, apoplexy, mania, or death, may be the result. Some diseases provoke anger, as gout, con- centric hypertrophy of the heart/ dyspepsia, a diseased spine, cutaneous eruptions, congested THE TRAGEDY OF THE PASSIONS 17 liver or spleen, retention of urea in the blood, and also some kinds of food, such as port wine, too much red meat, hot condiments ; whilst steel, bark, tannin, given medicinally, have the same effect. Revenge. Revenge is the crisis of hatred. Hatred and revenge are the chief features of some forms of insanity. The furious maniac raves about everything and everybody, and is bent on nothing but destruction and bloodshed. It is a monomania, and is a form of impulsive insanity. There is no doubt that anger given way to without restraint leads to disease of the brain, most likely meningitis, together with some very serious disturbance of the chylopathic viscera. It is also certain that particular conditions of health, or states of disease, give rise, by an inverse process, to similar passionate emotions. Diseases going on within the cranium, and constantly irritating the contents of the sensorium, produce mental phenomena exactly analogous to those of hatred and revenge. These two deadly feelings are the fatal consummation of the dark passions the most satanic emotions of the human heart. The enraged monster glares on his victim, and satiates himself in beholding his agonies and death-throes. Revenge is impatient and unwearied in the pursuit of the doomed object of its search ; it rests neither day nor night until it has satisfied its thirst for blood. But the deadliest revenge is that which is passive and silent ; for it waits and waits till the fatal 2 1 8 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME opportunity presents itself, when it plunges the knife once, and once only, into the heart of its unresisting victim. This is madness. Hatred. The debasing passions of anger and revenge which have more especial reference to our social state, form a large and hideous family of evil sentiments ; yet all of them may be passive except one, to which, however, all the others too frequently lead. Of envy, hatred, jealousy, and anger, the climax is, alas ! most frequently deeply laid revenge inexorable, im- placable revenge. Hatred, envy, and jealousy, when they sit and brood over their ills, often prove merely depressive, and indeed may be termed own sisters of melancholy ; they are self- tormentors. Envy, especially, would lose one eye to ensure the loss of both to the object of its passion ; but, like others, it is often foiled by means of its own weapons. Anger at once excites the whole system ; it literally boils. It is a transient insanity ; it may be called the high road to madness ; and the popular saying, 1 The man's mad he is in a passion ! " is perfectly true. After a greater or less time, the fit of wrath passes off, and ends in an excess of reaction, as is shown by the profound apathy, the tears, sighing, distress, and even vomiting which ensue, so extreme has been the convulsion. In short, the natural history of anger is only that of mania. Every desire is accompanied with anxiety the anxiety to win, or the anxious dread of losing. THE TRAGEDY OF THE PASSIONS 19 Anxiety is a universal feeling, the first that disturbs the child's equanimity directly it begins to have wishes and hopes, and the consciousness that these hopes may never be fulfilled. Anxiety is then a paradoxical combination of hope and fear, the prepon- derance, from the nature of the mind, being in favour of hope. Hope. Well-regulated hope is a sentiment of perpetual happiness to its possessor ; but strong presumptive hope is a dangerous quality and leads to many errors of speech and behaviour. In excess it is a well-recognised mental disease. Phthisical patients are always hopeful, even to their last breath ; and so are those of a sanguine- ous temperament they are sanguine, a word that indicates too great a certainty of success. Hope when excessive is associated with anxiety. It is one of the holiest, the most celestial feelings, the evidence of an implicit trust in Providence. Hope, within a certain moderate limit, exerts a salutary influence on the mind and body, but from its intensity it is liable to become an excitant rather than a cordial, especially if long continued. So that it is in the regulation of the passions that a remedial influence is to be sought ; or, paradoxical though it appear, it is by in- ducing that passion, abstractedly the most pre- judicial, that we can expect to antagonise, neutralise, or displace one of a contrary nature already in possession of the mind ; just as we give an alkali to correct acidity. 20 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME The assurance of that state of mind which is termed repose, tranquillity, contentment a state that cannot exist with any of the debasing passions, such as pride, envy, hatred, malice, and low ambition is itself prophylactic and remedial. Burton affirmed that we cannot be cured till the mind is satisfied, and Plato, in his allusion to the treatment of Charmides by Socrates, writes, Nee totum corpus curabis sine animd. Of all moral as opposed to physical causes, the most prolific source of mania is disappointed hope. Disappointment is either expressed or implied. As an illustration, take a breach of promise action. The mind morbidly revolves round the promise and its violation, and dwells on the vexatious consequences and the perfidy that has led to them, mingling self-reproach for having placed an overweening confidence, and, for the time, labour and money which in that confidence and expectation have been expended. In the vain attempts to account for such treat- ment, the patient suspects that he is the victim of intrigue and manoeuvre ; he alleges he must have been slandered by enemies or been betrayed by friends, or supplanted by rivals ; yet he knows not when or where to fix the suspicion ; he is unconscious of an enemy, he has heard of no rival, and, in his perplexity, the distrust of friends seems the readiest solution. From such a state of feelings it is an easy transition to jealousy and hatred even of his nearest relations ; and THE TRAGEDY OF THE PASSIONS 21 because he distrusts them, he will not explain his feelings ; he regards their sympathy as hypo- critical, their counsel as invidious, and their unanimity as conspiracy. This idea being once imbedded in his mind, he broods over it in solitude till he finds satisfaction in no other train of thought, and is immovable in the conviction that he is right ; the very effort to dissuade fortifies him in resistance, for it appears a new attempt to deceive him. In a word, he labours under an incurable delusion of his own creating. On other topics he will converse coherently, perhaps quite rationally and well ; but advert, however slightly and carelessly, to his own posi- tion, and he will either control himself, or launch into angry invectives or furious anathema on man in general, and on the world in particular. The pleasure of hope is the song of the poet it is spread over enamelled meads, and its pathway stretches beneath the blue and lucid arch of its own congenial heaven. There can be no feeling so woeful as the sudden dashing down of exalted hope from its pinnacle, none more delightful than the accomplishment of one's fondest wishes. The venous trunks that had been loaded during the weight of suspense, the secretions that had been suspended, instantly feel their burden removed, and the mind re- gains its wonted elasticity along with the body on the high road to health. Confidence. Confidence is a most powerful agent. The immunity of physicians and nurses 22 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME from infection depends chiefly on their confidence. We all remember the story of the brave and intrepid governor who survived the plague, while his trembling soldiers sank beneath it, in the act of burying the dead at his command. A maniac was once cured by the shrill notes of a pipe that revived some pleasing reminiscences in his brain : it animated all his functions, and thus ensured his speedy recovery. Aided by the anodyne of tranquillity, the Vis medicatrix natura will exert herself and urge the assimilative and other processes to proceed more healthily. " To laugh and grow fat," is a proverb ; to ensure this joyous mood, how many are our precepts both moral and physical ! Amusement and moderate and agreeable occupations are acquired, soliciting the mind to forgo those perilous pleasures of sense and of sensibility to which luxury and sloth are so naturally prone, and thus to act on the subject of its thought, not with weariness, but with such a degree of energy as to afford food for immediate reflection, the memory of which will be a perpetual balm to the heart. During the rage of epidemics, we have often witnessed instances of the soothing and benign influence of tranquillity and confidence. A mild form of some primary disorder may prove fatal in an irritable system, while that of a very acute degree will run a favourable course where re- signation is the characteristic trait. In the cure of the heartache, " that distemper without a holiday," as Lord Bacon says, the mild pre- THE TRAGEDY OF THE PASSIONS 23 cepts of religion are suitable to the attentive physician's lips ; only he must be cautious not to offend the sensitive and irritable temper of a confiding lunatic. Faith. Prayer and patience are the pre- scriptions of every sect, and of every age in the history of faith. Meditation on the words of Christ, and the endeavour to put into practice the counsels of a holy life, may, under proper guidance, nip the canker in the bud. Or, if the malady be more advanced, the mild promises of Revelation may soothe to sleep, when nar- cotics have failed. The sinner's condition is never hopeless on this side of the grave ; con- trition and penance are open to everyone, and the gates of eternal bliss will not be closed until after the day of doom. Hope is here, again, the heavenly charm that lulls to rest the closing eye of death. Though confined to earth, fair hope sheds a last sweet ray of glory over the fading things of sense : " O death, where is thy sting ? grave, where is thy victory ? ' Joy. Joy is a feeling of more energetic happi- ness than hope. It is real and active, and centred in the present moment, while hope is quiet, prospective, and contemplative. The joy that springs from the blending of hope and memory together with love is an ecstasy little short of Elysium. The happy influence of joy is a commonplace apothegm, trite and true. It is writ in Proverbs and Ecclesiastes that " A merry heart is life to 24 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME the flesh " ; " Gladness prolongs his days " ; "A cheerful countenance maketh the heart glad." Joy is the minimum of that passion which in excess becomes rhapsody. Hence it is evident that joy, like other powerful remedies, must be administered cautiously. The Spartan mother fell lifeless at the unexpected return of her son. The felon on the scaffold dropped dead, as it were by an electric shock, on the sudden announce- ment of his pardon . Such were the effects, also, on Chilon, the Lacedaemonian, Sophocles, Diogenes, and Pope Leo X. Melancholy of the deepest description has followed the unexpected an- nouncement of acquired wealth. The physical effects of moderate joy are those of a gentle stimulus to the two great systems, the cardiac and the cerebral. The ideas assume a brilliancy and vivacity. The breathing is slightly in- creased, the bosom gently heaves, the heart beats vigorously, the animal heat is raised, perspiration ensues, and if the joy becomes intense, tears overflow, conjoined with feelings of extreme gratification. With this buoyancy of spirits there is a corresponding elasticity of the body ; and the muscles, being stimulated to increased action, display their animation in many whimsical and grotesque gesticulations. To " jump for joy " is a common expression of intense delight. If, however, this violent emo- tion be carried to excess, phrenetic fever might be lighted up, and prove very difficult to control, with a strong tendency to run into permanent mania. THE TRAGEDY OF THE PASSIONS 25 The salutary effect of joy is evinced in the freedom of circulation and the healthy perform- ance of the assimilating functions. The liver and the pancreas secrete more freely, the lacteals are more active, just the reverse of that from the depressing passions, which stop the secretions. In hypochondriasis and other neu- roses, sudden and even violent excitement will often be of great service. I would quote the case of a woman, who, from the protracted absence of her husband, had become maniacal, recovering the moment she saw he had returned safe and sound. Hope quickly sinks into despondency, and joy as quickly passes into gloom. Joy and hope united degenerate into desire, which, after gratification, relapses into apathy. Hope, joy, confidence, and tranquillity, are states of repose, which, like a calm at sea, never lasts long, but is ruined again by the business of life, its cares and provocations. The passions are continually alternating with one another, like the checks on a chess-board. They are seldom elemental or single, but combined, confused, and co-mingled in successive layers, groups, or masses. Fear. Fear has effected as many renowned cures as hope. On occasions, that every now and then present themselves, the propensity to self-destruction is deterred by the threatening exposure of the body stripped naked to the gaze of the populace. The dread of something indecorous being inflicted on the corpse is 26 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME sufficient to deter the living from killing themselves ! Fear is the dread of something worse than the present. There is the moral anxiety, which every one feels in the domestic relations in life ; there is the fear of losing, which the miser feels ; the fear of not getting, which the avaricious experience; and the fear of not being loved, which the affectionate feel. These passions are restless and greedy, for they are rarely satisfied. Some diseases give rise to fear : as too small a heart, diseases of the stomach and liver, innutrition, haemorrhage, the exhaustion of long watching, and the torpor of anxiety. Dread ; Forebodings. The combination of anxiety and forethought constitute fear or dread. Its most intense degrees, though not essentially prospective, are terror, dismay, and horror. They arise from the belief that something will occur to injure materially our present position. The system reduced by these depressing senti- ments is highly susceptible to malaria and other infectious agents. On this point, regarding cholera and plague, many interesting stories are on record. It is a well-established fact that persons may be exposed for a length of time to the influence of the most virulent contagion with impunity so long as the mind remains in a fearless, tranquil, and unanxious condition ; but if mental depres- sion ensues and we get into a low state of vitality, then the contagion seizes hold of the constitution THE TRAGEDY OF THE PASSIONS 27 and disease manifests itself. During an epidemic of the plague in Egypt a well-known authority wrote : " In no other complaint is this influence so marked. The man who is apprehensive of contagion is always the person to take the disease ; fear is the predisposing cause of plague." This statement was based on great experience of an epidemic which was very prevalent at the time both in Egypt and Turkey. The same remark applies to any complaint which may be rampant, such as influenza. It is especially applicable to cholera. If the mind is exposed to depressing causes and we are in dread, or apprehensive of becoming victims to the fashionable disease of the moment, then our liability or predisposition to that disease is immediately engendered. Some may perhaps ridicule our efforts in attempting by any mental measures to create a revulsion in the public mind, and thus destroy, if possible, all fear and apprehension. When Rome was threatened with a pestilence, the public authorities marched in solemn procession to the national temple, and means were adopted for appeasing the anger of the gods. The psychological effect of this superstitious proceeding was to allay, no doubt, a public apprehension, and so to excite hope and restore confidence ; and what was found applicable in those days remains the same now. During the first impulse of sudden fear or fright the pulse is bounding, but during pro- longed fear its force becomes diminished and 28 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME variable. The circulation is sluggish with all the concomitant results, whilst the skin becomes pallid and ashy, or dusky and shrunk ; the effort to recover from this state being attended with rigor the shivering of fright. The capillaries and exhalants may remain relaxed, and then there is that cold, clammy sweat so analogous to the colliquative oozing of the morient col- lapse. The fear of evil has sometimes induced the very evil that was feared ; as an example, rabies from the extreme dread of having been bitten by a mad dog. Under an intense degree of fear the will is often suspended, the motive power being para- lysed the will is lost for the moment ; tremors affect the limbs and senses, especially those of sight ; there is blindness, sometimes deafness, and inability to move ; and if this palsied state continue, and the heart halt much longer, apo- plexy may ensue and sudden death follow. The secretory vessels partake of this atony ; those of the arteries of the piliferous bulbs are evinced by the hair turning suddenly gray, of which there are well-known instances. A young Sardinian's hair, from being raven black, turned to snow-white in the space of a few minutes. He was suspended by a rope from the peak of a rock, and engaged in defend- ing himself from the attack of some eagles whom he had robbed of their young. In aiming a stroke at one of these ferocious birds' of prey, his knife slipped and nearly cut in two the rope THE TRAGEDY OF THE PASSIONS 29 that held him up. He hung by a thread of twine, and, almost dead with terror, he was at last safely rescued. His hair was perished and had turned as white as snow. This effect will sometimes be checked by the removal of the cause of fear, the hair gradually reassuming its natural colour. A recognition of fear causing sudden fright is well described in Byron's Prisoner of Chilian : " My hair is gray, but not with years ; Nor grew it white in a single night, As men's have done with sudden fear." To the effect of tremors may be attributed the potency of charms in the olden days. The rubbing of a wen with a dead man's hand, which was usually the hand of an executed criminal, was generally found most effective in such cases. The wearing of toads and lizards round the neck and drinking the blood of a dying gladiator were considered equally potent. The feeling of dread is mixed up with a preternatural confidence in the awful remedy it is a fusion of dread, confidence, fancy, and hope. As an unpropitious announcement will instantly derange the in- testinal and gastric functions, so will good news as speedily bring about a more healthy action of them. The pious fraud of the Prince of Orange at the siege of Breda, by which he not only cured the severe scurvy then raging within the walls, but also restored the heroism to his half-famished soldiers, was founded on the influence of confi- dence imparted by means of a sudden mental 30 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME impression. When terror is combined with the consciousness of instant danger, there is the courage of despair ; a terrific dilemma inspiring supernatural strength. But the effort will some- times be made at the cost of life ; a vessel bursts in the brain, or the brain becomes deranged and mania or death is the result. One of the most extraordinary effects of terror is in its cure of certain nervous affections such as neuralgia. Insanity is often cured by a sudden fright of fire alarm. Terror, history relates, restored the speech of Crcesus. It is likewise responsible for many sudden recoveries. Apprehension. Apprehension, a subdivision of fear, is responsible for one of the most obsti- nate and difficult forms of insanity that we have to deal with. It is called folie de doute. This may assume any degree of apprehension, either slight or severe. It is a complaint which is very much on the increase, especially of late years. It is associated, as a rule, with no appreciable organic brain mischief, but the disease has puzzled many of the most practised and com- petent students of psychology. It may be characterised as being a morbid apprehension. There is an uncertainty as to acts committed and duties performed. The conscience, ever eager to assert itself, will become morbid to such an extent, in some instances, as to produce a very marked type of melancholia. Folie de doute may be slight, or it may be excessive ; be this as it may, in each variety it THE TRAGEDY OF THE PASSIONS 31 is very obstinate in yielding to treatment and management. I have lately had a lady under my observation who, wherever she went, im- agined that poison was thrown upon her clothes, or upon those with whom she might come into actual contact. Another man entertained the apprehension that whatever he did was done imperfectly ; his mind was always dwelling on it to the exclusion of everything else. I remember a lady whom I had been summoned to see at Milan who entertained this doubt to such an extent that after visiting a church and giving the concierge his douceur, she returned to her hotel only to be suddenly seized with the apprehension at table d'hdte that she had not given him the proper amount, and as a conse- quence she got into a violent state of terror, which continued until she had put a fifty-centime stamp into an envelope and addressed it to the concierge of the church she had that day visited. Having done this, she gave a deep sigh, as if she had experienced instant relief, and then continued her dinner as if nothing had happened. Another phase of the malady is the belief that those so suffering are responsible for certain disasters which may have happened to others. They also believe very often that they have perpetrated crimes or misdeeds. These may actually lead to a belief in murder or mutilation of certain persons, or to events which are appearing in the public press with which they 32 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME associate themselves, or in the destruction of property either great or small, whichever their mind dwells upon. A fear of arson is a very common symptom of the disease. There is often a dread that they may have administered poison or some nauseous drug to their relations and friends. The imaginary destruction of property was apparent in the mind of the lady whose case I have just recorded in Milan. In her bedroom she found that the curtains of the window were torn. She at once believed that this was her wilful act, and insisted upon sending for the manager of the hotel to pay for the damage. In Paris she went into a magasin to purchase some gloves ; one pair was soiled, but this made no impression on her at the time. On her return to the hotel, and having thought the matter well over, nothing would pacify her until she had rushed off to the magasin and purchased this soiled pair of gloves, her agitation and excitement at once subsiding. Another case came under my observation, a lady who imagined that all letters delivered at the house by the postman were impregnated with poison, and as a consequence she would often decline to receive them. A distinguished member of the medical profession, who had been engaged for many years in an arduous and responsible professional life, became insane. He suddenly evinced the idea that his prescriptions were inaccurate, and, having written one, he would repeat the THE TRAGEDY OF THE PASSIONS 33 same over and over again, at the same time interrogating his patients. He became irritable, and ultimately broke down mentally. The first symptom, however, was his apprehension with regard to his prescriptions, and from being a man fond of society and company previous to this, he began to shun it to an extra- ordinary degree, proving to my mind that these were the incipient symptoms of a mental malady, whose apparent first indication was apprehension. I would define this mental condition as being a morbid state of apprehension, associated with a disbelief in one's own powers of control, and a dread that one is responsible for many acts of which there is no possible proof. This is associ- ated with the most abject terror and want of confidence in one's self. The symptoms in folie de doute are often very slight, but, if not checked by the suggestion of the physician, or by the auto-suggestion of the individual himself, often become so intense and so real to the patient that life becomes a burden ; and if the disease is not recognised and proper restraint and supervision exercised, suicide frequently becomes the sequel. Folie de doute generally occurs in women, but of late, from my own personal experience, I fear that the disease is exercising its baneful influence among men as well, to an increasing extent. It is more difficult to deal with among men than among women. At the present day I should say that insanity from 3 34 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME apprehension is one of the most common varieties of mental disease that we have to deal with, and also that it is one of the most difficult and obsti- nate in which to effect a complete cure. Anxiety. Anxiety is a prospective sorrow, and its subjects various. In that which may be termed moral anxiety, as that of a wife or a mother for the safety of her husband and her child, there is a sacredness which excites our deepest sympathy. Others have a more unholy spring : a heart tainted with pride or avarice, those besetting sins which so deform human nature and produce egotism of which there is no end for pride and avarice are never satisfied ; there is no real meaning, but a negative one. These passions are the very bane of existence. Yet how many, even of those who decry them, cherish the serpent in their bosom, trusting to honour or riches for sublunary happiness, forget- ting the monitory lines of Young ! " Why all this toil for triumphs of an hour ? What though we wade in wealth, or soar in fame ? Earth's highest station ends in ' Here he lies,' And ' Dust to dust ' concludes her noblest song." The feeling of anxiety is one of continued heartache it is the dread of something worse than the present. It is progressive in its degree, and therefore more poignant than real sorrow or grief, which is the pain of memory, and which so constantly, from the mere elasticity of the mind, gradually fades and disappears. For the anxious heart there is often no relief, THE TRAGEDY OF THE PASSIONS 35 save from the eloquent lips of sympathetic friendship, or the consolation of religion. If it be not relieved, low nervous fever will be the consequence, with remora of the circulation, inducing local congestions ; then, not only are the secretions diminished, but those which are formed are depraved and unhealthy. For so surely as the enlivening passions oxygenize the blood, so do the depressing emotions accumulate carbon. Through this poison a constant morbid and ineffective reaction is going on, which woe- fully aggravates the original affection. Thus is established a train of local maladies neuralgia, hypochondriasis, melancholy inducing that cor- roding action of the brain which, in the words of the son of Sirach, " consumeth marrow and bone." In the end, if the brain be unduly oppressed by its poisoned blood, tcedium vita must be the result, the climax of which may be suicide. During this progress, the system is in a state of universal malaise all is going wrong. Cir- culation, digestion, assimilation, and nutrition, the nurses of the vital principle, fail ; absorption of fat succeeds, and atrophy is the result. In the anxious mother, the secretion of the milk is checked or depraved, through which half- poisonous fluid are the numerous convulsive and gastric diseases of infancy induced. The influence of anxiety also constantly lights up those latent germs of constitutional disease which might otherwise never have been developed. 36 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME The miliary tubercle of phthisis is thus excited to action, and youth and beauty, till then in seemingly blooming health, are at once doomed to decay and perish. But the great source of anxiety and its train of ills is to be sought for in those ardent longings for worldly possessions which are the especial debasements of this age ; the satanic passion of pride, which coils like the serpent in almost unconscious folds around the human heart, being the essence of ambition and of avarice, as it is indeed of almost every feeling which disturbs and darkens, and often destroys, the life of man. When this passion is encouraged in youth, it grows with it, and becomes an integral part of existence the baneful spring of all our actions. It will require, when years have rolled on, an almost superhuman effort for its control for the metamorphosis or humbling of a soul thus enslaved. Nay, nothing short of the pure flame of religion will suffice ; a constant leaning on mercy and redemption, and a patient waiting for the fulfilment of the promise. The thought, as well as the smell or sight, of savoury viands, instantly induces a degree of salivation. The brooding over a local malady, and also imagination and anticipation, will often induce, as it will increase, a pain. Might it not thus induce action in a paralysed muscle ? Gambling. Gambling is a greedy and desper- ate passion, both a vice and a madness ; for THE TRAGEDY OF THE PASSIONS 37 madness leads to gambling, and gambling ends in mania ; and its end, too, is often a tragical one, or, if not tragical, is sure to be disastrous. It terminates in suicide or fatuity. It begins with hope and concludes with death, despair, or infamy. It is the most ungovernable of all the darker passions and the least useful of any, either to itself or others. It is closely allied to covet- ousness and hoarding it may lose* all that is possessed in a few brief and rash moments of play, but its intention is to get more than it has and to hold more than it wants. The covetousness of the gambler is an active, that of the miser a passive, monomania. It is a passion connected with particular temperaments and certain disorders. The sanguineous and hopeful are gamblers ; the bilious and lymphatic are misers. Neither the gambler nor the miser can be called sociable people, in the true sense of the word sociability ; for the miser cannot afford to have friends, and the gambler associates with none but gamblers like himself. They are both of them purely egotistical and selfish their object is their own interests and the pleasure of reckoning up their profits or counting on their hopes for gains. Both are tormented with constant anxiety, which proves the bane of every desire ; for they who desire the most are the most anxious. Constant anxiety wears upon the heart, corrodes the nerves, and en- genders insanity, phthisis, anaemia, or dyspeptic ailments. There is no end to it. It is pitiful, 38 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME indeed, that man should thus pervert his intellect and hug the scorpion to his breast. It is heartrending to know how vain will be our efforts to check the headlong course of one on whom the monomania of gaming, la manie du jeu, has taken so deep a hold to know that while the health of the body is sapped, the brain may soon become the source or seat of drivelling or raving mania, when it may be too late to avert the awful peril of the immortal spirit. All judgment and discretion are absent in con- firmed gamblers. They are often on the verge of lunacy, there is no possible doubt. This is palpable to any frequenter of the Riviera, especially of Monte Carlo. I have studied carefully the various phases of gamblers to be met with there. " Messieurs faites vos jeux " seems to exercise a magic suggestive spell which to many is difficult to resist. Long before the " Open Sesame " is heard, groups of individuals are seen hanging about the closed portals of the Casino eager to tempt fortune and perhaps risk their small capital upon the spinning of a roulette ball, or on the chances of a card at trente et quarante. The faces of most of those whom we meet depict in their very expression the mental anxiety under which they labour. The study of many of these is indeed interesting from a psychological standpoint. The class and condition of the regular Monte Carlo gamblers can be divided and subdivided into various sections. First we have the so-called millionaire THE TRAGEDY OF THE PASSIONS 39 on whom, perhaps, assisted by the vast capital at his command, fortune has smiled favourably, at least for a time. Not content with his wealth, he is ever ready to increase the same, apparently unconscious of the fact that a day must come when even that good luck which has up to the present been his, must sooner or later change. He is heedless of this, and never gives it a thought as he dives down into the depths of his pockets to fetch out the mille-franc notes to stake the maximum. We rarely meet many of this class at Monte Carlo at the same time. They are like stars in the firmament shine with lustre for a short time and then disappear altogether from our gaze, but only to be replaced by a similar luminary ; and just as every dog has its day, so does every millionaire, in the same way, at Monte Carlo. For the time being he regards himself as a hero ; both male and female, especially the latter, are his devoted followers. His deeds of wonder are flaunted far and wide in the public press all over the world. At last the day will come when the same million- aire will be seen staking his five-franc piece, his so-called millions having safely found their way into the exchequer of the Casino. Look at him now ; there he sits deserted by all his former faithful devotees, but the esprit of the gambler is so much in evidence with him that he appears just as anxious and pleased to win a five-franc piece as he was to win the maximum stake of 12,000 francs. This is one of the peculiar traits 40 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME of the born gambler, an indifference as to the amount of the stake so long as he may indulge in the passion of gambling. From the millionaire we come to the individual with a haggard, anxious expression on his countenance. He has come to Monte Carlo with all his savings, eager to add to his coffers. Let him but lose his capital, and he is a ruined man. Every stake he eagerly watches, and as one after the other of these is raked in by the croupiers, so does his countenance indicate the feeling which must be in existence within him. Then we have the titled lady, evidently also a confirmed gambler, who, eager that her presence should not be noticed, enters the room with head bent low, as if ashamed of her presence there. There are many of such to be seen every day at Monte Carlo. With such it is not a vital question whether they win or lose, especially as their maximum stake is generally not more than two five-franc pieces ; the passion for gambling is alone responsible for their daily attendance at the Casino. Then we come to a very common type of gambler, the old woman with early Victorian bonnet and dirty hands, who takes her place at the table as soon as the doors are open and rarely vacates it during the day. She will wait for a dozen coups before risking her five-franc piece. She is very keen and watches very intently the various players at the table where she is seated, especially the novices, so that she may appropriate other person's winnings THE TRAGEDY OF THE PASSIONS 41 who, rather than make a scene which this old woman is desirous of doing will submit to being quietly robbed of their money. This type of gambler belongs to the winning class, and rarely, if ever, leaves the Casino a loser, although her winnings are as a rule but small. Then we come to the ex-gamblers. I allude to those who, having lost everything, cannot keep away : they mentally play outside the Casino. Many of these are not allowed admission into the Rooms they are well known to the authorities though, in the days of their prosperity they were received with smiles and open arms. One might exclaim, " How are the mighty fallen ! " The type of " system " gambler is very com- mon ; gradually, but surely, the pile of money leaves the pockets of such a class. Win they may one day, but in all probability they will return the next and lose their all. It is an evidence of strong mental power to resist the infatuation to gamble. The hard expression, anxious face, and, in some instances, heedless, insane infatuation to risk one's all on the turn of the wheel, cannot be regarded but as evidence of a want of moral as well as of mental control. This is most apparent in many of the Monte Carlo habitues, especially among chronic and confirmed gamblers. The time must come when the everlasting excitement must exercise some deleterious effect upon the nervous system so as to render the subject more or less reckless and irresponsible for his actions. 42 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME Some, heedless of the past or of the future, will yield to the impulsive act of the moment and end their miserable lives, exclaiming with their last breath, " Le jeu est fait, rien ne va plus." Others, still possessing some mental power, leave the Casino with a determination never to enter its precincts again, and doubt- less, if they possessed the power, they would instruct the janitor to place Dante's famous words over its doors, " Despair of hope all ye who enter here." What I have said as regards the gambling saloons at Monte Carlo applies equally to any similar establishment. It is also applicable to other forms of gambling. Our asylums contain many victims to its infatuation, who, had it not been for this craze, would have been sane re- spectable members of society instead of the allies of a brute creation. Its power with many is irresistible. Let me urge those who are thus infatuated to fly from its temptations as they would from those of the devil himself. It is a passion of the deepest dye ; it has no considera- tion for its victims. Its end is either drink, crime, suicide, or insanity ; there are no half- measures in gambling. Over all gambling hells I would insert the following inscription : " Here are two gates the one opens to hope, the other to crime and death. It is by the first one enters, and by the second one departs." Intellectual Covetousness. Anxiety of study and learning is an intellectual covetousness, and THE TRAGEDY OF THE PASSIONS 43 is accompanied with the anxiety of vanity, envy, and jealousy united. The student is an intense egotist a pedant, who, like a beautiful girl upon her first introduction into society, cannot brook a rival or bear with a superior. Anxiety of this kind is not merely confined to the learned public man, who strives to take the lead before his compeers ; for it is the same with the recluse student, who, on the contrary, shuns publicity, shuts himself up like a grub in his shell, and conceals his store of literary wealth which he has accumulated, only to let it die with him. Even the possessor of ponderous learning, as profitable as this may be, is the prey to anxiety, lest he should hear of others knowing more than himself. Moreover, the completely and accurately educated mind is unavoidably hypercritical, and in this way torments itself with the con- sciousness of its own defects as much as with its discernment in detecting the defects of others. Study, in this degree of excess, is an all-absorbing pursuit, and at last becomes a consuming passion. From passion it degenerates into disease ; the brain burns with more than fever-heat ; then comes irritability that renders each error or discordance an agony of the over-refined taste, banishing sleep from the pillow as effectually as do the cares of those in trade or high political command. This want of sleep is the precursor of insanity, if not insanity itself. It is the price of genius. Repose might cure it, but not always ; 44 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME irritability ends in hallucinations that beckon on its victim to suicide Haydon, to wit. Fiction. Fiction, associated with imagination, if allowed to run riot in early life and to indulge itself in strains of unreal fancy, produces an anxiety out of all proportion to its cause; it is constant and corroding. In the visions of imagination too often arise ideas that are both frivolous, senseless, perchance sinful, but which, nevertheless, become the idols of our thoughts, the very food of our lives. The thoughts of children are in themselves a romance ; and with the light of reason scarcely dawning upon their opening senses, and with passions swaying with increasing force through their expanding hearts, it may be very difficult, under the best guidance, to choose the good and eschew the evil, so as to prevent the introduction of false motives and to establish good ones. The curb of imagination must be applied early, ere it has drunk in its excess of sunlight ; before it has become enslaved by its idol worship, it should be taught the beauty and utility of truth. If the imagination be fostered and forced in growth, the youthful sentimentalist begins to bear his part amid the stern realities of life in utter ignorance of their existence ; he is shocked and alarmed at his contact with them, as they rudely waken him from his dream and tell him that he must unlearn the romance of his sickly childhood. In this struggle the health is en- dangered, nay, the mind itself may yield. How THE TRAGEDY OF THE PASSIONS 45 difficult the contest none can tell but those who have endured and survived the struggle. Such are some of the positive and practical evils arising from novel-reading, as well as from sentimental education. Conceit. Men sacrifice their holiest thoughts at the shrine of ambition, and wreck their happi- ness and peace of mind by staking them on the applause of the world. They love the world and the things that are in the world ; but the world passes away, and with it their hopes and all they loved the best. But even should they succeed, success palls upon their senses, and the whisper of adulation can only urge them on to renewed struggles after the worthless bauble. Earthly grandeur and power at length attained, the proud and anxious possessor stalks through his painted halls, fumbles his jewels and crosses of honour, looks out on his broad lands and waving forests, and wonders why he cannot enjoy them according to their apparent splen- dour and magnitude. The truth is, the human heart is larger than the world, and the soul aspires after an unearthly mansion whose archi- tect and builder is God. We mistake the sub- stance for the shadow, and die for this world instead of living foi the next. In the madhouse we see the fragments of minds that have made shipwreck of their souls on the rocks and quick- sands of ambition and pride. The madman will tell you how each scheme of happiness has ended in disappointment, just as every form of 46 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME life terminates in death. In the wailing of his raving mood, he repeats the solemn burden : " It is useless it comes to nothing all is vanity and vexation of spirit." It substitutes a false for a true standard of excellence, producing an intense anxiety and restlessness in the vain endeavour to excel in a mode of life that has no existence except in fancy. Love. Love is a complex passion, its parts being the desire of esteem and the possession of the object esteemed. So there is a conflict between the heart and the intellect, the affections inciting to enjoyment, the mental restraining desire. The controlling power of reason con- stitutes the distinction between pure affection and unrestrained voluptuousness. That of the man is more sensual, jealous, and transient than the woman's, in whose breast it burns as affection, confidence, and fidelity. It begins with gratitude mingled with admiration, which quickly passes into passion. For the charm of beauty excites the animal instinct, which, if controlled by a well-ordered intellect, becomes the chivalry of love. Its physical effects are acceleration and irregularity of the pulse, blushing, deep sighing, and languor. It is the most unselfish of the passions, the bravest and the most uncompro- mising. It is the quintessence of poetry the life of the world the golden lining to the dark mantle of care the silken thread of bliss. But, as it is the rashest and most unscrupulous in rude natures, so, when carried to excess, it ends THE TRAGEDY OF THE PASSIONS 47 in tragedy, calamity, and woe. It is the old story, from Helen of Troy down to the most prosaic marriage of convenience in civilised life. The course of true love never did run smooth. In its fiercest mood the heart throbs, the face and neck flush, the whole body is heated and fevered, and for the moment after the sentiment amounts to mania. Half the maladies of womanhood are owing to its influence ; jealousy, disappoint- ment, and deferred hope, lay the system open to the operation of baneful influence. Some have died for love, some pine and waste away for it. The influence of true love is excellent, for it is unselfish, and tends to the imparting or diffus- ion of its own blessings. It is the highest and most beautiful sort of sympathy " That sweet fit that doth true beauty love, And chooses Virtue for his dearest dame." Like charity, too, it Is twice blessed, for it is a pure self-devotion to an object dearer than our- selves. No wonder that a passion, combining the intensest delight of sense with the highest attribute of mind, should be the favourite theme of poets and moralists of all ages. Even its physiology has been deeply studied : " Flush'd by the spirit of the genial year, Now from the virgin's cheek a fresher bloom Shoots less and less the live carnation round : Her lips blush deeper sweets, she breathes of youth, The shining moisture swells into her eyes, In brighter flow, her wishing bosom heaves With palpitations wild ; kind tumults seize Her veins, and all her yielding soul is love." 48 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME Of blighted love how manifold and sad are the results ! It is the worm in the bud that so often foils our best endeavours at cure, especially as regards etiology, chorea, hysteria, melancholy, and the other nervous maladies of highly civilised life, and which are far less frequent among the lowly born and the savage. In France, in the course of one year, out of ninety-four cases of violent death, the result of the passion of love, we find : Poisonings 23 Assassinations 39 Murders 24 Involuntary homicides ... 8 94 The power of beauty over the heart of man is proverbial. It has been the song of all ages, from the Bride of Abydos down to the present hour. Solomon, the wisest of men, fell beneath the fascinations of his numerous wives. It has degraded many a Sardanapalus into a slavish voluptuary many an Antony, who might have been the world's master, into a driveller and a sneak. But, although it has thus enervated the hero and the sage, it has on the other hand raised an idiot to manhood. The story of Cymon and Iphigenia is not a mere fable. It has, in fact, done more than this in the pro- duction and elevation of chivalry, whose knights broke their lances and bit the dust for the mere privilege of wearing a lady's favour on their helmet, without the remotest dream of passionate THE TRAGEDY OF THE PASSIONS 49 indulgence. Love is a flattering folly, rebuked by no one. But as love's denials prove so disastrous to the health of mind and body, the happier ful- filment has averted every threatening calamity. If from the protracted anxiety of a suppressed or thwarted passion a girl is pale, or sad, or suffering from any of those ailments peculiar to her sex, the consciousness of successful affection will promote a glow of healthy action and pro- duce a salutary change throughout all the functions. Incipient phthisis may be averted or delayed by the benign influence of love. The pride, dignity, wealth, and blood of the great and grand will ever raise a barrier of scruples against natural affection. Disparity of con- dition severs with heartless cruelty the disparity of souls. It is the way of the world. The usages of etiquette and the modes of ultra- refined society ravage the young breast with savage indifference. A woman's whole life is but a tale of affection, the happy gratification of which is her sole ambition. Her feelings are her world ; her love of ascendancy is her desire to be courted and sought by those she likes. She sends forth her sympathies at a venture; she embarks her whole life in the traffic of affection ; and, should they be shipwrecked, her case is hopeless, for she is a bankrupt at heart. It must be confessed, however, that early romance, and prescient curiosity, and association with vicious domestics, do woefully blight the 4 50 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME budding affections of girlhood, while the mother keeps aloof and erroneously withholds the com- munication of those natural secrets which none but the parent knows how to speak of. Passion for Drink. The passion for drink, like that of gambling, is all but incurable, and it is fraught with the worst of consequences ; among others, a constant anxiety at heart the heartache. It is an alternation of languor and delirium, of merriment and remorse. The drunk- ard's madness is a vulgarism. To the slaves of pleasure, the devotees of Bacchus and Venus, anxiety is ever an attendant demon ; except in those moments when intense excitement drowns the reason in voluptuousness. Those given to strong drink are not confined only to alcohol. The prohibition of wine by the prophet does not remove the stain of intoxication from his prose- lytes. Indulgence in the mechish of Stamboul, or the bouang or pust of Ispahan, reduces the voluptuous slave to a state as abject as that of the meanest drunkard in our own nation. The abuse of the grape is constantly followed by the abuse of physical love. Sine Baccho, friget Venus. That drunkenness is at the root of an immense quantity of crime, no doubt whatever can be entertained. One of its worst features, more- over, is the enslaved moral and physical con- dition it induces. " If you were an angel from heaven," said a drunkard, in answer to the prayers of his young wife that he would refrain THE TRAGEDY OF THE PASSIONS 51 for her sake " if you were an angel from heaven, I could not help it." I have no intention of going into any length- ened discussion on the question of drunken- ness it is an old and oft-told tale of mine. I simply allude to it among the principal passions connected directly or indirectly with insanity. Crime, insanity, and drink are inseparable. They are triplets of a most dangerous nature, and march hand in hand towards perdition ; where one is found the others are seen to be lurking about eager to get into partnership, together. More than twenty-five per cent, of all the lunacy in the world is due to alcohol, and more than two- thirds of all crime is due to the same cause ; whilst nearly every murder that is committed is the result of drunkenness directly or indirectly. It is responsible for the ever-increasing army of lunatics seen in the world, whilst, before many years are gone, it may be the means of converting a sane world into a mad one. Many good and humane men are of opinion that intoxication, instead of being a justification, should be viewed as an aggravation of offences committed whilst in this voluntarily induced condition of temporary mental aberration : Ebriaetas nihil aliud est quam volwntaria insania. By the Greek law, a double punishment was awarded for crimes committed during fits of intoxication. It was considered necessary not only to punish the crime, but also the drunken- ness that originated it. The Roman law took 52 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME a more lenient view of the subject. The plea of drunkenness was considered a valid one, except in the case of females ; these it subjected to capital punishment. The legal bearing of crimes committed during fits of intemperance is not mentioned in the French code, but it has been decided by the highest judicial authorities in France that drunkenness, being both voluntary and reprehensible, can never be advanced as a legal excuse for crime ; such is also the law in Austria, Germany, and England. Melancholy. Melancholy comprises the essen- tially depressing emotions, which are anguish, sorrow, grief, and passions that tend to soften the heart and improve it if pious resignation be their handiwork. But they as often harden the feelings as ameliorate them. Melancholy, chagrin, despair, and remorse are feelings that prove a canker-worm to the heart and head. They are retrospective passions, referring to something that has been. The corporeal effects of sorrow, grief, regret, and anguish, resemble those of fear remorse of the black blood, inducing lassitude, debility, despondency, and inaptitude to action. The emotions of the heart may cause its placid and attenuated walls even to yield, by inducing immaterial efforts. The constant expression of deep grief is, that the heart is breaking it seems ready to burst. To relieve this oppression, we have the. instinctive sighing and sobbing, dependent on the convulsion of the diaphragm. i. Insanity of abnormal faith ; prophetic delusions. 2. A female lunatic appealing to the heavens. 3. Typical case of static melancholia. 4. A mystic ; delusions of special destiny in the world. THE TRAGEDY OF THE PASSIONS 53 In the same manner as depressing passions cause these pathological sighs, so also do certain diseases give rise to the depressing passions. The blood, poisoned by malaria or vitiated ingesta, produces intense mental languor and debility. Dilatation of the right ventricle of the heart does the same ; so does softening of the brain and torpidity of the liver. Solitary confinement inflicts the same dreadful depression of spirits in the wretched prisoner within the solitude of his dungeon. Grief in its most intense sense is all-absorbing. The mind broods in silence over its woes, and so reluctant is it to admit an intruder, that the kind conversation of a friend is annoying nay, even the impressions conveyed to the senses by external objects are distressing ; and it accordingly seeks darkness as well as silence and seclusion, and in it may be lighted up a train of feelings as dis- tressing as they are obnoxious to remedy. The languor and apathy of melancholy ever indispose to that which might effect its cure. Exercise might restore a healthy circulation, remove dyspepsia, acidity, and gastrodynia ; whilst mingling in society might displace the spectres of the mind with happier and healthier thoughts. In sensitive girls this state will be one of hysterical melancholia its symptoms often simulating almost every painful affection, misleading the physician, and, unless he is very cautious, letting him fall into extreme errors of treatment. Those who have passed through severe trials 54 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME and reverses in the world are not always im- proved by them. Affliction hardens quite as often as it softens the heart. Perhaps, in general, hardening is the result of experience and trial in the world. The poor man's wrong and the proud man's contumely close up the avenues of tenderness, and end by rendering the sufferer callous to the misfortunes of others. The hours pass heavily, the heart has no joy, no change of scene yields relief, unless that awful change, a self-sought passage to the grave ! Melancholy grows by what it feeds on ; yet how often has the physician disregarded the principle of cheerful association and let judgment go by default. Society and sympathy might become the life itself of the sensitive heart, that without it would droop and decay. The savage may roam over his desert uninfluenced by its desola- tion ; he has become familiar with solitude it is his own. But the solitude of the civilised being is too often peopled with spectres, especially if love be debarred access to the sufferer, who soon feels that his place in the busy world is vacant, his life is a blank. This is not yet the darkest part of the picture ; for where religion steps in to mark a life misspent and what lives are not ? each reminiscence is a sting a demon haunts each vacant moment, each agitated dream. From a mind so circumstanced derange- ment cannot keep long aloof, the degrees and form of mania depending chiefly on the dis- position, temperament, age, and sex. If we THE TRAGEDY OF THE PASSIONS 55 would appreciate the mind properly, it is not enough to analyse the operations of the understanding, but those of the passions also which combine together under the same causes. Moroseness. Dislike, sullenness, taciturnity, and misanthropy are among those apathetic passions, or rather those which detach man from his fellow-creatures, and exile him to the soli- tude of his own thoughts and reflections. They are more often symptomatic of diseases of the brain and abdominal viscera than of the facul- ties of the mind, metaphysically speaking. For passive congestion of the liver induces morose- ness and malignity of a particularly disagreeable kind and tendency. It is called the " spleen," biliousness, or an acid temper. A dose of salts, or the medicinal blue pill, will indeed banish the dark humour, and restore animation and serenity with one administration. Disease of the kidneys gives rise to sullenness and indifference ; in fact, whenever apathy is manifest, it is often owing to organic changes going on in these organs or their appendices, of a low anaemic character. Abuse or disease of other important functions is another cause for sullenness and misanthropy, not infrequently ending in religious eccentricities, homicide, sui- cide, or pyromania. Apathy. The bodies and the minds of men are so differently constituted, that what satisfies one displeases another, whilst this man's hopes 56 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME are that man's fears, and this man's drink is that man's poison. While some persons feel so acutely that their lives are a torment to them, others seem indifferent to everything. They pass through the world rationally and confidently, but they care for no one, and no one who knows them ever supposes them susceptible of the least fine feeling. Occasionally this pure apathy is the consequence of their perception having been cheated, disappointed, worn out, wasted, or suppressed the effect of long trial and painful experience in the world. But far more often it is the result of congenital rigidity of nerves, that never respond to the sympathy of others, and in their barrenness never feel the touch of spring. More often still, it is the result of disease of the brain and symptomatic of in- curable mania. Not only is this want of feeling manifested towards others in the intercourse of daily affairs, but it is also extended to the maniac's own person. He does not heed the cold or the heat ; to time, circumstance, and place he is indifferent. He feels nothing ; his natural acuteness of sense is lost. He is indifferent to the cut from the sharp knife with which he coolly and deliberately lays open the palm of his hand ; he does not feel the loss of sleep, or of food and clothing, the abuse of reputation, or the want of friends. His life is pure apathy. As a morbid sign, it is one of terrible significance. Sentiment. It is difficult to classify an arrange- THE TRAGEDY OF THE PASSIONS 57 ment of the passions as to their being active or passive, positive or negative, stimulant or sedative in a satisfactory manner ; but I have endeavoured to make some sort of approxima- tion to such an arrangement. There are other sentiments, however, of a more pleasing kind than those I have just mentioned, that float mid- way between the active and passive feelings, which become either the one or the other as soon as their equilibrium is lost, and they incline either to this side or the other. I have been thus particular in drawing out a list of the passions in their separate and indivi- dual characters, because it illustrates the quality of insanity in the clearest and most demonstrable manner. Each form of insanity is a passion exaggerated or caricatured. In health, no one passion stands alone, nor do we at any time proceed to act from one solitary motive alone. On the contrary, the sound mind occupies all its faculties, all its passions, in the task of judging and deciding correctly, and balances one reason against another, and plays off one sentiment against another emotion. In this way the conclusions are just, practical, temperate, and successful. But it is not thus with the madman ; for he represents in his conduct one solitary passion or idea, magnified and overstrained, to the exclusion of every other idea or sentiment. It is in this respect that he is mad. In the hypochondriac, it is melancholy alone that pervades his mind. 58 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME In the maniac it is pride, anger, hatred, or revenge. In the monomaniac it is lust, avarice, imagination, dread, taciturnity, apathy, supersti- tion, or religious eccentricity. All these pas- sions and emotions are faculties of the healthy mind, but they are distributed in their due proportions and arranged in order. The healthiest minds present the fewest inequalities in this respect, for it is the diseased mind in which one of these starts out and eclipses the rest. Accordingly, the nature of insanity will be the best understood by studying it beforehand in its elemental and nascent type. I have described several forms of insanity connected with the passions. Some lunatics are in a continual state of alarm with the apprehension of some mischief brewing over them ; this is the natural sentiment of abnormal caution. Others suffer from the sting of remorse, as in the instance of Lady Macbeth ; this is the natural sentiment of compunction overgrown and obscuring the opposing faculties of hope and resignation. Some, again, are a prey to simple apathy, the result of disappointment in the affairs of life ; and this arises from ruined hopes. Not a few lose their reason for love, like Ophelia in Hamlet, and end by committing sui- cide, the natural sentiment of love inverted and congealed. Imagination, again, is abnormal in not a few ; the result of fancy allowed to run to seed. Terror, again, affects many lunatics, being the natural feeling of apprehension for the future, THE TRAGEDY OF THE PASSIONS 59 unrestrained ; of this class are the hallucinated, who are haunted by spectres created out of their own ideal fears. Stoicism, which is so noble a virtue in the healthy mind, becomes superstition, and fanaticism develops in minds that are diseased or ill-governed. Ambitious ideas, which are nothing more than overcharged pride, characterise those lunatics who suffer from general paralysis or chronic delirious mania. Not only are these forms of insanity so many diseased affections, or passions, but, what is more to the purpose, these diseased passions or affections will be found to depend upon, or be connected with, diseased or disordered functions of the body. Prophylaxis. From the consideration of the passions and their mode of operation in health and disease, we may learn the importance of adopting modes of diversion congenial to the disordered intellect a principle, indeed, now generally recognised in lunatic asylums. Per- haps the stimulus of the ruling passion may sometimes be adopted, in the same manner as we administer stimulants in delirium tremens. Excess of laughter has effected extraordinary recoveries, by its mechanical succession of the frame. A soldier, apparently dying of a thoracic wound, went into a violent fit of laughter at the sight of one of his comrades. Instantly, two pounds of blood welled forth from the wound, and from that moment he recovered. A man had 60 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME a vomica in his lung that threatened suffocation, but a sudden fit of laughter burst the abscess, and in this way saved his life. A patient in a stubborn fit of hypochondriasis became com- pletely apathetic. He was taken from place to place for change of scene, but neither novelty nor exercise gave him any relief, until, on his way home in company with his desponding friends, he gave way to an immoderate fit of laughter at the sight of an odd little man on horseback, and from that moment he was well again. Laughter often relieves the disordered system. Under the influence of joy the intellect brightens up, and mental labour is a pleasure in itself. Terror has often cured convulsions, and helped the restoration of the insane. The indulgence in violent emotions is singu- larly detrimental to the human understanding, and it is to be presumed that the unmeasured emotions of insanity are sometimes perpetuated in consequence of the disorder of the brain orginally induced by their violence. A man gives way to irritability, and whatever tempor- arily interferes with his bodily or mental functions reproduces the disposition to be irritated, and circumstances are never wanting to act upon this disposition until it becomes a disease. The state of the brain, or part of the brain, which is affected whenever the feeling of irritation is renewed, is more easily induced at each interval, and concurs with the moral habit to bring on the THE TRAGEDY OF THE PASSIONS 61 paroxysm on any slight occasion ; other vehe- ment emotions and passions influence the same mind. Nostalgia. Home - sickness, or technically nostalgia, is sometimes assigned as a cause of insanity. A Swiss girl who had but a short time left her home could not speak English. Separated from her friends and surrounded by strangers, her spirits were most oppressively worn down by that disease, if disease it may be termed, so universal among her countryfolk when removed from the sight of their native mountains and valleys. Asylum treatment had to be adopted, and, after a residence of a few days at the asylum, being a victim at once to insanity and to the harrowing emotions from which that disease originated, she ended her temporal sufferings by suicide. The desire of home, the love of fatherland, the longing after one's own native place, are some of those strong passions that are found in the hearts of those who have been born of affectionate parents and surrounded with kindness in their childhood amid the un- sophisticated scenes of nature. I can scarcely imagine a Cockney, born and bred in London, or a denizen of smoky cities like those of Birming- ham, Leeds, Sheffield, or any other great city, dying of anguish from the desire of seeing his native place once more. Nostalgia is found even in the breasts of these, and also in the gutter children accustomed to dirt and gloom ; but not perhaps so strongly developed as it is among 62 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME the Swiss and Scotch, especially the former. The result is a form of melancholy, which, from a simple maladie du pays, becomes frequently an acute form of suicidal insanity. It partakes of the character of blighted love, although it is by no means the same. A few musical notes will awaken it in a most intense degree ; and so well known is this among military men that the ranz des vaches and the Scottish jigs of the pibroch, and other national airs, have been forbidden in the regimental bands during their cantonments in a foreign land. This longing, if indulged in, will produce disease, either of mind or body, and it is necessary to restrain it in the first paroxysms. Jealousy. Jealousy is a very debased passion, and is allied to envy. It yearns for that which others possess ; its anxiety is intense, ungratified, and disappointed. It aims its shafts at those it is jealous of, but the weapon usually recoils on itself. Its anxiety disturbs its composure, and the aim is badly taken. To jealousy has been imputed the origin of many organic diseases, such as jaundice and hepatic derangement, whilst the lighting-up of tubercular phthisis has been ascribed to it. Remorse. The passions or emotions whose activity tends to depress the energies of both mind and body may be considered on strictly physiological principles as powerful agents in the production of mental disease. Remorse is the first of these. Grief, caused by the death THE TRAGEDY OF THE PASSIONS 63 of relatives, stands next in position, but first in point of number. Youthful Precociousness. Very many, if not all, of the eccentricities of youth are matters of thoughtlessness and inexperience, coupled with the headlong animation of health and spirits. They ought not to be regarded too seriously, nor chastised nor rebuked with too much severity. Mild restraint and time correct most of these vagaries. But more especially they are not to be too heartily imputed to any degree of mental alienation. In this sense, we have all of us been at some period of our lives more or less mad. It is only those in whom the eccentricity is constant and inexplicable that we ought to regard with caution and suspicion. But all through life many of the outbreaks of temper and passion, to which all are liable, arise from some transient cause, such as indigestion, change of weather, anxiety, and so on, and they are like those perturbations in the orbits of the planets, depending on some local, but temporary, force, acting for a short time in an adverse manner and influencing the regularity of their revolutions. As soon as the disturbing force subsides or is withdrawn, the planet or the mind reverts spontaneously to its proper routine, and pro- ceeds with its accustomed velocity in its right direction. It is very necessary to regard the passions and affections with the utmost circumspection and reservation. They are equally the starting- 64 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME points of healthy action and morbid phenomena, whether of the mind or body. They are never stagnant or absent in any transaction. Their stagnation is a fatal sign ; their absence implies idiocy or profound insanity ; and their presence is the requisite condition of life. TRAGEDY OF INCIPIENT INSANITY TRAGEDY OF INCIPIENT INSANITY INSANITY is sometimes ushered in suddenly without any premonitions whatever. On the other hand, we often have marked indications to guide us in our diagnosis. Criminal insanity is frequently so masked as to defy detection even at the hands of the most experienced psycho- logist. Insanity associated or unassociated with crime is rarely diagnosed by one symptom per se, for it is by the concomitant set of symptoms that we determine the question both with regard to insanity unattended with crime and in our diagnosis of the insane criminal. Any one symptom, comparatively harmless in itself, and be this ever so slight and insignificant, may be the direct cause of the most heinous crime. Many an insane crime is apparently motiveless, and bears no relation to the actual morbid idea of the perpetrator of the same. Of course those suffering from the delusions of persecution and suspicion have imaginary ideas respecting wrongs committed against them by certain individuals, and consequently their insane vengeance is turned against these. I have thought it right to tabulate very briefly the various distinctive 6 7 68 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME premonitions which are found in insanity in general, one or more of which exist in those who perpetrate crime whilst suffering from mental disorders, in which condition they have evinced certain indications of the nature of which I now give previous to their crime. In tabulat- ing the leading premonitions, I want it to be clearly understood that many of these symptoms are possessed by those of the highest sanity and intellect. It is in the collectiveness of the symp- toms, not in an individual one, that we are guided. No one would diagnose consumption from night perspirations alone ; though we may safely say it is one of the indications of the malady, in the same way as I say that each of the following are symptomatic : 1. Neglect of work and employment for some time previous to the attack. 2. Inability to concentrate the attention or ideas upon anything. 3. Want of sleep, which leads to mental exhaustion. 4. Disposition to seek seclusion and shun society. 5. Walking or pacing the room in which the patient may be, apparently without motive. 6. Unusually elated or depressed. This is very variable. 7. Inability to rest tranquilly. 8. Morbidly suspicious. 9. Delusions, hallucinations, and illusions. TRAGEDY OF INCIPIENT INSANITY 69 10. Memory somewhat defective. 11. Mind dwelling on morbid ideas. This especially is observed in insanity from shock. 12. Sudden reverting to the one subject upper- most in the mind. 13. Hearing voices and obeying the dictates of them. 14. A tendency to homicide or suicide often exists in the earlier stages without any fixed delusions. 15. Peevishness and irritability ; gradual change in disposition and habits. A very common symptom. 1 6. Want of energy. 17. Many persons appear as if in dreamland ; though awake, they are to all intents and pur- poses insensible to the impressions surround- ing them. This is very apparent in cases of insanity from shock. 18. The mind wanders and fixes itself on some one subject, to the exclusion of all else. The period of incubation varies in duration, but a sudden attack without any warning of its approach is very uncommon. Monomania, Real or Feigned. As this is so often seen in criminal insanity, and only exists in the subjective mind, and without any objective indications, the importance of discriminating between real and feigned monomania is apparent. Monomaniacs are responsible for much of the crime. In true monomania there is no feasible yo INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME relation between the delusion and anything connected with it. The ideas are inconstant, and the individual is indifferent as to facts and consequences. True monomaniacs cannot be reasoned out of their delusions. The opposite to all this is observed in feigned monomania. Hallucinations of Hearing. Hearing and obey- ing voices is one of the most disastrous symp- toms met with in insanity. This is most fre- quently found in insane criminals. The maj ority of homicides and suicides are due to this. It is generally associated with monomania, in which the person so afflicted is generally sane on the surface, and it often occurs from sudden shock without any marked premonitory stages. In such cases the mind is intent entirely on one subject, which grows and becomes gigantic in the imagination of the individual. In many cases there exists in the individual, though he struggle ever so hard, an insane desire to obey the voice. This form of lunacy is often associated with visions. In most murders committed by insane people, the perpetrators have these de- lusions. Persons so hearing voices frequently talk to themselves or to vacancy. There is an entire change in their disposition. An imagina- tion that a voice has spoken and has given certain instructions to the morbid hearer of the same, and that as a consequence he is bound to obey this voice, is one of the most dangerous indications we have to deal with in insanity. Many criminal lunatics entertain the same. It is TRAGEDY OF INCIPIENT INSANITY 71 unfortunately incurable in its nature. It is latent in its development, and, being purely a subjective symptom, the lunatic who commits a crime whilst under such a hallucination is often made to pay the penalty of his crime. The popular notion of insanity is that its victim must be acutely rampant, and commit extravagant acts, and that his behaviour must be apparent to any casual observer. This is the view accepted at the present time. From recent decisions where the monomania has not been recognised as an abnormal one either by the judge or the jury, I assume that our knowledge of the differential diagnosis between what is rational and what is madness in our own country is but in its infancy, I regret to say. We find that the real criminal lunatic who keeps his hallucinations to himself and conducts himself with propriety suffers the severe penalty of the law, whereas the malingerer who acts like a madman so as to deceive the outside world escapes his punishment, being considered as an irresponsible individual. The Ingress of Criminal Insanity. Criminal insanity and moral insanity are almost identical at least they are convertible the one into the other. The latter leads to the former, and the first includes the latter. Moral insanity consists essentially in a perversion of the moral powers, the intellectual remaining sound. It has a great tendency to proceed to intellectual disease. This state may result from injury to the head ; it frequently presents itself as one of the conse- 72 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME quences of acute mania ; while in other instances the exciting cause may be a moral one, as dis- appointment and the like. The whole inward man is deranged. He may still continue to reason acutely and correctly on every subject within his knowledge, but as to his moral per- ception he is a maniac, dead to the calls of social affection, honour, and duty, to all of which, previous to this morbid change coming on him, he had paid the strictest attention. So that, notwithstanding the correctness of his conversa- tion on general topics, and the plausible reasons he alleges for this singular alteration of behaviour, a careful inspection of his actions, if not of his words, will convince anyone that his notions of right and wrong are materially impaired, and that he views himself, his motives, and his own social relations through a medium that is at once false and desperately at variance with his own welfare as well as with that of all with whom he is concerned in the ordinary proceedings of the world. This form of insanity is so unequi- vocal, and the soundness of the intellect so clear when compared with the obliquity of moral sense, that its distinct existence is no longer disputable. The fine line that separates insanity from reason is still finer when drawn out between crime and insanity ; it is a twilight fading between the horizon of vice and virtue. Who shall say where the one begins and the other ends ? In the moral, as in the natural world, there is no such thing as an outline. Passion TRAGEDY OF INCIPIENT INSANITY 73 and reason run one into the other, and now appear in the stately form of wisdom, and then transform themselves into the imposing attitudes of force, or start forth in the grot- esque shapes of folly and imprudence. The various kinds of madness are the same. None of them appear in their elemental char- acters as single and solitary types, but unite together in groups, the most prominent of which is regarded and considered as the representative of the whole, to which it gives its name and style. Thus, religious madness never comes alone, but is accompanied with fear or timidity on the one hand, and pride or superstition on the other. Hallucination, again, is rather a very prominent symptom of insanity than a distinct form of insanity by itself. It is a leading sign indicating deep-rooted mischief in the brain, liable to end in apoplexy, acute mania, or epilepsy. Even idiocy scarcely stands by itself, for it is often impelled by some of the grosser instincts which, when ungoverned, end in crime. And then, again, some of the highest intellects are the most un- principled, the fiercest passions coexisting with the noblest feelings and the highest virtue. The question of crime and insanity is, in short, that of disease and ignorance. The ignorant are mostly criminal from not knowing the difference between good and evil, or being aware of the merit of submitting to the conventional laws of society, both temporal and eternal, or of obeying the commandments of God. Those who are 74 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME diseased are criminal, because the chief means of perception, recollection, and judgment are im- paired, the brain, the governing organ of the animal machine, being no longer capable of controlling the moral and physical relations of life. Consequently, criminal insanity turns upon the commission of crime by one who can be proved to be, not merely non compos mentis, but, moreover, to have a diseased brain, or one whose nervous system has incapacitated its owner from the power of self-control. But not only should this amount of cerebral disease be proved as existing at the time of the perpetration of the deed, be it what it may, but as also existing some time previous to its perpetration. It is not probable that direful disease of this kind should begin to break out all of a sudden. It may have been overlooked or disregarded, or its existence might have been recognised and foreseen, but its growth and progress must have betrayed itself occasionally by obvious signs beforehand possibly unrecognised. Only let it once be proved that no such disease had ever at any tune declared itself, and it then follows, as a matter of course, that the culprit is not a madman, but most assuredly a criminal. After the existence of cerebral disease, the next plea is that of ignorance. But this plea is soon dis- missed. No one ought to be allowed to be so ignorant as to be excused from the penalties of his crime on that account. If he is, then those with whom he is associated, connected, TRAGEDY OF INCIPIENT INSANITY 75 or concerned, or by whom he is supported and maintained, must be made responsible for his good behaviour. But this extreme ignorance at the present day is an absurdity. It cannot be imagined as possible ; it ought not to be allowed, if true ; and it should not be accepted as an excuse for crime, if it exists. The question then turns upon criminal insanity, the helpless and hopeless result of organic disease of the brain. Growth of Criminal Insanity. The crime that springs from malice prepense is in all its outward signs the same as that which is the result of actual disease proceeding within the calvarium. In either predicament, the criminal grows into a monster, and in the same proportion loses the character of virtue. In either case he may end by becoming the worst of culprits. The diffi- culty lies in discriminating that culpability which is the involuntary result of organic disease, and that which is the voluntary overtax of a wicked will. The outward signs are the same in both cases ; nevertheless, to the practised eye, there are certain symptoms unequivocally significa- tive of disease in contradistinction to the insanity of intellect. I now propose to show what these special symptoms are, and how they can be recognised. They resolve themselves under three heads : 1. The general functions of the body ; 2. The faculties of the mind ; 3. The external signs of speech, behaviour, and acts, generally called " conduct." 76 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME Now, in the normal criminal each of these signs has been healthy, not only previous to the commission of the crime, but also up to the very time of its commission. They may have been abused, but they were not diseased ; whereas in the morbid criminal, all, or most, of these signs have indicated disorder or disease long prior to the commission of the crime which has raised the question of insanity. Functions of the Body. When the previous history of the criminal affords evidence of the bodily functions having been healthily dis- charged up to the moment of the fatal or condign act, it is proof presumptive, medically speaking, that the criminal is responsible to society on the ground of his being in perfect possession of his free will and moral responsi- bility. It is just the reverse when the previous history shows that the health has been feeble, impaired, or deteriorated for some length of time. In this case, there is good reason for proceeding cautiously in the inquiry ; not that bad health necessarily forms an excuse for culpability or a ground for suspecting the sound- ness of intellect ; but that it is one among other reasons for regarding the culprit as a person of weak intellect owing to weakness of the general health. Ill-health proceeding from disease with- in the brain is not always discernible to unskilled observers ; for, to their cognisance, sleeplessness and uneasiness are the same whether they pro- ceed from the head or the stomach. Neither can TRAGEDY OF INCIPIENT INSANITY 77 they be supposed capable of discriminating between them, so that the eccentricities observ- able from time to time are imputed to perversity and ill-temper instead of to their true cause, viz., cerebral disease. But the medical eye reads in the history of frequent ailments varia- tions of the muscular force, deranged sensi- bility, continual vigilance, indigestion, thirst, coldness, nausea, giddiness, f aintings, vomitings occasional and transient though they may have been, the criteria of organic changes of the cerebro-spinal system of a very important nature. Functions of the Mind. When the previous history does not invalidate the integrity of the mind, insanity cannot be supposed to have been the immediate cause of any criminal act. It very seldom happens that insanity breaks out without previous warnings. The mind which cannot be proved to be unsound must submit to hold itself responsible for the fruits of its conduct. But when, on the other hand, we learn upon inquiry that the past life has been notorious for eccentricities of behaviour un- accountable outbursts of temper, ungovernable impulses of passion, motiveless likes and dislikes, incapacity for conducting the affairs of business, inability to attend to private concerns, the palpable want of prudence and foresight, it may justly be presumed that such an intellect is pro tanto unsound ; and we ought to proceed to ascertain whether such a departure from the ordinary ways of a healthy mind be compatible 78 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME with soundness of cerebral structure and function. I believe that cerebral disease would most likely be detected going on from bad to worse, till it had terminated in criminality too obvious to be mistaken or concealed. If the first symptom of insanity had been overlooked, it was because the first follies or faults were too trifling to re- quire any serious attention ; but the last crime is only the same fault grown up into full stature, and the disease of the brain might, by attentive observation, have been clearly recognised from the diseased operations of the mind. Conduct. If the speech and the behaviour have been uniformly rational throughout the antecedent history of the patient, there can be no reason for ascribing any great fault or crime to the want of proper intelligence and the loss of the consciousness of right and wrong. Mere vice, however gross, does not constitute lunacy. The act, whatever it may be, must rest upon the common ground of moral responsibility and wilful misdemeanour. But if, on the contrary, investigation brings to light the habit and use of words, and the exhibition of behaviour in public or private, but chiefly in private, at total variance with the appreciable course of events, and diametrically opposite to the established order of society in which the person has been placed, the probability of insanity being at the bottom of the misconduct is greatly strengthened. But it must be admitted that there is a good deal of embarrassment in drawing a just conclusion TRAGEDY OF INCIPIENT INSANITY 79 simply from modes of speech and behaviour, since the manners of people and their conduct are so often depraved without any weakness of understanding. Eccentricity is not always madness ; neither is madness an incontestable excuse for crime. In general, the public instinct is correct : if the patient had always been looked upon as a " mad- man " by those who were daily with him, or had frequent occasion of communication with him in his dealings and affairs, such testimony as this ought not to be disregarded. The general estimate of public opinion is scarcely ever mistaken ; the world at large is too disinterested to deceive or to be deceived. Crime : a Diseased Condition. Epilepsy, here- ditary taint, the scrofulous physiognomy, de- formity of the head, squat features, and thick lips, are among the signs of that morbid diathesis which is usually observed in the personal appear- ance of great criminals. The condition of the eyes alone is often significant of cerebral pres- sure ; and the aspect of features, well understood though difficult to describe, discloses mental aberration at a glance ; the idiotic vacancy, though it may be casually assumed by a good actor, is, when permanent, too decisive a symptom ever to be mistaken. In a word, wherever there is a predisposing cause from physical injury to the head, constitutional affections or ailments, or visible organic defect, it is needless to go very minutely into evidence of conduct. The cases 80 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME of perplexity are those in which peculiarity of conduct alone, and wholly unattended by de- cisive physical symptoms, affords the only evi- dence by which disease of the mind is to be determined ; such cases are considered to resolve themselves into metaphysical subtleties, medicine as a science being supposed to have little to do with them. Yet those acquainted with mania quickly recognise it in its nascent state. The organic disease may, indeed, at first be too obscurely developed to enable them to form a positive judgment ; and, though they may be convinced of the evil that is brewing, yet they feel themselves forced to defer their decision, until the malady has become so clear and ap- parent that no one can any longer question, deny, or mistake it. Love of Mischief, The love of mischief and the want of decency are two of the most repre- hensible propensities to be met with in the insane, the ignorant, and the depraved. It is a symptom belonging to them all in common. Wanton mischief and indelicacy are both of them acts of irrationality, though too transient to imply more than a progressive step towards total alienation of mind. The behaviour of con- firmed lunatics of the violent class is invariably indelicate and mischievous, in the same manner as is seen among the depraved and ignorant, the only difference being that the ignorant or de- praved injure others rather than themselves, while the maniac injures himself as well as others. TRAGEDY OF INCIPIENT INSANITY 81 The disposition to mischievousness is extended to property of every description. The absence of common decency, as regards the infirmities of nature or social decorum, is sometimes the earliest sign of insanity. There are certain positions in life where reason herself prescribes a temporary departure from that modesty which is part of our fallen nature ; but when no emergency arises, this insensibility to appear- ances is one of the most certain signs of that degradation which attends the departure of reason. The same feature is broadly developed not only in the worst classes of our convicts, but also among our disorderly paupers. When- ever the health is sound and the moral character remains unsullied, we invariably find that the decencies of life and the care of property are at least outwardly observed. The close similarity of results between crime and insanity can be traced in other ways likewise. The same jealousy and distrust, with submissive- ness to authority, accompanied by the same vigilance of cunning to escape from it, identical habits of dissembling and deceit, restlessness of body and anxiety of mind about trifles, and, more than all, perhaps, the same indifference or apathy to danger, strangely attended by the awe of corporal punishment, mark both the criminal and the irrational being. In their progress, objects, and results, the identity of character in crime and insanity is most remarkable. The origin of both may be a common one. It is possible 82 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME that criminals are only those organically con- structed to be so, in the same sense as none are good athletes or singers but those organically so formed. It may be that, however much they differ in name and in responsibility, both insanity and criminality influence the same states of the human body in regard to the rational and intellectual functions, excepting only those cases where organic or morbid degeneration of structure is apparent from birth, and sufficient to account for irrational and criminal proceedings. In that form of insanity which leads to the perpetration of crime, there are a set of symptoms which may be considered pathognomonic ; these are ignorance, want, or the incapacity for self- support, fickleness, passionateness, weakness, misdirected strength, and special deficiencies. Ignorance. Under this head is to be con- sidered, not that literary and intellectual ignor- ance alone which uninformed people betray, but that incapability of obtaining knowledge, or making a right use of it when once obtained. It implies mental incapacity, which, however, is compatible with a considerable amount of low cunning and special adroitness, as well as the self-possession or consciousness of mastery. It is ignorance in the faculty of high moral percep- tion. There may be partial elementary know- ledge of reading and writing, but there is a total ignorance of all those relations which characterise the distinguished member of civilised society, and, above all, the Christian. This ignorance is TRAGEDY OF INCIPIENT INSANITY 83 that which is essentially the main defect in the affairs of life, and is alone enough to pave the way to the commission of everything that is wrong and criminal. It is ignorance of this kind that leads to vicious indulgence and personal gratification, often at the cost of another's happiness or peace of mind, but always at the deadly cost of future punishment or disease. Foresight, the consequence of knowledge, is a leading feature among the most intelligent forces of mankind ; but the want of foresight from want of knowledge characterises criminal in- sanity. Want. This means the incapacity of provid- ing against the wants of the individual, and it naturally follows, from the preceding symptom of ignorance, that it leads to the want of foresight. It is not only the cause of the most desperate condition into which a wretch can fall, but its very nature instigates to the commission of a crime for the purpose of relieving itself from immediate discomfort. That form of insanity, then, which is called criminal, suffers from the two-fold evil of want, and the consequences of crime springing from want. There is a great step downward from this point, to social degradation, social wrong, physical privation, and anguish, recklessness, and general prostration of the mind. The madman is feared on account of his prone- ness to crime or disregard for right and wrong ; and in return he dreads the more rational part of mankind on account of the punishments 84 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME likely to be inflicted on himself, and he hates his fellow-creatures the more because they evidently suspect him. The sound mind may retrace its steps from the first wrong deed, it may repent and recover itself; but in the diseased mind, spontaneous recovery is impos- sible, and so much the more impossible in proportion as it is plunged into deeper want from its own inherent incapacity to provide for itself according to the higher rules of justice, of which it has no conception. Ignorance, and want, the child of ignorance, go hand in hand along the high road to crime ; and one of the earliest indications of insanity is the development of that mental incapacity alone, which prevents the acquisition of knowledge, the perception of truth, and honest means of employment. Corruption. Ignorance, want, and filth tend to vice and crime to a yet greater extent. Often the criminality, resulting from a total degrada- tion of moral habits, induced by uncleanliness of person and abode, may be directly traced to its origin ; but the enormous extent of the influences in their direct actions on the mind, and on the mind and physical systems conjointly, is quite incalculable. But it is not with that portion of the population that are simply degraded and debased, but with the lunatic who resembles them in their baseness and degraded condition, that I am concerned. Corruption is one of the most disgusting signs of complete mania, and the victim to it is not far removed from the TRAGEDY OF INCIPIENT INSANITY 85 rabid dog. In the lighter forms of lunacy, predisposed to vicious criminalities, filthiness of behaviour and speech is singularly remarkable. It is a very bad sign in a youthful member of a family tainted with insanity when he is addicted to obscene jests and filthy conversation, or when, as in some particular forms of mental alienation, such as moral and impulsive insanity, he is prone to lewd behaviour, or at an early age commits acts of cruelty to animals, the forerunner of suicide, homicide, and infanticide. It is most remarkable how closely criminal insanity is connected with perverseness of habits, practices, ideas, and speech. Passionateness. I do not here allude to the insanity of the passions as in the foregoing pages, nor of the passions themselves as constituent elements of human nature, but of passionateness in which the individual is driven hither and thither, with greater or less violence, without any apparent motive or reason for his conduct. A passionate lunatic is one who suffers from complete loss of control of all moral powers ; it is a diseased condition, and may be described as an insane impulse to the commission of a crime, occurring in a mind both intellectually and morally unsound. The consciousness of right and wrong is present, and the individual may make feeble but unsuccessful efforts to act in accordance with it ; but the unstrained impulse overrides everything, the passion bursts forth, it becomes uncontrollable, and the usual conse- 86 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME quences follow from it. Such cases are evidently coupled with a degree of low cunning or reason that just places them within the pale of moral responsibility, but at the same time they evince a want of purpose and a motivelessness that also just keeps them beyond the limits of reason. We ought to study very closely the nature of passion in its diseased and in its healthy state, for they are neither of them the same. The same passion, as anger in health, becomes ferocity in disease; and it is not the disciplined brutality of the prize-fighter, but the wild fierceness of a beast of prey. So with love, which in a healthy mind is affection and desire conjoined, but which in a diseased mind is not mere lust, which many an intelligent man may experience, but a brutal force which begins and ends in selfish gratification. Weakness. Weakness of body as well as of mind is usually found in those persons who are prone to criminal indulgences. For they are not always healthy, stalwart men who commit crimes owing to insanity ; on the contrary, they are often little men, oddly shaped, weakly, or else fair and handsome, and, upon the whole, mild and amiable in appearance. But there is something deeper still in their constitutional debility it is that their weakness leads them to debauchery and drunkenness. The feeling of debility drives them to drink for the sake of temporary comfort and support. It may be called the weakness of intemperance, and it leads to vice, crime, and insanity. It exerts a TRAGEDY OF INCIPIENT INSANITY 87 melancholy influence in preparing the mind as well as in prostrating the temperament, until the victim terminates his morbid course in suicide. But though drunkenness may be the vice most prominent and frequent of the class ranged under the head of weakness, yet a large number of other persons deficient in character, firmness, or of forbearance, will come under the same denomination. The crime of theft is often the result of fear or extreme timidity of character. Some slight error having been com- mitted, in order to cover the disgrace forging is next perpetrated, or money stolen in order to use as a bribe or by some means shield the trembler. The extent to which a sensual in- dulgence may grow into a confirmed habit, till the individual is no longer master of himself, is notorious ; and, in truth, the grasp and fascina- tion never obtain their empire over the physical temperament till they have first possessed them- selves of the imagination. Cruelty, and the inability to forbear from its infliction, are some- times caused by weakness of mind. Imitation. Imitation will likewise form a marked feature under the head of weakness, especially as it includes the besotted vanity of those seeking notoriety, originating for the most part in the popular influence of criminal trials, scenes, and descriptions of murder heroes, and other famous criminals . Of this kind is the suicidal insanity caused by a diseased craving for notoriety. This base mania, spurious passion, half-witted ex- 88 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME citement, or whatever term will best designate it, attains its height and perfection in such heroes as Eugene Aram, and his too many silly imitators. It is a remarkable fact that in the weak- minded and those predisposed to lunacy the force of imitation leads them to imitate only what is bad and disgusting. Their debility of moral sense does not allow them to see the excellence of moral greatness in the best charac- ters, but only the depravity of wickedness, or bad manners and principles in the worst. They do not imitate the good examples of man, but the evil ones, which they look up to as paragons and patterns of life ; and, consequently, it must be inferred that, as like goes to like, they only imitate in others that which they find most congenial to their own tastes and limitations. What is grotesque, pantomimic, gross, sensual, licentious, noisy, violent, and mischievous, is the most suitable and appeals to the humours and propensities of the weak-minded or insane criminal. Mental Epidemics. The force of imitation has made history replete with examples of moral and abnormal criminal epidemics, and it exists very largely among a certain class of our humanity, especially among women. The Gnostics of the second century originated from the attempt to combine the philosophy of the heathen world with the faith of the Christian ; and the fourth century is remarkable for the rapid increase and spread of superstition, the 5, 6, y- Valet, Gamier, Bonnot ; the three motor bandits, responsible criminals, the late terror ot Paris; shot by the police. 8, q. Besancpn and Souchotte, two youths aged 17 and 18, predisposed to insanity ; minds unhinged by the motor bandits ; unable to resist the power ol " imitation " ; irrespon- sible criminals. TRAGEDY OF INCIPIENT INSANITY 89 reinstatement of image worship, the adoration paid to relics, and the impious frauds of the so- called monks. The fifth century was remarkable for the epidemic of climbing to the top of heights and there remaining. Simon, a monk, adopted as a mark of sanctity the singular device of spending thirty-seven years of his life on the top of a high pillar. Led by a false ambition, and utterly ignorant of true religion, the inhabitants of Syria and Palestine followed the example of this fanatic ; and, what is most incredible, this practice continued in vogue until the twelfth century. The rise and fall of Mahommedanism in the seventh century is one of the most re- markable instances of the rapid propagation of ideas and principles. In the tenth century a very strange fancy seized upon men's minds. They imagined that the end of the world was close at hand, and vast multitudes forsook their daily avocations, both civil and domestic, gave their property to the Church, and repaired to Palestine, where they imagined that when the end did come they would be hi greater safety. An eclipse of the moon or of the sun was con- sidered as the immediate precursor of the end of all things, and many tried to bribe the Deity by great gifts to the Church. In a word, no language is sufficient to express the confusion and despair which tormented the minds of miser- able mortals on this occasion. Consequent upon this we have, perhaps, the most extraordinary epidemic for which fanaticism was ever respon- 90 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME sible. Vast multitudes left for the Holy Land, and not a meteor fell across the skies but sent whole hordes on the same delusive errand. Scarcely had this excitement departed when the plague, or Black Death, of the fourteenth century set in, which appeared in 1333, in China, and, passing over Asia westward, and over Europe and Africa, carried off about one-fourth of the population. In Europe, it is supposed that twenty-five millions fell victims to this dire pestilence. All epidemic diseases have their moral aspect, and this one was attended by a constellation of fanaticism and delusions such as man has never witnessed before or since. The specific moral aberrations connected with this period were : 1. The rise and spread of the Flagellants, or Whippers. 2. The dancing mania. In Mayence alone 12,000 Jews were slaughtered by the Flagellants ; and with this epidemic was associated witch-craft, which then existed and was steadily increasing. The dancing mania in 1374 consisted hi persons joining hands and jumping about frantically for hours together, falling down ultimately in a state of exhaustion. This epidemic was revived a few years ago in the form of the " shakers " in the New Forest, but, so far as my recollection goes, the best antidote to the revived nonsense proved to be the police court of the district, which evidently had the desired effect. TRAGEDY OF INCIPIENT INSANITY 91 In the sixteenth century demonomania, a distinct form of lunacy, existed largely, being a belief that certain men and women were possessed of the devil, and many were burnt at the stake in consequence. The last century was rife with epidemics of one sort or another. Incendiarism, infanticide, kleptomania, homicide, and suicide have all been epidemic at one time or another, through the force of imitation being so great and acting prejudicially on weak-minded persons, or on those predisposed to mental disorders. In the time of Ptolemy, a Stoic philosopher preached so earnestly and eloquently on the contempt of life and the blessings of death, that suicide became frequent. The ladies of Miletus committed suicide in great numbers because their husbands and brothers were detained at the wars. At Lyons there was an epidemic of drowning amongst the women, for which no cause could be assigned. It was ultimately checked by the public order of the authorities that the bodies of all who drowned themselves should be publicly exposed in the market-place. The epidemic was stopped at Miletus by a similar device. An order was made that the bodies of those who hanged themselves should be dragged through the town by the same rope with which they had accomplished their pur- pose. At Rouen in 1806, at Stuttgart in 1811, and in Valois in 1813, there were terrible epi- demics of suicide. In 1844 there was an epidemic of voluntary mutilations in the French army, 92 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME numbers of soldiers being self -mutilated, and for no reason. Suicide from poison has often occurred epidemically. Shortly after Goethe had published his book, The Sorrows of Werther, in which the hero commits suicide, numberless bodies were found in the Rhine with this book clasped in their arms. Misdirected Strength. The criminal actions from this bad quality open up an interesting field of inquiry in mental and moral philosophy, as well as in physiology and jurisprudence. Many of the actions which fall under this denomi- nation are, no doubt, rife with horror, and excite emotions of angry reprehension in impulsive characters, and sometimes of a sort of ridicule in shallow minds, neither of which are becoming to the occasion. But, on the other hand, how often must the profoundest pity be inspired by the contemplation of actions, which, however erroneous and beyond the pale of en tire sympathy, do yet display elements of perverted greatness and of inherent powers wasted and cast away ! The sight of anything in ruins fills the mind of the beholder with sadness and regret. The wider and more extensive the ruins, the more forcible is their indication of past greatness. It is thus in contemplating the loss of reason. The human nervous system, the finest work that issued from the hand of the Creator, is broken down and desolated before its time ; and the mind, with all its delicate, energetic, and intricate machinery, is scattered in pieces, or arrested in the play of TRAGEDY OF INCIPIENT INSANITY 93 its exquisite evolutions. The mainspring of wisdom is warped or let loose ; it either will not act at all, or else, unrestrained by its counter- check, runs down with amazing velocity and danger. It has the semblance of strength, but it is weakness itself ; the likeness of a strong understanding, but it is only madness. What strength it has is full of darkness and peril, and its end can be nothing but disorder, calamity, and woe. Amongst this latter kind but different natures will undoubtedly regard it in a corre- spondingly different light may be classed the public self -crucifixion of historical monks. In some instances the victim seems to have had an irrepressible desire to be a martyr, and one of the most exalted. With this feeling, and influenced, no doubt, by fanaticism, the imagination being completely fed by the various images and pictures in Roman Catholic churches, chapels, and streets, the idea is conceived of imitating the last mortal scene of our Saviour. Quite overlooking the grand fact of His self-devotion for a mighty and disinterested object, and that the most distant resemblance would still demand a great cause and purpose, the lunatic sees the resemblance only in the external form, such as his imagination is familiar with, and accordingly he conceives and executes, with infinite ingenuity and insur- passable resolution, the apparently impossible feat of crucifying himself. In one case of insane crucifixion, by inverting one of the nails, he contrived that both hands should finally be 94 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME fastened up ; a nail went through both feet, he had a wound in his side, and wore a crown of thorns. Misdirected strength of mind, which is simply pride overgrown, exhibits itself by imitating the misdeeds of others, and in this respect is the same as that sheer mental weakness already described. Of this class was a woman who threw herself from the top of the Monument as others had previously been doing. Crime may result from the misdirected strength of pride, but it may also be produced by the mis- directed strength of reason. Perhaps it would be more correct not to term it reason, but reasoning, which may be very strong, and yet exist on very mistaken and im- perfect premises. It may be that the regular course of a strong yet perverted reasoning is regarded in the light of a delusion, hallucina- tion, or monomania. Be this as it may, delusion in its various forms is certainly the cause of many crimes. Fanaticism is the worst form of delusion. It is often by reasoning from false premises that the child murders, so frequently recorded, are perpetrated with such coolness. The parent claims the prescriptive right of doing what she conceives the best for her off- spring, and, in this instance, it seems best to her perverted judgment that she should protect herself from scandal, and remove her child from misery and want simply by the act of taking its life. She brings herself to the con- TRAGEDY OF INCIPIENT INSANITY 95 elusion that what would be wilful murder in another is in her own case nothing but a laudable course of prudence and decision. Rebecca Smith, who was tried for child murder, had destroyed ten out of eleven of her own children, during a miserable married life of eighteen years, from the fear that the children would only come to want. It is needless to dilate upon the need of absolute faith in God, since every person living is liable to come to want before he dies, and per- haps may and often does when least expected. Special Deficiencies. A defect in the original construction of the mind and nature of the individual presents a cause of crime of the most hopeless character, and one, moreover, in which can be found no point for human sympathy or pity to dwell upon. Individuals of this class have no sense of the relations between man and man. Their minds are so constituted as to be deficient in the kind and the degree of imagina- tion requisite to enable them to picture to them- selves the feelings and the general human con- dition of others. This deficiency, if attended, as it commonly is, by an equal deficiency of sensibility, disqualifies them from having any human sympathies, such as characterise the great majority of mankind. With this class of men and women I must call them such, because of their external form you have no fair chance. Such a man regards you with no more consideration than one dog regards another, nay, in many cases, with 96 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME less. After the perpetration of some dreadful crime, they think no more of what they have done than if they had shot a cat on a wall. Who is there, with any right condition of feeling, that would not experience some sort of compunc- tious horror if he had just witnessed the writh- ings and moanings of a cat, or any other creature, which had been shot ? But of those who feel nothing in torturing dogs, shooting cats, drowning kittens and puppies let all good folks beware ! The frequent appeals of murderers and other criminals and these are numerous to the Deity in declaration of their innocence, are also marked with wonderful signs of a special de- ficiency in the amount of imagination requisite to any mental conception and presentment of a Supreme Being, or a world of spirits. It is difficult to analyse their state of mind without an apparent irreverence ; but I believe that in reality these criminals, in their appeals to the Deity, have a sort of hard conviction that no eye saw them do the deed, or, from a sort of compact in the mind, that no one else shall know ; or, what is still more desperate, a cool indifference as to whether God sees and knows it or not. They only use the name of the Deity as a form of words, the strongest and most likely to serve their turn on the occasion. This deficiency in nature is often hereditary, but in all cases it is quite independent of their external circum- stances and position in life. It may be observed equally in the acts of a Roman emperor, a'savage TRAGEDY OF INCIPIENT INSANITY 97 of the woods, a great nobleman, a low burglar, a respectable citizen, or a spoilt child. An indifference perhaps a love of destruction in destroying, or an utter insensibility to the feelings of others, is the secret of this anomaly in the family of mankind. Education might repress the evil habits of evil natures, and correct the deficiencies of the im- perfect. The worst things grow unchecked in the midst of many undefined educational pro- cesses afloat a system of what may be called half education, which crams the head and neglects the heart. It makes little philosophers and pre- cocious children of science, but it does not make them good so much as learned, nor Christians so much as sophists. Criminal Indecision. Insane criminals are facile, irresolute, incapable of a continued pur- suit ; they require to be protected from their own vacillation, to be moved by the will of others ; they are comparatively sane under the shelter of an asylum, but lapse into pusillanimity and puerility when called upon for exertion, or when cast upon their own resources. Their condition is the fruit of an education which, while it im- parted the refinement of accomplishment, with- held that training which is the basis of moral and mental health and stability. In some there is no courage, no power of analysing or of excluding their own sensations, nor of recognising their own true position. They are involuntary cowards who may be persuaded into anything, or con- 7 98 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME vinced, they can neither sleep, walk, nor think ; or it may be insurmountable ignorance of the principles of trade, and unable to conduct their business ; or another may fancy he is about to die that his heart is stopping. In women there appears to be a total incompetence to conduct the affairs of life, to regulate a household, to educate children, or to act in accordance with the plausible doctrines which cannot be incul- cated. In another, there is a singular absence of truthfulness a pretension to sentiments of piety and purity which she does not feel a tendency to act the lie. In a third, with general feebleness and frivolity of character, there are very obscure notions of the rights of property, and a tendency to appropriate and hoard and conceal articles to which she has no claim, of which she can make no use, and which tend rather to incommode her personal comfort. All these are so many forms of criminal insanity in a small way, and such as are frequently met with in the world, and deserve the closest attention and study. Moral Consciousness. Before a person can be deemed responsible for his actions, he must have the power not only of distinguishing right from wrong, but also of choosing the right and rejecting the wrong, a criminal being properly punishable not because he knew good from evil, but because he voluntarily did the evil, having the power to choose the good. If a special test of lunacy were to be insisted on, the power of TRAGEDY OF INCIPIENT INSANITY 99 self-control, as being the true index of responsi- bility, would seem to be better than that of the integrity of consciousness or the conscience. Had the lunatic, at the moment of committing some culpable deed, the knowledge that it was a criminal one ? Or did he possess such a control over his actions as might, if exerted, have hindered him from committing it ? Most lunatics have an abstract knowledge that right is right and wrong is wrong ; as much of it as should keep them from being guilty of unlawful deeds, when such knowledge is required for that end. But the voluntary power over every action and thought is in every case injured. Free agency is not annihilated, but overruled by insane motives. Lunatics have that amount of free will which it is philosophically charitable and advantageous to recognise for their benefit, but at the same time such a defect of free agency as makes the full burden of responsibility a point of very nice inquiry . Many lunatics may be fully accountable pro conscientia ; but in all other courts, if the insanity be apparent, the defect of self-control should be presumed to be the chief calamity present. Test of Moral Consciousness. One of the most delicate criterions of the existence of insanity in a criminal is his admitting or repudiating his lunacy. A lunatic who has committed a crime is not so willing to admit his lunacy as the criminal who is sane is ready to avail him- self of the plea of insanity for the sake of escaping ioo INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME the punishment due to the crime. As the law does not allow the culprit to stultify his own acts, so readiness on the part of the criminal to plead insanity in his own defence is proof pre- sumptive of his rationality : " manslaughter or murder," says the rational criminal feigning insanity, "is of little consequence to me, for no madman is punishable by law." Such speeches do not indicate that the individual is aware of and believes in his own madness, but only that he knows the value of being accounted insane. No person, therefore, who becomes suddenly mentally deranged and commits a deed of violence can be supposed to do so because he knows that he will be exempted from punishment on account of his state of mind. A criminal lunatic does not believe in his own insanity at the time that it is pleaded for him by his counsel, and often indignantly repudiates the plea. Moral Perception. A lunatic may have great powers of understanding and reasoning upon every subject but that upon which he is mad this is apparent in most cases, but yet his rationality cannot make him responsible for the acts committed by him when under the influence of those impressions that constitute madness. He might, for example, imagine that he was commissioned by God to destroy a cer- tain individual, and, as long as the object of his envy was kept out of view, he might appear as rational and composed, and even as religiously disposed, as other men. But if he were to come TRAGEDY OF INCIPIENT INSANITY 101 into contact with that individual, and, in a moment of returning frenzy, influenced by his morbid imagination, destroy him, surely no one would, on the ground of his powers of reasoning on other matters, consider him responsible for this act ; however sensible he might otherwise be, inasmuch as he was mad, and acting under the power of a desire he could not avoid, an impulse he could not control, as a consequence of which he feels himself compelled to the com- mission of the offence, just as a wild animal, which, though generally quiet and manageable, may, in a moment, be impelled by some impulse to attack his keeper, so are they both equally irresponsible ; they know not that they are doing wrong. General Perception : Us Application. Before the plea of insanity can be admitted, it must be clearly ascertained that the commitment of the act is the consequence of erroneous conduct connected with hallucinations and delusions. There should be no mistake on this point. A well-defined connection should be established between his acts and his false imagination, otherwise madmen may sometimes escape the consequences of their actions, for which they are responsible and which they know to be wrong. The lunatic who suffers from the mania of perse- cution and suspicion, and who imagines another man to be in pursuit of his life, and therefore to protect himself kills that man, is not to be regarded as responsible for his act ; but if 102 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME this lunatic, in a fit of passion, should kill an individual who has really wronged him, then he is held responsible, and should not be screened from the consequences of his act by any plea of insanity on other grounds. There is nothing that requires more decision than the question about the responsibility and irresponsibility of criminal lunatics, as from the loose opinions of medical men we may acquit the villain on the ground of insanity and punish the lunatic on the score of his moral consciousness. The distinction between vice and perverseness, and the legitimate consequences of disease, is clearly marked by the following strong and remarkable features : want of motive, uncon- sciousness of and indifference as to the crime, or admission of the fact with the absence of grief, remorse, repentance, or satisfaction. One man had been confined in an asylum for nearly nine years, during which period he conducted himself so quietly and properly as to make his great mildness, propriety, and docility in general strangely to contrast with the dreadful tragedy he had enacted, four lives having been sacrificed by him, those of his wife, two children, and mother-in-law. Throughout his detention he never expressed the least wish to regain his liberty, and no remorse in partic- ular had ever been manifested by him for what he had done. Whenever any allusion, however, happened to be made to it, he appeared ill at ease ; but still, the utmost that could ever be TRAGEDY OF INCIPIENT INSANITY 103 obtained from him respecting an occurrence so shocking, was that, being unconscious of the whole proceeding at the time of its commission, he hoped he would not be held accountable for it hereafter. Instinctive Insanity. Esquirol and Pinel, two leading authorities in France, drew attention in their writings to the large increase of insanity in that country, due to the absence of all morality, and the universal indulgence of every appetite and desire, associated with selfishness, perverseness, and the non-recognition of religion ; the result of this being the absence of the cultivation of a self- denying state of mind, with a perverted volition, and a suspension of the normal exercise of the will. Barlow, in his work Man's Power over Himself, writes that " Man has, in the resources of his own nature, the antagonistic power, which, if properly used, can set at naught the evils, and the so- called irresistible propensities, too, of the bodily organism. So nicely balanced, indeed, is the machine, that a grain can turn it to either side, but it is in the power of the will to cast that grain. Cast on the side of instinct, the propensity be- comes passion and the passion crime, and both are, for the time, insanity ; for, when once the intelligent will has lent its force to the blind impulses of the body, whether diseased or in health, it becomes only a question of time whether the individual is to be called insane, and placed under restraint or not. The man who recovers io 4 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME quickly from this madness is called a sane man, though during the few preceding minutes or hours he may have exhibited the flushed face, the rapid and violent language and gestures, and the unreasoning conclusions of a maniac ; but, strange to say, if this be very frequent, he is excused, and considered innocent of the crimes he perpetrates, exactly because he had com- mitted the greatest of all crimes by delivering up his mind to be the sport of his brute nature." Self-control in the Insane. It is a fact well known to those who have had much to do with the insane, that the power of self-control is not altogether lost, even in persons whose kind and degree of mental derangement are such as to justify their forcible separation from home and society and confinement in asylums. I have seen in very obvious cases of lunacy the exercise, for a purpose, of great, even extraordinary, powers of self-control. To say that lunatics are not amenable to many of the influences that regulate the actions of sane persons, is to assert what is not the fact. Of course the greater portion of the insane are with extreme difficulty controlled, and are incapable of con- trolling themselves ; but I am disposed to believe that even this view of the case may be exaggerated. It is the duty of the scientific and philosophic physician, entrusted "with the care of the insane, to develop in his patients the habit of self-control, and much of his comfort and success will depend upon the extent to which TRAGEDY OF INCIPIENT INSANITY 105 he is enabled to effect this desirable object. If positive lunatics are to be influenced by expecta- tion of rewards and punishment and they certainly are, it is not a great stretch of fancy to suppose that those, be they insane, or border- ing on insanity, who are allowed to be at large, and mix in society, are susceptible to the same moral influences ; and if they do not possess this power, they ought to be taught the necessity of bringing their thoughts and actions within the range of sound reason and judgment. I am anxious that my views on this important sub- ject should not be open to misconception or be misconstrued. I do not stand forward as the apologist for those who maintain, even in these enlightened days, that the criminal lunatic should be subject to the extreme penalty of the law ! The advocate of such a doctrine will find no mercy at my hands. I question the propriety of even using the word " punish- ment " in association with the really insane. If it becomes necessary, in order to bring them within proper control and discipline, to subject patients afflicted with derangement of mind to certain stringent regulations, it ought only to be considered as a part of a system of rational, humane, and philosophical treatment. In every criminal case where the question of responsi- bility arises in the course of judicial inquiry, if it be possible to establish any degree of positive insanity, it should always be viewed as a valid plea for a considerable mitigation of punishment, io6 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME and as prima facie evidence in favour of the prisoner ; and in no case where insanity clearly exists without regard to its nature and amount ought the extreme penalty of the law to be inflicted. I feel sure that the principle just enunciated is the most humane one to act upon ; it does not protect the pseudo-lunatic from just punishment, and it is conservative in its opera- tion on society as well as on those who are really under the influence of a diseased mind, and are susceptible of being controlled. Two great objects will then be attained. " It is," says Dr. Pritchard, " a great error to suppose that lunatics are not susceptible to moral discipline, or capable of being brought under the control of motives similar to those which govern the actions of other persons. It is very possible to subject them to such a rule, and this constitutes, indeed, a very important and essential part of the means of cure." In the old days the insane were regarded more or less as wild beasts. To show, however, that they are entitled to the same respect as normal people, and that their condition is only one of disease, requiring every possible consideration and kindness, I quote the words of Lord Shaftes- bury, then Lord Ashley, when introducing his speech on the reformation of the lunacy laws in the House of Commons in 1844. ' The House possesses the means of applying a real and speedy remedy. These unhappy persons are outcasts from ah 1 the social and TRAGEDY OF INCIPIENT INSANITY 107 domestic affections of private life nay, more, from all its cares and duties, and have no refuge but in the law. You can prevent by the agency you shall appoint, as you have in many instances prevented, the recurrence of frightful cruelties ; you can soothe the days of the incurable, and restore many sufferers to health and usefulness ; for we must not run away with the notion that even the hopelessly mad are dead to all capacity of intellectual or moral exertion. Quite the reverse : their feelings too are painfully active. I have seen them writhe under supposed con- tempt, while a word of kindness and respect would kindle their whole countenance into an expression of joy. Their condition appeals to our highest sympathies ' Majestic in ruin/ For though there may be in the order of a merciful Providence some compensating dis- pensation which abates within the horrors manifested without, we must judge alone by what we see ; and I trust, therefore, that I shall stand excused, though I have consumed so much of your valuable time, when you call to mind that the motion is made on behalf of the most helpless, if not the most afflicted, portion of the human race." TRAGEDY OF IRRESPONSIBILITY TRAGEDY OF IRRESPONSIBILITY Life without Reason. Dean Swift, after he had recovered from his mental breakdown, alluding to his illness, remarked : " That wretched brain gave way, and I became a wreck at random driven, Without one glimpse of reason, without one hope of heaven." This graphically describes the prostration of the human mind. It is a difficult and sad pyscho- logical problem to contemplate such a collapse. There is nothing more melancholy than a visit to a lunatic asylum, to witness the terrible mental sufferings of some of the inmates. In such establishments we see not only the poor but the rich, the educated as well as the ignorant, of our humanity. That mind which once was the dread and awe of nations, under whose thraldom kings trembled, is fallen from its high estate, trampled to the ground by a malady worse than death. That mental and often irretrievable collapse of a human mind, reducing the possessor of the same to the level of the beast that perisheth, is the saddest spectacle that can be seen in creation. Little does the sound in ii2 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME master-mind know of the terror, sufferings, and consternation existing in the diseased imagination of those mentally deranged. Reason perplexes herself in vain for terms to define man in an irrational state. It is difficult to conceive him to be a mere animal ; to divest him altogether of his intellectual attributes ; to view him as a creation " in the form of God," and yet deprived of those faculties of memory, reflection, deduction, and calculation which essentially constitute the figurative resemblance. Once degraded from humanity, his animal nature falls below the level of the brute creation, for they never lose instinct but with life, and remain subject to self -preserving restraint. Language was not made for the portraiture of this anoma- lous condition ; one is at a loss to express it even by paraphrase, or to idealise it with a sufficient accuracy to convey the idea with perspicuity. So rare is the occurrence that there is but one instance in scriptural record of a total separation of body and mind while life was still existent ; and even this is only represented by one or two distinguishing traits that serve to indicate rather the grossness of the degradation than the new character of the subject of it. We learn that Nebuchadnezzar " was driven from men and did eat grass as oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven, till his hairs were grown like eagles' feathers, and his nails like birds' claws." As of a total prostration of humanity, the picture is complete ; but we are left in ignorance as to the TRAGEDY OF IRRESPONSIBILITY 113 extent to which human passions, human desires, or the appetites peculiar to humanity, were obliterated. As the severance of body and reason was total, and the degradation was designed for punishment, it is probable that the passions and desires remained, but without the power of gratification ; unless we are to infer from the expression that his " understanding returned unto him," a temporary alienation of the soul from the body, during which the soul was in a state of suffering an inference that may possibly be correct ; for we are told that his punishment was to continue till he should " know that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will." This was a knowledge which an irrational being could not attain, as a conviction produced by suffering. It may be, therefore, that the intellectual and immaterial essence was in this case removed, and not that its functions were suspended ; while the body it had inhabited, though not actually disengaged from its affections, was left wholly unfettered by its control, and unguided by its intelligence. Correlation of the Passions. While one is at a loss to define intelligibly the status of human existence wholly apart from intellect or reason, the total severance of body and soul is an idea, if not intuitive, yet easily received, and confirmed by revelation as well as instilled by education ; but the partial paralysis of the mind or soul, while yet in union with the body, affords a 8 u 4 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME problem of which the difficulty is felt, though no words can be found to convey it. Our passions are involved in a net of correlative intricacy ; they are so interlaced with each other that a fibre cannot be wounded without affecting the sensibility of all. It is like a system of com- plicated machinery, in which the absence of a single screw may derange the whole, and put it out of working gear. The defect may be so trivial that the engineer cannot discover it ; he examines the piston, the valves, the gauge, and all the apparatus ; inspection can detect no flaw ; there is no actual cessation of action, but it " does not work well." The engine is de- ranged, not incapacitated. His remedy is simple, though expensive ; he takes it to pieces, and adjusts the parts again. But the derangement of the mind admits of no such process ; we must bear with the bad working till close observation and long experience aid us in discovering the cause of failure ; and if meanwhile we are called upon to explain the mystery, our only answer is that the machinery is " not in working gear." Passions uncontrolled by Reason. A closer examination into this web of human passions may be of service. It will not be disputed that there are to be found in every man, though modified in degree, the same dispositions to gratify, the same desires to be satisfied. The modification arises from the difference of cir- cumstances it may be of constitution, example, opportunity, or otherwise ; but the same nature TRAGEDY OF IRRESPONSIBILITY 115 that we all inherit dictates to us the gratification of our animal wants ; hunger, thirst, and self- protection, and, so far as consists with these, rest, are the desires which Nature has implanted in us. Such is the impetuosity of these desires in animal nature not controlled by reason, that the brute creation will endanger life itself to gratify these, and is gifted with instinctive means to secure them ; but man, as an animal, is gregarious, and, as an intellectual animal, has convinced himself that society requires for its common safety the restraint of animal passions. To facilitate this self-restraint, the same intel- lectual faculty has suggested a gratification yet higher than that of animal passion, in self-com- placency derived from the approbation of his fellows. Vanity will not persuade a man to die of hunger or thirst, but it will go far to keep him within the limits of due moderation, and to promote self-denial. His nature compels sociality ; this is his animal instinct. His reason tells him that society has its laws, founded on what may be called a reciprocity of self- restraint. This is the position in which we find ourselves placed by nature as intellectual animals. Gratification of the Passions. It is obvious that if there were an exact parity of circum- stances of motive and of opportunity, we should be reduced to an instinctive state of existence. Like bees in a hive, we should do our duty as good citizens, each in his sphere, and nobody transgressing or falling short of his n6 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME proper limit. We are not, however, mere animals similarly circumstanced, but responsible beings ; and to secure this responsibility, it has pleased the Creator to place us under a variety of circum- stances, affording different temptations. To some are given varied temperaments and robust health, tempting to sensuality ; to some unbounded wealth, affording the solicitation of frequent opportunity ; to others, and far more frequently, privation and distress, that seduce into dishonest paths. Some are endowed with rank so exalted as to place them above the decencies of life, while others are depressed so low as not even to understand them ; one can offend with impunity because he cannot lose caste ; another has no caste to lose, and is, therefore, equally unrestrained. In all these varieties of position the animal wants common to our race must be gratified alike ; but the means of gratification being unequal, the in- equality of man provokes a corresponding in- equality of passion and pursuit. The wealthy sensualist indulges in daily potations, large perhaps and enervating, but not intoxicating. The pauper sensualist lives like a hermit till Saturday night, and then gets drunk with gin. The rich debauchee, always gratified to satiety, degenerates into a saturated clod of earth ; the needy drunkard alternates between the extreme depression and the wild excitement of occasional inebriety. The former becomes morose, un- reasonable, and tyrannical ; the latter cunning, TRAGEDY OF IRRESPONSIBILITY 117 vindictive, and desponding. The first is uniformly indolent, the last idle and energetic by turns. Or perhaps intemperance is not, in its grosser forms, the besetting sin in either case. Infirmity of body or early habit may prevent it. Riches and opportunity may act in another direction, and tempt their possessor to the purchase of power. Power tends to oppression, oppression to resistance, and re- sistance to revenge. So, on the other hand, poverty may provoke to discontent, and dis- content to rapacity and violence. The trader begins in frugality and ends in avarice ; the ingenuity of the mechanic often terminates in the gambling of the speculating patentee ; the man of science pushes analysis and research to the verge of scepticism as re- gards truth ; perhaps the statesman may start in his career in a patriotic spirit, while the chances are a hundred to one that he closes it in political corruption, or selfish and unscrupu- lous ambition. Restraint of the Passions. To check the vehemence of these passions, and correct their downward tendency, society has invented a double system of restraint ; religion has im- posed a third, more powerful than either; the Decalogue has enumerated and prohibited specific offences of heinous guilt, under penalty of incurring the wrath of God ; and the Gospel has extended the prohibition and the penalty to the spirit as well as the letter of the offence. n8 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME But we are not all religious ; and, therefore, to secure the common peace, society has promul- gated her own codes in aid of the divine law, where passion is indulged to an extent that threatens actual injury or risk to others ; legisla- tion steps in to define the crime and visit it with appropriate punishment. This is one part of our restraining system ; but it is clearly applicable only to cases where an evil intent is manifested by overt acts, and such as can be well defined, not only by words, but by their practical results. We can justly punish, because we can accurately describe, murder, theft, arson, forgery, and such-like crimes ; but, consistently with due regard to freedom, we cannot recognise constructive crime as a fair subject for penal enactment. In some instances we have gone to the very verge of discretion in the latitude of our legislative wisdom, but in all free states crime must be accurately defined, so as to admit of accurate proof, before it can be rendered penal. Yet passion may be indulged in to a very culpable excess, without transgressing the boundary that legislation has declared. To pro- vide some restraint even in such cases, society has attached to this culpability what may be called a moral penalty, in the forfeiture of its good opinion, thus availing itself of a peculiarity of our nature which was, doubtless, implanted in us for good purposes, though often productive of the worst. It cannot be that men were created to live together, and yet to be indifferent TRAGEDY OF IRRESPONSIBILITY 119 to the esteem and respect of their fellow-creatures ; to set this up as a paramount motive would be to disobey the command to fear God rather than man ; to disregard it as a secondary motive is to despise the example of Christ Himself, who, as He grew in stature, grew in favour also both with God and man. Society, therefore, has wisely imported this principle into her restraining system, and, by force of it, the woman who has surrendered her virtue, the man who is responsible for it, or who has been convicted of malicious falsehood, of fraudulent practices, of breach of trust, of violating good faith, such as opening or betraying a private letter, eavesdropping, vindictive slander, or any other sin against the so-called code of honour, is tacitly shunned as one who wants nothing of legal criminality, but the courage to defy its penal consequences. And, on the other hand, the man who rigor- ously acts up to this conventional decadency of the world, finds himself so protected by its smiles, that he may cut his neighbour's throat if he will, provided he does it in a gentlemanly way, by tendering his own to a similar process ! And thus, by the very restraints imposed upon our passions, ultra their necessary stimulus to provide for the wants of our animal nature, a new impulse to excess is given us in the gratification of that pride or vanity which, when rationally indulged, supplies the best security for conforming to social usages. Even for this licentious self-complacency society has found an 120 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME appropriate, and, generally, an efficient remedy in ridicule and laughter ; its displeasure may lose its acerbity, but it is not the less painfully felt or the less openly expressed. This exposition of the working of our passions from their first legitimate use of opportunity to the ultimate abuse of it, may perhaps appear elaborately commonplace ; I introduce it to show the infinite gradations that are found in the relaxation of the control of reason, from the first, and perhaps momentary, indulgence of passion beyond the supply of animal wants, till the chronic indulgence of it carries the offender beyond the limits affixed by law. Strictly and metaphysically speaking, the very first post- prandial glass of wine beyond the allowance which animal want dictates for the restoration of exhausted nature, is a self-indulgence which reason forbids, and is, therefore, as much an act of an irrational animal as self-investiture in a diadem of straw. It disturbs no faculty of ratiocination, it is true ; sometimes it improves the power ; and if the extra glass is taken with that view, it is a rational, not an irrational, act. But if taken merely to please the palate, or to produce a little brief, pleasurable excitement, the natural appetite being already appeased, it becomes an excess of the restraint which reason imposes, and is the act of an irrational being. So, again, in the trader's case. All trade is, in some sense, a speculation on con- tingencies . So long as the speculation is governed TRAGEDY OF IRRESPONSIBILITY 121 by a knowledge of the market and by calcula- tions founded on experience, it is rational and legitimate, if the risk is fairly within the limits of his capital ; but a single adventure, however small, if not hedged round with these protective circumstances, assumes the gambling character, and proves that the passion of avarice has been carried beyond the limit prescribed by reason ; it then becomes the act of an irrational animal. Once more, an honest barber in a borough town may usefully devote a leisure hour to parochial matters in the vestry ; he is talkative, fluent, and good-humoured, and, of course, carries all before him ; he reduces a rate, or removes a nuisance, and makes himself useful to his neigh- bours all this is rational and praiseworthy. Elated by success, and presuming upon the good- will he has secured, he offers himself at the next vacancy as a candidate to represent the borough in opposition to Lord John or Sir Robert, the owner of half the town ; here reason, for the moment, has ceased to exercise its control vanity has been indulged beyond a useful purpose ; he acts irrationally and is laughed at. Folly. Such casual and trifling disobedience to reason is designated as simple folly. It amounts to no more than a verification of the old adage, nemo mortalium. Yet, if often re- peated, the control of reason is suspended ; if habitually repeated, irrationality becomes habitual ; and inasmuch as passion of any kind cannot be habitually indulged without acquiring 122 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME additional strength by the indulgence, as the cause becomes more powerful the effect becomes more marked ; reason is eventually defeated in the struggle, and a state of confirmed lunacy is induced. The approximation to this state may by degrees be almost imperceptible ; it may be accelerated by accident, such as wounds, disease, or domestic anxiety ; anything tending to un- usual excitement may cause more frequent resort to the accustomed irrational gratification. And so it may be retarded by similar accident ; the restraint of an unexpected guest, a sudden necessity for travelling or change of residence, even illness of a lowering kind, may suspend the opportunity or the inclination for the wonted indulgence ; or the enjoyment of one passion may, for a time, be neutralised by the oppor- tunity of yielding to another of an antagonistic character. Where casual irrationality slides into chronic irrationality thus slowly and subject to such interruptions, it will cease to excite sus- picion that our most experienced men of science feel and generally avow their inability to define the state ; a single drop makes the glass flow over, yet the most accurate eye cannot determine . whether the glass will receive one or fifty more without overflowing. It is as difficult to de- termine the precise moment when passion has overpowered reason and ejected her from her seat, as it often is to fix the minute when death has separated the body and the soul. We feel for the failing pulse, and put the mirror to the io. Star-gazing maniac with delusions ot special messages, n. 12. Typical cases of hallucinations of hearing. 13. Hearing the imaginary voice of God ; the position is never changed. TRAGEDY OF IRRESPONSIBILITY 123 lips, and we linger in silent agony before we dare close the half-shut eye and announce that the spirit has departed. Idiocy and every class of mania not marked by visible symptoms of organic disease, comprise within their limits many intermediate forms, some of which pass into each other by insensible gradations, and are not easily distinguishable by language, although the extremes are well-defined and very remote from each other. Mania will pass into melan- cholia with prophetic hallucinations. Evidence of Insanity. It is for this reason that the facts which are commonly presented to medical witnesses as criteria to test the sanity of a person are often absurdly equivocal. In a lunacy inquiry on a lady, the attention bestowed on half a dozen cats was gravely tendered as a proof of irrationality ; as if every old woman in the country had not half a dozen pets of one kind or other at her elbow. In other cases, slovenliness of dress, jealousy of female attendants, apprehension of domestic treachery, and even eternal scribbling, have been quoted as evidences of an alienated reason sufficient to satisfy the physician whose opinion is to guide the jury. If the question raised is whether these failings are inconsistent with a well-regulated mind, that is, a mind governing its will by certain fixed utilitarian principles, such facts would be relevant to the issue ; nor can it be denied that an accumulation of habits decidedly eccentric and motiveless warrants a suspicion 124 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME in aid of proof. No single fact, nor any accumu- lation of facts, for each of which a possible, though inadequate, reason may be assigned, is, per se, conclusive of irrationality ; as, for example, had it been proved that this same lady was in the habit of walking backwards in the park for half an hour daily, what stress would have been laid on such a peculiarity ? No man can take a pedestrian tour through Wales without occasionally witnessing a similar exhi- bition in well-dressed, sensible-looking young gentlemen ; it being well known to all addicted to such amusement that the intercostal muscles are greatly relieved, especially in ascending hills, by a change to backward walking. Appre- hension of domestic treachery is always a favour- ite topic with the pro-lunacy counsel. One of the most eminent artists, whose intellect was as brilliant as his colours, for many years pur- sued the habit, dictated by similar distrust, of baking his own bread, grinding his own flour, and cooking his own dinner, with the same hands that gave enchanting animation to his canvas. A single act may be ultra the restraint of reason ; even an habitual practice may be motiveless to absurdity, and to that extent irrational, and yet common sense forbids us to regard it as diagnostic of insanity. It may warrant the con- clusion that the agent does not appreciate the force of that conventional code of discipline which I have just described ; it may justify censure or ridicule as an error in good sense, a breach of good TRAGEDY OF IRRESPONSIBILITY 125 manners, or an offence to good taste, but it does not prove settled irrationality. Nebuchadnezzar, on being restored to understanding, might have retained in his palace some of the freedoms of his seven years' apprenticeship to brutality ; he may still have found dress an incumbrance, ablution a painful nuisance, and all the restraints that decency imposes on social intercourse, for a time, unnatural. It is probable from the narrative that these mementos of his humiliation were not abruptly removed ; yet we cannot, consistently with the truth of Scripture, con- tend that they ought to have been received as evidence of continuing irrationality, for the pre- cise limit of his mental alienation was propheti- cally fixed ; nor would such a diagnosis have been correct, even if he had vindicated the adherence of his bestial habits. He might have plausibly urged that a sudden change to the warmth of clothing would be prejudicial to his bodily health ; that frequent washing was painful to the new cuticle ; that the peristaltic action would be impeded by needless control. Such reasoning would at least have been plausible, yet, in modern times, it would have been quoted by some sound authorities as indicative only of the acknowledged cunning of confirmed insanity, and, malgr'e the prophetic limit, a jury would have found him incapable of managing his own affairs, though the Creator had restored his kingdom as well as his understanding. As acts of irrationality multiply in their 126 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME frequency or their kind, they may safely be received as indications of a progressive struggle going on between reason and passion, and that the latter is gradually gaining the mastery, but not that the victory is obtained. The abuse of opium furnishes a convenient illustration of my meaning. Its essential medical property is so well understood, that men frequently resort to it as a sedative, without duly appreciating it as a stimulant ; the dose is repeated till its pleasurable excitement becomes familiar, and then the limit of its medicinal use is transgressed, regardless of its noxious qualities. This is the first act of irrationality. Taken singly, it argues no more than similar excess in the indulgence of wine ; it is only the first glass beyond the just supply of natural want ; yet a systematic abuse of the drug is a much stronger symptom of the approaching surrender of reason to passion than a similar abuse of the wine, because the offender cannot be unconscious of the comparative rapidity and greater certainty of the poison ; he daily feels that the want and the gratification act reciprocally on each other with fatal effect, not only on his understanding, but on life itself, and yet he courts his enemy and the conflict. But though the symptom is stronger, still it is not conclusive ; reason is not yet conquered. The victim himself feels her dictates, and often struggles for a time to obey them. He gradually reduces the indulgence by half a grain a day. If he steadily maintains his resolution, reason has TRAGEDY OF IRRESPONSIBILITY 127 triumphed, and he rallies. But in the large majority of cases, resolution fails ; he returns to his excess, and then the only question is, whether reason will take her departure before an early death effects her total separation from the body whose passions have estranged her. If the same excess of vanity that leads an honest barber to propose himself for Parliament tempts him to array his person in military uniform, and decorate his breast with spurious clasps and medals, we cease to ridicule his folly, because we begin to doubt his sanity ; it is a step in advance, but it is not conclusive. Let the barber, m addition to his other antics, offer his hand to an heiress, or tender his acceptance for a few thousands for discount at the Bank of England, and his preposterous pretensions tend largely to the same conclusion, though still they do not establish it ; for marriage with a wealthy heiress, or even credit to a large amount, may enable him to buy a seat in Parliament, or estab- lish himself as colonel of a yeomanry regiment, and thus realise his dreams. During a brief time of peace after a war, a youth of eighteen, the follower of a very humble and peaceful occupation, was not only accus- tomed to assume a warlike garb, but more than once thrust himself, in his borrowed plumes, into the gayest military circles. He was soon detected and punished with deserved ridicule, yet he was not irrational ; but on the contrary, for thirty-eight years he maintained a high 128 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME reputation for accomplished vice, without the good fortune to excite a transient suspicion of any intellectual deficiency. All these supposed extravagances are but so many cumulative proofs of the excess to which vanity is carried beyond its use as a utilitarian principle ; they may terminate in alienation of mind, but do not prove her actual departure. If, however, simul- taneously with these absurdities, the unhappy wretch now and then mistakes a grate of hot coals for his chair, or seeks to draw a glass of ale from the spout of a boiling kettle, or shaves a customer's head in lieu of his chin, this multipli- cation of irrational acts, in kind as well as degree, justifies the conclusion that reason has actually vacated her throne, though the precise moment of the abdication may remain as problematical as ever. Struggle between Passion and Reason. There is a remarkable feature in that perpetual struggle between passion and reason which terminates in insanity in the manner I have described. From the commencement of the conflict to its termination reason is forewarned of the ultimate result. A single glass taken in excess, or a cheerful glass, as it is frequently called, is always followed by some proportionate de- pression when the power of the stimulus is exhausted. If the abuse has been but slight, the depression is transient, and is speedily removed by the excitement of business and daily duty. If the abuse has been considerable, the depression TRAGEDY OF IRRESPONSIBILITY 129 will cause a temporary incapacity for duty ; if it has been unbounded, physical incapacity supervenes, and this unconsciousness is followed by utter prostration of spirit. These stages of intoxication are well understood by the vulgar phrases of "fresh," "drunk," "gloriously drunk." The excitement is well observed and tersely described by the class with which it is common, but the subsequent depression eludes their observation. The opium-eater exhibits this alternation of gaiety and sadness in a more decided form. In his case, intoxication is elysium, and its sequence, hell ; and so it is, more or less, with every struggle between passion and reason. The calmness of self-possession gradu- ally becomes unknown. We perceive this feature clearly in the familiar instance of intoxication. It is equally marked, though less distinguishable by the unphilosophical eye, in all cases of con- tention between the appetites and the reason. Gratification gives delight, but it is transient and vanishes in self-disgust, till new gratification itself palls upon the taste ; all pleasure is lost, and incurable despondency ensues. Miserly avarice, perhaps, is an exception to the rule ; but if an exception, it is only because the passion is, from its nature, insatiable, and absolute gratification unattainable ; and even avarice, to be an exception, must be miserly, for when it assumes the form of gambling the opium-eater's languor is bliss compared to the gamester's remorse. 9 130 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME Morbid Indulgences. It cannot be doubted that these retributory warnings, inseparable as they are from all excess in the indulgence of our animal passions, are mercifully designed to give reason time to rally, to afford fair opportunity for reflection, to enable her to resist the next temptation with more fortitude and effect ; for it is indisputable that up to a certain point, when physical suffering has actually exhausted the energy of the mind, its power is never so great as when the mere animal is subdued into torpidity by satiety ; in religious language, con- science then begins to awake ; in metaphysical language, I should say that reason then exerts her power ; she looks back, she calculates, she estimates the past and plans for the future ; and she resolves. One well knows that by her strength alone her resolution will be wanting in constancy ; but considering the matter as a philosopher, not as a divine, I therefore abjure the discussion of her self-sufficiency. One only avers the fact that reason is most awakened and most powerful in the intervals that follow animal excitement, and it is a most important fact in that psychological theory for which I am contending. It is the remark of every commenta- tor that our Saviour, when tempted in the wilder- ness, an occasion when He stood alone in His humanity, found Himself in a state of almost superhuman endurance ; that the design if it be permitted so to speak of the mysteries of revelation was to add all possible v force to TRAGEDY OF IRRESPONSIBILITY 131 the temptation by the predominance of animal want. It was expedient to show to us for whom the atonement was made, that the sacrifice was immaculate. The very nature of the temptations offered, and of the indignant repulse given to them, proves that His humanity was, as it were, momentarily deserted by His divinity. He re- pelled Satan by reference to God, and not by any inherent power in Himself ; and to make His human innocence, if one may be allowed the expression, more conspicuous, the trial was aggravated by physical suffering of the precise kind that the temptation appeared calculated to relieve. It may be inferred from this that reason is weakest when passion or desire is at its culminating point ; and that as desire is satisfied, reason resumes her sway. It is through this interlocutory cessation of strife that, in the large majority of cases, even in the earlier stages of the conflict, reason re- covers her superiority once and for ever ; shame at the self-exposure for reason always desires to veil her own infirmities as well as those of the frail tenement she inhabits, apprehension of more serious consequences, and, where principle has been instilled by education, a consciousness of sin, combine to strengthen determination for the future; and temptation, resisted with success, loses power after every defeat. It is not infrequent that one finds, in more advanced stages, that a counteracting influence is brought in aid of reason when beginning to 132 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME faint from the exhaustion of reiterated assault by another inevitable result of habitual self- indulgence ; the sickness and debility of the organs that it sought to gratify. It needs not the authority of science to assure us that in whatever direction passion is indulged in to excess actual disease will sooner or later follow ; and from the sympathy that exists between every portion of the body and the brain, and more especially and perceptibly between the stomach and the brain, affections of the nervous system are usually the first-fruits of organic derangement. It is not necessarily so that cerebral substance is appreciably altered in its structure ; when that occurs in certain parts of the brain, the symptoms of insanity are no longer equivocal. But long before disease has attained that height, the patient is conscious of pain, dulness of per- ception, impairment of memory, and irregularity of thought in some cases slight epileptic or paralytic affections add their premonitory hints : and in all cases the taste for the favourite indulgence is temporarily checked. The alarm thus given, and, yet more, the abridgment of opportunity by the physician, and the languor of the depraved inclination, combine to give another respite to reason. Insane Behaviour. As a singular instance of this, a young clergyman, from domestic trials of a very severe nature, and not the less severe because induced by his own misconduct, betook himself to drinking, as well as other indulgences TRAGEDY OF IRRESPONSIBILITY 133 of a yet more debasing character. Being the incumbent of a remote country village, he was able to continue his profligate course for a few years without attracting the notice of his diocesan. At length his nervous system became so shattered that exposure was inevitable. Compassion for his state saved him from de- gradation, but he was suspended for two years. This ignominious sentence compelled his return to the parental roof, where for many months his life was despaired of, though reason never ab- solutely forsook him ; sickness, however, accom- plished her end. His moral conduct became correct, and all his intemperate habits abandoned him. This case was singular, because he was at once pronounced insane by the concurrent opinion of his medical attendants, first in the country and then in London. His parents ab- solutely denied this, and with natural jealousy repudiated all the treatment recommended under that impression, except so far as to deprive him of all opportunity of self-indulgence. Nature and reflection, aided by bodily suffering, did the rest. The conclusion to be arrived at from this theory of mental pathology is, that the sense of responsibility, though gradually decreasing at every successive stage, is never wholly lost till the alienation of reason is unequivocal ; contem- plation of consequences not only may exist in a man whose passions have had periodical sway, but nature has provided intervals for reflection and calculation arising from the very cause of 134 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME the disease, and has given to the mind during such intervals a peculiar adaptation of tone to avail itself of the opportunity thus afforded for weighing consequences. It will of course be at once understood that this theory is confined to those cases in which there is no possibility of forming a diagnosis from antecedent circum- stances or physical development. If a man has been subject to epileptic attacks of an aggravated character, it may be safe to predicate insanity, from eccentricities and absurdities of thought and action which otherwise would only indicate and amount to folly. If there is reason to appre- hend an hereditary predisposition, and the head, the complexion, or other features, indicate a scrofulous habit, the same latitude of judgment must be allowed. The state of the eyes is often symptomatic of cerebral pressure ; the expression of the features, well understood though difficult to describe, may disclose aberration of the mind at a glance ; the idiotic vacancy, though it may be casually assumed by certain actors, when permanent, is a symptom too decisive to mistake; in a word, wherever there is clearly a predisposing cause from physical injury to the head, constitu- tional affection, or visible organic defect, it is needless to go very minutely into evidence of con- duct. The cases of perplexity are those in which peculiarity of conduct alone, and unattended by decisive physical symptoms, affords the evi- dence by which the disease of the mind is to be determined ; such cases are considered to resolve TRAGEDY OF IRRESPONSIBILITY 135 themselves into metaphysical subtleties, medi- cine, as a science, being supposed to have little to do with them. The action of the mind upon the body being almost as great, though not so apparent, as the action of the body on the mind, the physician, by constant observation of the characteristic symptoms of those labour- ing under undoubted mania, may infer the existence of incipient mania from similar pheno- mena in a suspected person ; and to this extent his experience is entitled to weight. But where all such phenomena are wanting, or are uncertain in their appearance, some other theory, it is said, than that of physical disease must be suggested to account for derangement of the mind. The organic disease may be too obscurely developed to guide the judgment ; or its appreciable symptoms may exist with other affections notori- ously unconnected with mania, or insufficient to account for it. Restlessness, indigestion, increased arterial action, and many other ir- regularities of the system, are found as often in the sane as in the insane ; after mania has become confirmed, and especially in those cases where it is incurable, the bodily symptoms assume a common type, varying a little according to constitutional habit or the violent or melan- choly character of the insanity. When the mind has clearly taken its final leave of the body, as regards its proper control over it, the animal nature, thus left to itself, is, though animated, essentially a passive substance, moulded by 136 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME the same hands, and sustained by the same nourishment, and governed by the same prin- ciples, it will assimilate itself to any other sub- stance of a like nature, so far as it is exempt from any peculiarity of disease or organisation. In such cases we may expect to find general uni- formity in symptoms. Where, on the contrary, the alienation of mind is not irremediable, its morbid action on the body will be imperfectly developed ; and though local disease may exist, the actual seat of it may not be discoverable by any symptoms peculiar to itself. In such cases we are compelled to resort to some pathology of the mind to guide our diagnosis. Right and Wrong: Crucial Tests. It is not, however, for scientific purposes that I have thus suggested a principle on which such mental pathology may be based ; our idiosyncrasy is a subject of study for the practical statesman as well as the physician ; all peculiarity of tempera- ment, and the causes which elicit it, are well worthy of consideration in the dynamics of legis- lation ; it seems strictly within one's province to aid in supplying the elements of legislative calculation, and this is my apology for pursuing the inquiry into fields where science rarely trespasses. If my theory is correct, it affords a clue to the solution of the problem that has long perplexed the most acute among our lawyers, as well as the most learned among our medical professors. " Where shall the limit of responsibility be -fixed ? " TRAGEDY OF IRRESPONSIBILITY 137 The mens capax doli is, as every one knows, the criterion of lawyers ; but, except in the case of children, they always have recourse to physicians to interpret this indefinite standard. Peers and judges have often met in solemn conclave to evolve out of the confusion of ethics and meta- physics, in which both professions had become inextricably plunged, some term of more definite meaning. The united wisdom of their lordships broke down, as seems to be the inevitable lot of collective sagacity in modern times. It was announced by their supreme authority that a capability of distinguishing right from wrong should henceforth be the measure of responsi- bility. This was not even a step in advance ; it only substituted for one expression of doubtful meaning another still more unintelligible. As I long since argued, " right " and " wrong " are arbitrary terms, and no two people are exactly agreed in their application of them to any given deed of humanity. The only practical result of this learned attempt to define that which is from its nature undefinable, has been to give sanction to a judicial usurpation of the functions of a jury ; and to a certain extent this has worked well, for our judges are less credulous of insanity than our juries. It is, however, still found that in all cases where medical opinion is required, the " right from wrong " standard is unsatisfactory to our professional brethren and not always conclusive with a jury, notwithstanding their wonted deference to the 138 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME court, and a total ignorance of the question ; the problem of responsibility, therefore, still remains unsolved. Bearing constantly in mind that the problem never arises in cases of unequivocal insanity, the difficulty may be stated thus : we find a man apparently in good health charged with a breach of our criminal code ; the offender has long been noted for eccentricity, and the crime appears to have been committed without obvious motive ; is such a man to be held responsible like other men ? The corollary from my theory is, that crimin- ality, moral or legal and, as regards the argu- ment, it matters not which is not only consistent with the progressive alienation of reason, but is at once the cause and the invariable precursor of its final departure, excepting only in such cases as may be explained by physical indications of a determined character. All indulgence of our animal propensities beyond the limit that is necessary for the support and propagation of animal nature, is, morally and religiously, a crime ; that is to say, it is a transgression of the boundary which the law of God has appointed to the gratification of our animal appetites. The law of man has been less severe in limiting the boundary ; its restraint only begins when self- indulgence becomes injurious to the reasonable gratification of others. The former code has for its object to fix our responsibility on our Creator ; the latter code to fix our responsibility on society; TRAGEDY OF IRRESPONSIBILITY 139 but the subject-matter of either code is equally the gratification of our appetites, and the object of both is self-restraint. Conscience gives strin- gency to the first and punishment to the latter, while reason is the guide to submission in both cases. Disobedience to our guide is visited with immediate penalty in the one case and with future penalty in the other ; and inasmuch as immediate punishment is always more potent as a check than remote punishment, we find a far larger proportion of mankind acting in dis- obedience to reason in reference to the law of God than in reference to the law of man ; hun- dreds and thousands daily indulge in many a glass too much for actual necessity, who would be horrified at the idea of being picked up in the street in unconscious drunkenness ; yet the offence is the same except in the circumstances. The incident of publicity brings it, in the one case, within the category of municipal crime, but reason is as much offended in the one case as in the other ; her restraint is despised in both instances ; criminality instantly attaches, but responsibility is instant or remote, according to the code which has been violated. In the first stages of criminality, consequences are calcul- ated with accuracy and even anxiety ; as it becomes more frequent, impunity becomes an element in the calculation, till reiterated experi- ence of impunity bids defiance to all calculation, and the offender persists in his career, regardless of consequences. This is the precise epoch from 140 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME which common observers are apt to date the moral symptoms of mental aberration ; nor can this excite surprise, for the debilitation of reason by reiterated defeat in her conflicts with passion is a theory that has never been propounded. Conscience becomes callous by resistance, but this is a faculty so distinct from uneducated reason, that it often becomes obliterated before reason has attained its majority. Neglected Consequences. Disregard of con- sequences does not necessarily imply inability to calculate them. A man who cannot swim may plunge into the sea to save a child from drown- ing ; in his generous heroism he disregards con- sequences ; he is perfectly able to calculate them, and may have argued the folly of such self-sacrifice only five minutes previously ; but generosity is a passion, though, unfortunately, of rare occurrence. He yields to the impulse of passion, and defies consequences ; for the moment reason has lost her influence ; and if he fails in his object, but is himself saved, he will probably assent to the selfish comment that he was a fool for his pains. Yet, in such a case, or for such a cause, who would venture to denounce him mad ? Charity herself could not deny his responsibility, though she would plead the generous feeling as a fair ground for his noble efforts. The argument will hold good in the case of the baser passions as well as in the noblest ; it is only the palliation that fails. TRAGEDY OF IRRESPONSIBILITY 141 My corollary is also sustained by the strict analogy which is observable between the progress of crime and the progress of mental alienation. The sophists of antiquity were as familiar as ourselves with the graduality of degeneration. The chaplain of every gaol listens daily to con- fessions that prove the apothegm, Nemo re- pente fit turpissimus. The first watch abstracted from its owner ticks punishment into the ears of the thief for hours ; the watch goes down and apprehension goes down with it ; some " fence " buys it for a sovereign, and the delinquent finds himself in wealth for four and twenty hours. Such, however, has been his alarm after the first offence, that reason resumes a temporary sway ; he reckons up the risk and resolves better things ; but meanwhile he starves, and starvation is not the less painful in the recollection of his recent day of plenty and debauch ; he will try the adventure once more only once more ; if he succeeds he will husband the resources it supplies, and look out for honest employment. It is reasonable to allow himself a better chance ; if he can " twig " a purse, his profit will be greater and give him more time to seek for occu- pation. He watches an unsuspecting victim receiving dividends, and, aiding audacity by ingenuity, again succeeds twenty sovereigns reward his second crime ; he reckons with more confidence on impunity he finds his reckoning right ; a fortnight of idleness and profligacy repays him, and crime now becomes his trade. i 4 2 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME Planned robberies, well organised, succeed to petty thefts, and these, in turn, are superseded by higher and more profitable crime ; the wants of nature are well supplied, and passion, beyond her wants, is abundantly indulged in ; indulgence adds craving to the appetite, and appetite must be satisfied, reckless of consequences. This is the ladder by which the highwayman and murderer ascends to the scaffold. Vindictiveness. It matters not what may be the character of the crime ; it may be arson, it may be rape ; the first successful gratification of vindictive feeling leads by similar progres- sion to the one ; the first flirtation of simple sensuality, unchecked, if not encouraged, leads by the like gradation to the other. In all cases progress from venial to bad, from bad to worse, and thence to extremes, is the invariable trait of the criminal career ; consequences are first calculated with anxiety, then merely weighed against immediate gain, and, finally, disregarded altogether. Here we find a perfect identity of character with that form of mental alienation which is distinct from organic disease. There is no abrupt transition, no sudden metamorphosis, no marked convulsion of the system, no violent disturbance of accustomed habit ; cause produces effect by obvious and natural process. Each successive step is characterised by the same traits. The first is so slight an interruption to the daily path that it is taken almost unawares ; 14- A pyromaniac ; wilfully setting fire to public conveyances. 15. Destructive mania for destroying the pictures in the Louvre ; it is supposed that the " Mona Lisa " in the Louvre was the act of a similar lunatic, both artful and cunning, but methodical. 16. Exalted ambition and grandiose delusions from alcoholic indulgence. 17. Delusions of grandeur ; explaining to the inmates of the asylum his views ; very eloquent and convincing. TRAGEDY OF IRRESPONSIBILITY 143 then conscience, the barometer of morals, in- dicates a fall to a lower level ; consequences are now calculated with alarm that magnifies their danger, and the calculation always arrests, and sometimes prevents, further descent. Passion at length revives with aggravated strength, and suggests that reason has overrated risk. Then comes the second step, again followed by self- reproach, but with pangs less durable and apprehensions less lively and defined. Thus the interval is reduced between the second and the third outburst, and that reduction proceeds in geometrical progression ; then step follows step with a rapidity that admits of no check, till descent is terminated at the bottom of the abyss. In both cases the gravitation is occasion- ally interrupted ; opportunity is lessened by change of circumstances, waning energy, or lowering sickness ; these present a temporary obstacle, like a projecting crag that breaks the precipice, and extends a momentary reprieve. But though strength may be recruited, it rarely re-ascends the heights ; the downward tendency has become habitual ; even the sensation of reckless descent has acquired a charm ; despera- tion itself is not without a compensating power, and the temporary self-possession succumbs to it. Identity of object is as marked as identity of progress ; the object in both cases is self- gratification, or, more correctly speaking, grati- fication of passion. And here the legal criminal i 4 4 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME is often less culpable than the moral criminal, and therefore more entitled to the protection of irresponsibility. Our passions being designed for the support and perpetuation of our animal nature, concession to them, up to a certain point, is, as has been observed, legitimate ; but the pauper can with difficulty provide gratification even up to this legitimate extent ; when his superiors complain of hunger, he complains of famine ; they talk of fashion and overheated rooms, while he bewails both cold and nakedness. If both transgress in availing themselves of the opportunity for excess, why should the rich man have a better claim than the other to the privilege of irresponsibility ? It must be admitted, how- ever, that both are offenders, whatever may be their comparative temptation ; for the gratifica- tion of passion, beyond the demands of animal nature, is their common object. The pick- pocket has no abstract love of stealing for its own sake, unless here and there vanity may prompt him to exhibit his skilfulness in the art. As a general rule, he steals to get a dinner ; and he steals in preference to working, because the labour is less and the profit greater ; he provides a dozen meals in less time than the honest navigator can earn one. Thus the animal love of rest is gratified simultaneously with the desire for food ; he has enough for the hour and to spare ; destitute of other resources for amuse- ment, he feeds his passions with the surplus, and steals again to satisfy the cravings of stimu- TRAGEDY OF IRRESPONSIBILITY 145 lated appetite, though at first he only stole to appease the same appetite in its natural state. The object of the moral offender is precisely the same ; he too, by the temptation of opportunity, has stimulated passion to a pitch of morbid craving, and, cotite que codte, it must be satisfied. He need not steal, but he opens a second bottle, and, were it not in his cellar, he would steal rather than want it ; not, perhaps, on the first occasion, nor yet the second, nor indeed for many. At first he pays in cash ; he then pays on credit ; then borrows ; and when means and credit are exhausted, he defrauds or steals, and descends to the class of legal crime ; for gratification he must and will enjoy, beyond the mere wants of animal necessity. If his means are too ample to exhaust, the object is still the same the amplitude or the insufficiency of means is a mere accident from a philosophic standpoint. I have taken but one, and that the most familiar subject of inordinate self-indulgence. Crabbe a name scarcely known to the present generation, though venerated by their grandfathers has beautifully illustrated this truth in his village tales. The only essential difference in the positions of the legal and the moral criminal is, that the self-indulgence of the one is dangerous to the community, and of the other only to him- self ; in the former it is practised at the public expense, and in the latter at his own. But this is a difference that points to a plausible objection to my theory. " How does 10 146 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME it happen," it may be urged, " that the large majority of legal criminals are of an age so young that it would be absurd to contend for the triumph of passion over reason ? Their reason is not matured ; they are for the most part too ignorant to appreciate, or even feel, her restraint. Who ever heard of a boy of fifteen setting up the defence of insanity to a charge of pilfering ? ' The difference I have mentioned affords the answer. If the child of fifteen, or five years younger, has displayed an art in avoiding de- tection, it is conclusive that his reason, however limited, has sufficed to tell him that he has broken the law. He has disobeyed the dictates of reason no less than the adult. It is conceded, however, in his case, that reason cannot have been extinguished altogether by perennial de- feat in his struggles with passion. Even passion itself, at so youthful an age, rarely attains its strength. But legal criminality being dangerous to the community, it is necessary that a system of prevention and detection should be instituted ; and as juvenile crime is less artificial, it is more easily detected, and thus the young criminal is arrested in his career long before the triumph of passion over reason is achieved. My theory is, that every self-indulgence, beyond the claims of animal want in its natural state, is opposed to reason, and, as an act uncontrolled by reason, it is so far an act of insanity, in any strict and philosophical sense of the term. But we must TRAGEDY OF IRRESPONSIBILITY 147 not, therefore, say that reason is unseated ; her actual expulsion from the animal man is only effected by the constant repetition of irrational acts at shorter intervals and in greater variety, so that the contempt of reason becomes chronic and habitual. Reason. Every animal, whether human or bestial, is endowed with certain properties for self-preservation and self-generation. In the lower orders of creation these properties are called instinct ; man, as an animal, enjoys an instinct too, but in him the instinctive faculties are associated with powers of a far higher quality, with a view to a preparation for a nobler and an eternal state of existence. His instinct, apart from these higher powers, resembles the instinct of any other animal in its essential properties. It is perfect from his birth ; it is not progressive, because it is incap- able of improvement. Instinct guides him to the breast ; instinct dictates the squalling of the infant as well as the bleating of the lamb ; instinct makes him shun pain, and cry for pro- tection from approaching danger. The infant will shrink from a dog or a cat as soon as his eyes are capable of observation ; he fears enter- ing a field where cattle are feeding ; he shrinks from the touch of strangers, and will even hide himself on their entrance ; he runs to his mother at the howling of the storm or the pattering of the hail ; all this fear is instinctive, and shared by the infant with the animal creation. As he 148 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME advances to puberty, other instinctive feelings are awakened, and are indicated by the same change of manner, appearance, and disposition that marks the puberty of brutes. But though his instinct is not progressive, those higher powers with which it is associated are ; he is at an early age conscious of a will to obey or to resist his animal propensities ; he cannot define this elective power, but he feels it ; he is sensible of a freedom of action wholly independent of his animal nature ; he marks the distinction between himself and dumb animals, not merely in outward form or in their respective objects of desire, but in volition. It may be restrained by circumstances, it may be fettered by parental authority ; but still he feels and enjoys the will. This development of will, in his independence of necessity, is the ray which opens the bud of reason ; what may be its germ is known only to the Creator Who planted it. As it expands, it exhibits faculties of calculation, of deduction, and of anticipation. He finds these faculties subservient to his animal wants, which instinct explains, though it can no longer provide the means of gratifying ; and here the range of reason closes. If we could conceive a man abandoned at this crisis to absolute solitude in the steppes of Tartary or the wilds of America, and destitute of all means of information from social inter- course, it is probable that he would degenerate into a mere animal existence, though gifted with more cunning and less instinctive sagacity than TRAGEDY OF IRRESPONSIBILITY 149 the ourang-outang. He would indulge to satiety when food was abundant ; but if sickness followed the indulgence, his rationality might prevail to check the repetition, till long privation provoked to a second surfeit. If the pain of sickness had been great, instinct would step in to restrain him, and reason would suggest reserving out of the abundance a sufficiency for a future meal. But whatever aid he might thus derive from reason, his own self-preservation would still re- main the sole object of his thoughts, and animal indulgence the single end of all his efforts. In such a case reason would not become enfeebled, simply because she would be subjected to no struggle ; subject to no law but that imposed by instinct for preservation, she could violate no obligation ; and the stronger she found the animal passions, the more imperative would be her duty to contrive for their gratification. She would probably become the slave of passion when conscious of no responsibility to any other master. Not only does the development of the will give its first bloom to the reasoning power, but there is imposed on man's actions an artificial restraint under the name of the law ; his will prompts him to the gratification of his instinctive wants ; his reason suggests the means of gratification ; and, simultaneously with this newly acquired servant, he discovers that physical restraint impedes the freedom of his action, though not of his volition. First there is the law of the 150 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME nursery he resists, and is sent to bed ; then there is the law of the school he still resists, and is flogged. The law of the academy follows ; he still resists, and still is punished, restraint being throughout associated with disgrace. At length, emancipated from all physical control, he enters on the world at large, and there finds that a double code of law is enforced ; the penalty of a breach of the one being punishment combined with infamy ; the breach of the other being visited by disgrace and exclusion from his caste. Where education has been based on religion, he finds a yet more formidable check, and yet more dreadful penalties though more remote. Reason is thus exercised in early life by continual struggle, and gains strength by the conflict, because she is assisted by physical and extraneous discipline ; while this continues she can do battle with volition, and bring it into habitual subjection. The triumph tells to her advantage even on the score of gratification, for, if less intense, it is more certain in its occurr- ence and innocuous in its results. At length, however, this extraneous aid is withdrawn, so far as regards immediate check ; the penal consequences of indulgence to excess are removed to a distance, and reason and passion are left in an open field to " fight it out " as best they can. The will desires to remove all impediments to gratification ; the faculties of calculation, deduction, and foresight soon devise a way, but TRAGEDY OF IRRESPONSIBILITY 151 they, at the same time, distinguish danger in the distance, which instinct cannot see, and to which volition will not give credence. If these faculties, which are conventionally expressed by the term " reason " retain the power given to them by habit, volition remains in subjection still ; if the force of habit is relaxed, volition regains her early ascendancy, and the animal predom- inates over the intellectual ; this ascendancy is at first transient. It is part of our animal nature, and mercifully ordained by the Creator, that pain, whether of mind or body, is often only a transient sensation ; man cannot long exist under the pressure of unceasing pain ; as physical causes will always produce their physical effect, pain will follow the first transgression of temper- ate limits ; while the pain continues, reason condemns volition for its folly, and resolves to withhold further aid to its gratification. The pain subsides, and soon ceases to be recollected in all its acuteness, or even comes to be forgotten altogether. A first offence entails no per- manent disgrace, and reason begins to urge that she has overrated the distress of punish- ment ; she has undergone it once, and it is not so severe in remembrance as it used to seem in anticipation ; thus she is prepared to yield more readily on her next encounter with volition. It is another general law of pathology that the second attack of the same disease is, in its immediate and painful symptoms, less intense 152 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME than the first, where the complaint is not, in its nature, chronic, or proceeding from con- stitutional affection ; cases are constantly to be met with where the reiterated recurrence of a local disorder gives it an incurable hold upon the system, and yet the patient scarcely suffers pain amounting to more than incon- venience, though in its earlier stages the pain was acute. Something of this kind occurs in excessive self-indulgence ; and smoking gives a familiar illustration. The first time that the fumes of tobacco are inhaled to even a moderate extent, most distressing sickness follows ; the second time, if the interval is long, the same result will follow, but the nausea will be less and of shorter duration ; after three or four experi- ments, this painful derangement of the stomach is no longer felt, unless the indulgence has been extreme ; and eventually a man will smoke all day unconscious of any inconvenience. Many other morbid affections would admit of similar illustration. Reason, when defeated in her second conflict with volition, again suffers the penalty of pain, but in a less aggravated form ; the effect of in- temperance is the same in character but less in degree, and its recollection less admonitory, after successive trial ; the seeds of chronic disease and abundant debility are sown, but the painful paroxysms that at first followed in their sequence are no longer felt; thus the TRAGEDY OF IRRESPONSIBILITY 153 penalty, though still inevitable, is more re- mote, and reason, not sustained by immediate apprehension, is more and more enfeebled in her resistance. I have thus far only described the struggle as it might occur equally in the hypothetical case which I have put of an utter outcast from society ; a struggle between volition and reason, where pain is the only restrictive penalty ; and I have adopted this simple form because it affords a plain view of its nature and progress. Though the laws of society interpose other restrictive penalties, and so far have strength- ened reason for the conflict, the tactics of the warfare remain the same, whether we place man in a social or a solitary condition. The inference entitled to be drawn from these premises is, that it is exactly in proportion as self-control is rendered habitual by early training, that reason is enabled to retain her powers in health and strength through life. The force of habit must be added to the force of reason to keep voli- tion in constant, unvarying subjection. It must not be supposed that those better motives which religion inculcates, or that all-powerful support which the sincere Christian derives from the grace of the Holy Spirit, are contradicted or depreciated. I am inquiring into the state of man as an intellectual animal, gifted with instinctive passion on the one hand and with self-controlling faculties on the other ; a free agent as regards his volition, yet restricted by 154 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME physical and social responsibility as regards his acts. Irresponsibility and Pathos of Old Age. " All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players : " We all play our part on that stage ; we all pass through the various ordeals and risks to which humanity is prone. Some escape unscathed ; others fall victims to some terrible malady when least expected. As far as insanity is con- cerned, children are far less liable to mental collapse than adults. The insanity of a child is indeed a sad spectacle, and is often brought about through the wickedness and debauchery of its parents. The insanity of the adult is often occasioned through either his own excess or through other causes for which he is respon- sible. The insanity of old age, often seen in the most brilliant intellects, is brought on frequently from overwork, resulting in softening of the brain. Many efforts have been made to prevent the advance of the inevitable, but as each year passes, there is found still more diminution in the intellectual power. The preservation of the intellect to the latest period of age depends upon circumstances, over many of which we have no control. The nerves may be weak by nature, or there may be a scrofulous or gouty taint, the heirloom of the family ; or a failure in the functions of the heart or stomach, natural or acquired. The early TRAGEDY OF IRRESPONSIBILITY 155 part of life may have been corroded by anxiety, weakened by privations, or overstrained by toil, which neither we nor our progenitors could either foresee or prevent. Wine or ardent smrits may have been too freely indulged in, and their use apologised for upon the plea of social engage- ments or a feeble constitution ; while the more sensual passions may not have been held in " hand " with the curb of a tightened rein. Fortune may have arrived when she has ceased to be sought for ; and honour bestowed or achieved when it is too late to facilitate the happiness of ourselves, and more especially of those with whom we are surrounded, this is but poor solace. In each of these instances the mind decays early, and the earlier, the sooner the stimulus of necessity is withdrawn or suppressed. Besides all this, there is a climacteric period in man as well as in woman. In woman it occurs soon after forty, or, at the latest, at fifty ; but in man it varies between his thirty-fifth and sixty- fifth years. When it takes place in man, his character and figure both undergo a change, sometimes for the better, but sometimes for the worse. He becomes fat or thin, attenuated or obese. Old age sets in apace. The hair turns gray or white, the affections congeal, virility ceases ; or, on the other hand, the figure becomes lean and lank, the features are shrivelled, the hair falls off, and the complexion tans, while the mind improves, the wit sparkles, the understanding solidifies, and the flash of 156 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME genius burns brighter than ever. The experi- ence of a whole life comes into play ; and the tardy seedlings of spring enrich the autumn of our days with fruit. In these cases, the organic life suffers at the cost of the cerebro- spinal system. But, on the contrary, we see the mind degenerate, without our being able to account for it, in the most pitiable manner possible. Follies of the most deplorable kind are committed. The old man marries a young girl, and, after having been respected for his frugality and prudence, suddenly breaks out and affects to play the boy, the gallant, and the fop. Sometimes something worse than folly ensues. The religious man becomes a worldling, the upright a spendthrift, the trustworthy a swindler ; or he falls a dupe to religious en- thusiasts or knaves, mistakes idealities for faith, fasts, prays, preaches, and insults the world. No doubt, alteration of the brain is taking place part passu with these alterations of character. It may be cerebral atrophy indicated by the loss of memory, slowness of speech and manner, and debility of gait and action. Or the circulation through the encephalon may be checked or impeded by ossification of the arteries, or soften- ing of the coats of the cerebral arteries, or more pronounced disease of the heart and large vessels; or the neurine itself may be undergoing a change, particularly on its peripheral surface, as well as on the surfaces of its several ventricles or cavities. The convolutions become paler and the furrows TRAGEDY OF IRRESPONSIBILITY 157 shallower. The weight of the whole cerebrum and cerebellum is lighter, less complex, and seems to be reduced to the condition of the brain in early life. Softening of the surface of that delicate character which is detected only by lett- ing a slender stream of water flow gently over it, is sometimes the only discoverable alteration after death. But what is a very usual occurr- ence, and yet one that is often passed by un- noticed, because it is discernible only to a well- practised eye, and this may not be present at the right moment for observing its attack, is a very slight fit of apoplexy and paralysis so slight, indeed, that it often occurs and passes away unperceived, and is recognised only in its after consequences and permanent effects. I have witnessed it often in private practice, and, though loss of life does not ensue from it immed- iately, yet its ultimate effects are sooner or later fatal, and from the moment of its infliction the patient is an altered being he never recovers himself, but continues to exist like a venerable ruin, with the marks of decay indelibly imprinted on him. Dean Swift says there is no such thing as a fine old man, for if his head and heart had been worth anything, they would have worn him out long ago. The imbecility of age is not so painful to the old themselves as it is to those who stand by and wait upon old age. With the return of our second childhood, we lose the consciousness of 158 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME our prime. The loss of any of our senses is accompanied with the oblivion of its enjoyment. Thus, the blind are cheerful, the deaf happy, and the old content. " Last scene of all That ends this strange eventful history, In second childishness, and mere oblivion ; Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything." TRAGEDY OF MENTAL OBSCURITY TRAGEDY OF MENTAL OBSCURITY Latent Insanity. The line of demarcation between responsibility and irresponsibility is difficult to define. Many symptoms lie dor- mant for a time, only to develop when least expected. Though I hesitate to pronounce the fact, it is nevertheless true that it is often the inability of the medical adviser to recognise the premonitory symptoms of mental disease in many cases that is responsible for the dread- ful tragedies that are so frequently brought to our knowledge. Latent insanity and tran- sient insanity are allied to each other. Both are responsible for much of the crime which is in existence in the world. Cases of this nature are very common. Many a man commits suicide or murder under the influence of an unrecognised form of insanity, of the existence of which his most intimate friends have not the slightest notion. Persons labouring under the effects of terrible delusions have been known to conceal them for months. Those most closely allied and on terms of intimate and close association apparently possessing their confidence have been kept in ignorance of the existence of any- 161 II 1 62 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME thing resembling a morbid mental state. I have been consulted by many who have confessed to me that they have been struggling, unknown to anyone but themselves, for months with a morbid desire to take away human life ! Others, under the influence of concealed false perceptions, have manifested strong suicidal impulses. Many a man destroys himself whilst in a state of insanity, giving no indication of any morbid condition of mind. I have often been amazed at the power of control which many lunatics are capable of exercising over their delusive impressions. We have no right invariably to conclude, in cases of self-destruction, that the mind is unclouded and free from insanity or delusion because the person has given no clear proof, prior to death, of the presence of mental aberration. I have no doubt that many crimes for which the severest pen- alty of the law has been inflicted and many suicides have been committed under the over- powering influence of some terrible delusion known only to themselves ! The brain is subject to occasional attacks of temporary disturbance, during which the mind, for a short period, is thrown off its balance, the person so affected being insane. This is what is understood by the term " transient insanity." A gentleman who had been exposed to great anxiety of mind, impairing his general health, became affected with melan- cholia. Apart from his depression of spirits, the patient in question gave no evidence of insanity. He was sitting one day with his wife, TRAGEDY OF MENTAL OBSCURITY 163 when he suddenly jumped up from his chair, exclaiming in wild excitement, " Fly for your life ! Fly ! " His poor wife, without saying one word, instantly left the room. He felt a sudden, and, to him, unaccountable impulse to beat his wife's brains out with a poker. In a few minutes the attack subsided, and he reflected with horror on the dreadful position in which he had been placed. Not many months back, a wealthy man, happy in his domestic circle, apparently without a care or anxiety to annoy him or ruffle his temper, deliberately stood in front of the glass and cut his throat ! Who would be so bold as to declare that this unfortunate man's mind was free from disease ? The Abnormal Brain. The condition of the brain after death in the insane is, again, an obscurity ; it is as misleading as the symptoms often are during life as to the real nature of the malady. It shows by its negative appearance that little, if any, credence can be placed in what is found after death, except in cases of acute insanity, or in softening of the brain. In the former we find engorgement of the blood-vessels, in the latter a softness of consistence. The fact of the brain of a criminal who, previous to execution, was alleged to be insane, indicating nothing morbid after death in the post-mortem examination by the prison surgeon, is made a great deal of by the authorities in confirmation of their decision in not yielding to the cry for mercy. They are doubtless happy in their 164 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME ignorance, and satisfied in what they imagine has been discovered to warrant the execution. To the non-scientist the question is one apparently open to argument, but to the psy- chologist, who has had experience in the asylum wards, and who has been present at the autopsy of various persons who have died from natural causes, or from brain disease, the answer is a simple one. The human brain in the ordinary European races may be said to average from 49 ounces 5 drachms in the male to 44 ounces in the female; that in the negro is 53 ounces, its weight being actually in excess of that found in the more intellectual races. It has been argued from the above statement that, inasmuch as the brain of the negro is heavier than that of a civilised being, the negro's want of intelligence and mental capacity is due to his surroundings, and to the want of education and mental training. The important question, however, appears to be, whether certain portions of the brain which are supposed to possess no individual function as exhibiting intellectual faculties are not in the negro abnormally developed, whereas certain brain centres supposed to possess these functions are not abnormally small. Many persons of gigantic intellect have possessed enormous brains out of proportion altogether to their stature. Cuvier's brain weighed 4 pounds n ounces, whilst it frequently happens that those who have but feeble intellectual capacities have very small brains ; an illustration of this may be seen in TRAGEDY OF MENTAL OBSCURITY 165 some forms of idiotism, whilst in other varieties of the same disease very large hydrocephalic heads are seen on stunted bodies. In the brains of beasts, we find that those animals which have the biggest brains are not so intelligent as those whose brains are considerably smaller. The dog is a much more intelligent being than the ox ; the latter's brain is bigger in every way, even ignoring altogether a comparison between the sizes of the two animals. The dog's brain is smaller than that of the sheep's, while the pig's brain is larger than both. The human brain measures more in the right than in the left hemisphere. By comparing the human brain with that of a rabbit it is seen that the human brain is 180 times heavier than the rabbit's, hav- ing an extent of surface seventy times in excess. It will be seen, however, that, though the human brain weighs 180 times more than that of the rabbit, it has only seventy times the extent of surface; whilst the cerebral hemispheres in a rabbit have, relatively to their volume, a surface two and a half times greater than that found in man. These facts are obtained from the weight of a human brain, which is, after removing the membranes, corpora striata, optic thalami, and corpus callosum, about 2 pounds 4 ounces. The natural inference is that the surface of the human brain, proportionately to its bulk, is much less than that in the inferior animals, and proves, beyond all possible argument and doubt, that the development of intellectual power is not 1 66 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME in direct proportion to the extent of the cerebral surface. In discussing the question it is ab- solutely essential to consider the comparative anatomy of the brain, as previously mentioned, in animals as distinct from man. From a careful analysis of the weights of brains of persons who have died insane, it may be broadly stated that the brain of an insane person weighs actually more than that of a person in the enjoyment of that greatest of earthly blessings, a mens sana in cor pore sano. On an average of upwards of two hundred cases it was found that the insane brain weighed 50 ounces 4 drachms, as compared with the weight of the sane brain previously given. One curious and significant fact appears to be sub- stantiated without a possible doubt that in the post-mortem of many persons who have been chronically insane for years, generally there is nothing apparently morbid to the vision, neither is the specific gravity different, nor is any morbid appearance detected under the microscope. We are led to believe by the supporters of cerebral localisation that in a certain portion of the brain memory is supposed to exist, and in another, ideation by which is meant a manu- factory of ideas ; but nevertheless we find that a person who has been deprived of these faculties for many years dies and exhibits nothing ab- normal in his brain. This leads one carefully to consider the question and sets one thinking. The late Dr. Brown-Se"quard, one of the most distinguished psychologists of France, who, on TRAGEDY OF MENTAL OBSCURITY 167 coming to England, was elected a physician to the National Hospital for Paralysis and Epilepsy, was not a supporter of the theory of cerebral localisation. After many years of patient re- research, he came to the conclusion that it was illogical that a substance like the grey cortex of the brain, which is of uniform structure throughout, could be portioned out into different brain physiological centres. It appeared, no doubt, to him that such was a revival of Gall's theory, a diagram of the skull mapped out into divisions, like the phrenological busts we were wont to see in days gone by. I have endeavoured to avoid all controversial matter in this work, and I have no intention of discussing the question of cerebral localisation beyond alluding to the theory of Dr. Brown-Sequard. From a careful study of the subject, based on extensive experience, I have come to the con- clusion that mental pathology is still in its infancy, and that intellectual capacity is not in any way dependent on the quantity of the brain substance existing, but on its quality, which may exist to a much larger extent in those with small brains than in those with gigantic heads. From the upper surface of the brain a large area may be sliced away without interfering with intelli- gence ; but when we come to the internal parts of the brain, we then arrive at the vexed question of intelligence having its seat there. A person with a large brain may have this in small dimen- sions or the reverse, whilst those with small 168 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME brains may have this morbidly increased. This is the secret of the whole matter ; but the actual largeness of the brain, taken as a whole, signifies nothing. I would, however, emphasise that in my opinion the intellectual faculties are in no way dependent on the size of the brain, but on its individual quality ; and in making this statement, I am quite aware that I am opposing the opinion of many persons. Abnormal Judgment. There can be no doubt that in all cases of insanity the powers of com- parison and judgment must be impaired. In many cases of monomania, there is no evidence of the faculty of volition being perverted ; neither do we discover it in many cases of melancholia. A lunatic will not admit the possibility of deception. He will argue that if he is deceived then every other admitted reality is a like deception. Those senses which act soundly enough have no power to correct the error. Sir Walter Scott relates the case of a poor lunatic in the Edinburgh Infirmary who fancied that he was living in great state and splendour in a mansion of his own, his only unhappiness being that all the dainties with which his table was supplied had the taste of porridge. The palate acted an honest part, but its appeal to the judgment was quite ineffective. Any degree of doubt which may arise in an insane person's mind regarding the realities of his fancy is of a peculiar sort, and exerts no influence, or only TRAGEDY OF MENTAL OBSCURITY 169 one of the most transient and feeble kind. " I had a species of doubt," says a recovered maniac, describing what were his feelings " I had a species of doubt, but no one who has not been deranged can understand how dreadfully true a lunatic's insane imaginations appear to him how slight his sane doubts." Insane persons will endeavour to conceal their delusions ; this is, as a rule, not successful, for the nature of the delusion will generally influence the habits and customs of the lunatic. Nevertheless, the insane will often appreciate the motives which ought to lead them to hide their aberration ; and they are well aware of the subjects on which it is necessary to exercise concealment in order to pass muster as sound in mind. But for all this, they seldom or never succeed in concealing their delusion when they are directly questioned regarding it. The most that a lunatic, desirous of passing as sane, can in general effect, is not of himself to introduce the subject upon which his judgment is said to be alienated ; but when he is expressly cate- chised upon it, he either refuses to answer any questions regarding it, which is to him a very great effort, or he certainly stumbles in his replies, and makes evident the unsoundness of his understanding. An insane lady had so far imposed upon a philanthropic visitor of the asylum in which she was confined, as to lead to a private and influential representation to the visiting commissioner that she was unnecessarily 1 70 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME and unjustly deprived of her freedom. He accordingly called unexpectedly at the asylum and had a private audience in order to satisfy himself of her condition. She answered every question in so rational a style as to afford no apparent grounds upon which her liberation should be refused. Upon consulting the case- book, however, he found that she was said to entertain the belief that she was the Duchess of Wellington or at times the Baroness Rothschild. Having obtained the key to her mystery, he held a second conversation with her, when, in spite of her anxiety to impose upon one who she knew to have the power of terminating her confinement, she exhibited such evident insanity, that he left her apartment holding up his hands in amazement. A young woman, aged twenty, was murdered, whilst asleep, by a step-sister, the wife of a sergeant-major. He had gone into the barrack yard, leaving his wife in bed, whilst the subse- quently murdered woman was sleeping in an ad- joining room. It appears that, during her hus- band's absence, his wife suddenly rose from her bed, and, seizing one of his razors, proceeded to the room where her step-sister was lying, and in- flicted a mortal injury. After committing this dreadful act the wretched woman went to find her husband in the barrack-room, and informed him as to what she had done ; she then calmly proceeded to wash her hands at the pump in the yard. -She was arrested by the police, and at the The murderer of his mistress ; acquitted as of unsound mind ; liberated ; ultimately committed suicide. 10. An alcoholic murderer. 20. The same. 21. Chronic criminal lunatic. TRAGEDY OF MENTAL OBSCURITY 171 police station she exclaimed, exhibiting the utmost horror and repugnance at what had taken place, ' This is a shocking thing I have done ; I must have been insane, or I could not have done it to a sister I loved so well ! " It appears she had been under medical treatment, but, beyond a slight affection of the liver, the medical man in attend- ance did not recognise anything abnormal indica- tive of a diseased brain. There were, however, certain symptoms which induced him to advise her to avoid excitement and keep quiet for a time. To this doctor, who was called in after the com- mission of the murder, and previous to her being taken away by the police, she said : " Oh, doctor, if I had taken your advice before, this would never have happened ! ' During the examination before the magistrate, she con- stantly interrupted the proceedings by exclaim- ing, " Oh, it is not true, it cannot be true ! It is a dream, a tale of fiction, and not a reality. If it is true, pray for me, oh, pray for me ! Let me retrace my steps to my house. I am sure it cannot be true ! ' It was proved during the trial that there was no possible motive for the act. Three children, aged respectively five and eight and one a baby in arms, were taken by their mother to a thick wood about half a mile from the house, where there was a large pond ten to twelve feet deep. They were all thrown into the water by the mother, but the baby caught in the bough of a tree, and was sus- 172 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME pended. The two eldest were held under the water by their mother until they were drowned, the infant escaping the fate of the other two for the reason just given. The woman then herself walked into the water up to the neck, and, taking the children out of the pond, laid them with their faces towards the grass. She then calmly walked home, as if nothing had taken place, and informed her neighbours of the fact. The following is the description which she gave to the police : "I took the little girl and threw her into the pond, but she could not sink because she hung on the boughs. As soon as I had done that, I saw the two other little dears in the pond, and I rushed in after them. As soon as I got into the pond, the cold water struck me and I came to my senses, and dragged the two children, now lying dead, out. The little one I took out last. When I got it out I saw it breathe." Upon being interrogated by the police, she was unable to say which way she went to the pond or which way she returned from it. For at least six months previous to the tragedy she had been under a delusion that she was ruined, and suffered from various diseases. This was no doubt a case of unrecognised insanity. Some of the most extraordinary crimes com- mitted, though bearing on the surface lucidity and sanity, are surrounded by premonitory symptoms of a contrary character. ' There is nothing the matter with me, doctor," is a common remark frequently made by patients TRAGEDY OF MENTAL OBSCURITY 173 who have been brought for me to examine. " I have simply come at my parents' request, to ease their minds," observed a young man of the age of twenty- two on entering my study. To all outward appearance he was quite normal. He commenced a long story to me to the effect that people were watching him in the street, and, though unable to give any specific occasions, could not be convinced as to the erroneous nature of his imagination. I recollect a case of a boy who had evinced precocity at school being brought to me for examination. His early career at school was one of great promise ; but he unfortunately overworked himself, and this, associated with a certain predisposition, had culminated in a condition which had caused great anxiety to his parents. Whilst at school he was not treated differently from his ordinary companions. He was obedient to his instructors, popular among his schoolmates, and regular in his attendance in class. Yet there was some- thing, when going into his previous history, which led me to come to the conclusion that even when at school he had certain premonitory symptoms which were conclusive to my mind of an unrecognised form of insanity. Upon his entering my consulting-room he gave me a lucid description of his school-days, and of his ordinary life since leaving school. He had of late, he told me, been unable to apply himself to the course of study which had been mapped out for him. There were, apparently, no delusions 174 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME of any description. His general appearance, however, was to my mind not a normal one. During my conversation with him he frequently lost the thread of our discourse, as if his mind were reverting to something else ; but I was unable to obtain from him an admission as to this. I was informed by his parents that he was at times unnaturally morose, and that he had of late not cared to associate with those of his own age and rank in life, but that he had exhibited tendencies of the reverse nature. It became necessary, acting on my advice, to send him away from home into the country. What became of the case, however, I had no means of knowing. I simply mention it here as one of a class that is constantly brought under my observation. The wife of a poor labouring man had twelve children. She was accused of murdering her youngest child, aged three, by hanging it to a bedstead. She was observed by a neighbour who lived opposite to enter her house with her child, taking it up two or three times and kissing it previous to entering. In about ten minutes after this she came out of the house, and, having locked the door, went straight to the police station and gave herself up, exclaiming, ' I am your prisoner." She was asked what for. She replied, " For hanging one of my children." Her conduct at the police station was described as being perfectly calm and composed, with a quiet demeanour, which she also exhibited when TRAGEDY OF MENTAL OBSCURITY 175 on her trial. Evidence was given by people who had known her for thirty years, who stated that she had always been kind and considerate to her children, especially to the one in question. She was of a very religious turn of mind, and was accustomed to walk about the streets with a hymn-book, occasionally singing hymns. She was considered more or less eccentric, but not insane. At the time of the trial she made the following statement : "I done it, sir : I am guilty entirely through my husband's ill-conduct to me. During the last sixteen years I had three children born diseased, and one he killed before it was born. The reason I did it was because I was weary of my life, and had sooner die than live." The poor woman was acquitted on the ground of insanity. Unfortunately I have come across many in- stances of women who have been cruel to their children from no possible reason whatever, and the peculiarity of these cases is that they appear to entertain much real devotion towards them, which leads me to the conclusion that the acts of cruelty must have been impulsive ones, but acts for which they are quite irresponsible at the time. I could describe many of these cases which have come under my personal observa- tion, but which did not result, however, in actual criminal proceedings being taken, as they were nipped in the bud by the prime movers being placed under proper supervision, in con- sequence of my detecting evidence of mental i y6 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME unsoundness, which, however, had been un- recognised by the friends and relations of the patient. Unfortunately some of these would no doubt have committed murder eventually, in consequence of the failure of their relations to grasp the real mental condition in time to prevent the progress of the disease. A man left his home one day intending to return the following day. He left his three children in charge of his wife. The children were all well and happy, the youngest sitting on its mother's knee. On the following morning a friend of his called at his home early in the morning, and noticed that the windows were closed and the blinds down as if all were in bed. Shortly afterwards he called again and saw the wife, and asked her when she would be ready for him to drive her to meet her husband. She answered " whenever he was." On reaching the destination she was asked what she had done with the children. She replied she had " taken care of them." This reply was given to her brother, whom she met on the way, and who interrogated her upon the subject. Soon after- wards a cry of distress was heard. It came from the husband, whom she informed, in answer to his question as to where the children were, " They are in heaven ! " He inquired how she had done it. She told him she fetched the youngest first and kissed her all the way down- stairs, and then brought down William, and then Elizabeth, and put them in the cistern. She TRAGEDY OF MENTAL OBSCURITY 177 continued to cry and moan and to wish they could be brought back to life again. She had always been kind and affectionate to the chil- dren, as also to her husband, father, and mother. Latterly it had been observed, however, that she had appeared, at times, very absent- minded, and frequently did not speak when addressed. Medical advice had been taken, but in consequence of the failure of the doctor to recognise the gravity of her premonitory symptoms, this tragedy, which might have been prevented, unfortunately took place. She was acquitted on the ground of insanity. A solicitor was charged with a criminal offence. At the time he suffered from morbid grandiose ideas, one being to the effect that he was entitled to large sums of money a common precursor of the most severe form of insanity, viz., general paralysis of the insane, a disease which deceives many a physician until some terrible act has been committed. Insanity with grandi- ose ideas, with no other mental symptoms, must always be looked upon with gravity. Some years ago I was consulted in a case where a magistrate was charged with sending a number of libellous postcards to the wife of a nobleman, addressed to one of the leading London clubs. It was a most difficult and complicated case. There was no evidence of any convincing character of mental unsoundness immediately preceding the act. He had been in the habit of taking a large amount of zoedone, and this 12 1 78 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME was supposed to have affected his brain to such an extent as to render him irresponsible for the act for which he was tried. The medical witnesses had a long consultation with the counsel engaged in the case. Mr. Montagu Williams, the eminent counsel at that time, agreed upon adopting the plea as suggested by me, which was to the effect that, at the time the postcards were sent, the accused was suffering from temporary insanity produced by the action of the narcotic contained in the zoedone, of which he had partaken freely, and which apparently had paralysed the brain. He was found by the jury to be suffering from temporary insanity, and at the time not responsible for his actions, and consequently was acquitted of all moral guilt. I have no doubt in my mind that the slight symptoms, caused by the narcotic which unhinged his nervous system, ought to have been detected by his medical adviser previous to their developing as they did, with the consequent terrible ordeal to his family. I am decidedly of opinion that much of the misery and crime in this world might be nipped in the bud if certain premonitory symptoms which come as warnings in a good many cases were only recognised with the gravity they deserve. The cases which have been publicly reported of late more than ever confirm this view. Pinel, the great French psychologist, once took a lady over the Salpetriere, Paris. Having passed TRAGEDY OF MENTAL OBSCURITY 179 through several wards, the lady suddenly stopped, and asked where the insane people were, and if she might not be allowed to see them ? By this she meant the violently insane, as, after visiting them, she would doubtless leave the hospital with the full conviction that there were two perfectly distinct forms of insanity at least the quiet, subjectively insane, or obscure case, and the objectively maniacal lunatic. Let us for a moment accompany Pinel through the wards, and describe some of the cases which meet our gaze. Our attention is drawn to a man who was, yesterday perhaps, a man of science, of genius, of extended philanthropy, piety, and benevol- ence. Look at him, and listen to him now his irregular and disorderly actions, his inco- herent, perhaps blasphemous words, in which you may nevertheless trace the partial mechani- cal reproduction of vanishing ideas, his indis- criminate, aimless violence : all betray a mind utterly overthrown, at war with itself and with the world. This woman was yesterday gentle, modest, affectionate, and fulfilled all the relations of life with prudence and propriety. See the con- trast : her timidity is changed into boldness, her gentleness to ferocity ; her conversation consists of abuse, obscenity, and blasphemy ; she respects neither the laws of decency nor of humanity ; her nudity braves all spectators ; and, in her blind delirium, she menaces her father, strikes her husband, or strangles her child. In a short i8o INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME time this will have passed away, but to leave the unhappy victim a wreck, a caricature upon intelligent life. Pass on to another ward, and enter into conversation with that handsome, intelligent-looking, grave gentleman in black He evinces a mind well stored with ancient and modern lore ; he can illustrate any subject upon which you venture with the riches of informa- tion and fancy ; he discusses the current topics of the day politics, art, or science with con- siderable insight into their principles. Perhaps you detect no disorder of the mind until the close of an interesting interview, when, as a secret, he tells you of visions and special revela- tions from above, relating to some trivial matter of daily life ; or he communicates, under strict injunctions not to betray him, his imperial rank, of which his enemies have deprived him ; or his superhuman power, which he only refrains from using because of his love for his fellow- creatures. He is Socrates, and can give you most convincing arguments that he is entitled to be alive now ; he is Jesus Christ, and is again subjected to the malice of the world ; he is Mahomet ; he is Napoleon Bonaparte, escaped from St. Helena, and has been living here incog- nito ever since for fear of rebanishment perhaps he retains his youth after all this because he has discovered the elixir of life. Or he has squared the circle, and is imprisoned from envy by men of science ; or he has the philosopher's stone, and is confined because of the political TRAGEDY OF MENTAL OBSCURITY 181 and social influence he might exert through its means. Look, again, at that decent mechanic ; a few weeks ago he was recognised as a hard-working, honest, upright member of society ; but one day he seized a fellow-workman by the throat and strangled him. He had no quarrel with him, and liked him very much, he will tell you ; " but he was not humble before God, and the Blessed Trinity suddenly appeared and told me to kill him." Yet he is mild and amiable in character, and talks with perfect coherence upon all matters within the scope of his intelligence. His neigh- bour evinces no morbid propensity, save that of setting buildings on fire. The next patient has made frequent attempts at suicide, the reasons for which are utterly trivial and futile. That wretched-looking creature in the next room laid violent hands on a favourite child, and then delivered herself up to justice. She knows not why, but the temptation to kill it was irresistible, and she yielded ; whilst with the completion of the act her right mind returned, and she became conscious of the crime. No intellectual aberration can be traced. Here is another, with a look of excitement and import- ance, who will overwhelm you with a volume of words without connection ; half-formed ideas, causeless and evanescent emotions, struggle feebly for expression. He has forgotten the past, feels but imperfectly the present, and thinks not of the future. Lastly, crouching on the ground, 1 82 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME or shuffling aimlessly along, is one whose mental development is below that of the beasts of the field. Some of his instincts alone remain ; or perhaps these are gone, and nothing remains but vegetative life. Speak to him, and, if you attract his attention, the only answer is a vacant stare or an inarticulate chuckle or cry. Hunger, thirst, cold, or heat, are alike indifferent ; the lichen or the sponge have almost as much vitality as he possesses. Many of the differences are obvious enough, and have been recognised from the earliest tunes in which mental diseases have been the subject for investigation. Two great forms of insanity have generally been admitted one in which all the faculties were disordered, and one in which some remained virtually or apparently sound. The earliest classification was equivalent to a division into mania and melancholy ; this latter including monomania, a term signifying a delirium or error, partial in its nature and extent. Idiocy and total imbecility involve the original absence or the utter loss of intellect ; dementia signifies the loss of coherence in the thoughts, with general enfeeblement of the will, the sensi- bility, and the intelligence ; mania, complete perversion of these faculties, generally with exaltation in energy of function ; whilst mono- mania here including both lypomania and chaeromania signifies a partial lesion of the intelligence, the will, or the passions. The question hinges upon what is -called the TRAGEDY OF MENTAL OBSCURITY 183 " solidarity," the absolute mutual dependence, of the faculties of the mind, the oneness of the mind itself. The supporters of the theory of monomania speak of the mind as compound, consisting of many distinct faculties or attributes, any one of which may be disordered or subverted independently of the others. The opponents of this theory say that the mind is one absolutely, and, if deranged, is deranged as a whole ; that there may be a prominent morbid idea, but that this is only a symptom of a universal morbid state. Thus melancholia which includes melancholia proper, or partial depressive delir- ium, and chaeromania or monomania proper, and partial expansive delirium is described by Pinel as a " delirium exclusively on one subject, with no propensity to acts of violence, but independent of such as may be expressed by a predominant and chimerical idea free exercise in other respects of all the faculties of the understanding." It is the existence of this form of monomania which lends to the question a great part of the practical interest on account of its medico-legal relations. To illustrate the difference practically between the two contending parties, we suppose that a man commits a murder, and, from the utter apparent absence of motive and other circumstances, the question arises as to his sanity. The opponents of the monomania theory examine him. After the most careful investiga- tion, they can detect no present error of the 184 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME intellect nor any past evidence save the crime itself ; he is therefore pronounced sane and criminal. The supporters of the theory of monomania recognise, as an element in their calculations, the possibility of a blind impulsive fury arising in an otherwise sane mind, without clear warning, and transitory in its nature, passing away with the completion of the act, and leaving no trace. The absence of past or present intellectual disorder does not necessarily prove that he was sane at the time of the completion of the crime ; and he is not pronounced criminal until after a careful inquiry into all his ante- cedents, his hereditary tendencies, and his general physiological condition. When a number of cases have been carefully analysed, in which the passions or appetites have been morbidly affected whilst the intellec- tual faculties have been apparently quite un- affected, or vice versa, one of the intellectual manifestations has been observed to be uniformly in error, whilst the rest, and the volitional and moral faculties, have been apparently sound these have been called cases of monomania. The physical manifestations of man develop themselves under the forms of understanding, or reason volition, emotion, and instinct, including appetites. Each of these may be the subject of exclusive disorder according to some, of predominant disorder according to others. The understanding manifests itself in a TRAGEDY OF MENTAL OBSCURITY 185 variety of ways and this involves no theory as perception, conception, attention, memory, comparison, imagination, judgment, and others. For purposes of illustration, I first select per- ception, which is universally recognised as a mode of operation of the mind. Now, this class of phenomena requires special organs for its manifestation, and we recognise the possibility of one or more of the divisions being entirely wanting, as the sight or hearing, without the mind being radically affected. But as that may be considered dependent only on physical con- ditions, we must inquire further into the general and universal perception. It is not necessary to do more than allude to those instances in which the senses are strong to the utmost point of refinement, or blunted almost to inertness without the judgment being increased in the one case, or the imagination dimmed in the other ; though these facts speak volumes against the " soliditary " of the mind, or the absolute mutual dependence of the faculties. But how does perception comport itself under abnormal circumstances ? The senses on which perception is dependent are subject to illusions and hallucinations. Selecting the latter for investigation, as less evidently dependent upon the organs them- selves, we find that they may exist independent of any mental derangement, that they may be one symptom of such derangement coexistent with many others, and that they may be, or 186 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME constitute, such derangement, the entire of the other mental phenomena being duly and healthily developed, so far as any known means of dis- covery serve. Of the first position, a very striking instance is on record, illustrating the persistence of all the reasoning faculties, whilst perception or conception was for the time utterly perverted. An eminent bookseller of Berlin, a contemporary of Lessing, relates how on one occasion, when suffering from mental agitation, he saw the figure of a deceased person standing in the room. He was naturally alarmed, and went into another apartment, where the figure fol- lowed him. By and by, other figures appeared walking about, some of dead persons, but the greater number of living ; sometimes of acquaintances, but generally of strangers. After some time they spoke, either to one another or to him. Their speeches were short, but never disagreeable. He saw them periodi- cally for two months, at home and abroad, in great numbers, even in crowds, whether his eyes were open or shut. He never from the first believed in the reality of these images. He could always distinguish the phantom from the reality, though the former had every semblance of the latter. " I knew extremely well/* he says, " when the door only appeared to open and a phantom entered, and when it really did open and a real person came in." The calmness with which these spectres were observed, and the philosophical analysis of the laws of their appearance, and the ever distinct recognition of their real but subjective nature, are all very instructive, ami iraikate dearry that one faculty may be disordered, yet the others be lucid and analytic. A tittle boy, six years of age, described how he could not fall asleep at night because he saw " lamps and sparks/' and sometimes " faces looking in at the door," He was not alarmed. These were the consequences of a transient disorder, and completely passed away. The other senses are liable to be similarly dftnrJed All these are instances of morbid perceptions, and perception is a mental faculty; yet it would be an entirely gratuitous assumption, and one subversive to all useful generalisation, to hypothesize a fundamental derangement of the whole mind. Hallucination, as one of many symptoms of insanity, is too frequent and well recognised to require much comment. The insane see visions and hear voices, with which they tive in a world quite apart from their fellows, and under the influence of which it is that most of their acts of violence are committed. A voice says " Kill," and they obey blindly, impulsively. This form of hallucination most frequently attends the moral, instinctive, or impulsive alienation. Many instances are recorded which testify to the actual apparent soundness of the intellectual faculties, where motiveless murders 1 88 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME have been committed in obedience to a voice heard commanding the act. Doubtless, how- ever, here, the intellect which acts upon this hallucination must be deranged in itself, though this is imperceptible. A well-educated man, who was over-sensitive, and who had a strong tendency to mental disorder, believed that the company in which he happened to be in at any time was laughing at him. Otherwise, his ideas were vigorous, and the thoughts deep and active. Shortly after he became maniacal, and was confined for some months. As the extreme violence and delirium diminished, he obtained some knowledge of his situation, and actually simulated calmness so well as to be set at liberty, under surveillance of a brother. His very first act was to contrive some means of temporary separation from his companion, and to blow his own brains out in the public road. Hallucinations, with a belief in their reality, sometimes constitute the only abnormal derange- ment of the mental faculties. I have dwelt thus at length upon disorders of perception as affording an illustration of the independence of the elementary faculties. Nor is this inquiry useless ; for upon it hinges the entire question of the solidarity of the mind. If one faculty, or one class of intellectual faculties, may be deranged, leaving the others intact, the possibility cannot be denied that those of passion or volition may in like manner be affected, the TRAGEDY OF MENTAL OBSCURITY 189 intellect continuing perfectly sound, its exercise overpowered or remaining in abeyance. Disorders of subjective sensation afford additional argument for the comparative in- dependence of the faculties. Cases of hypo- chondria are very frequent where the person is convinced that something living is in the body ; yet he is fully competent in the discharge of all the duties of life. To the same class belong those more rare cases where a man imagines himself a bottle, a crown piece, a barrel, or anything equally absurd, or fancies that his legs are made of glass or butter. Sensation is impaired ; com- parison and judgment are inefficient on this one subject to correct the impression ; yet all this does not prevent the individual from acting in other respects like a perfectly rational being, and fulfilling every relation of life in the most exemplary manner. So far, then, as regards the elementary faculties, the question seems tolerably clear, without even entering upon an important branch of evidence, derived from the over- or under- development of the various faculties with refer- ence one to the other ; where perception, or memory, for instance, may be preternaturally acute and tenacious, whilst comparison and judgment may be almost reduced to inactivity. When the derangement has reference to the reception of a morbid composite dominant idea into the mind, the question becomes by so much the more complex, as there are different elements 190 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME in this idea, viz., those not involved in the erroneous conception. We have to trust to our own powers of investigation, or to those of others, rather than clear, obvious induction. As crime in one form or another is frequently committed by those who entertain an obscure but dangerous monomania, and as these mono- manias are so diversified, I have thought it desirable to tabulate very briefly some of the leading forms of monomania which are generally associated with crime, many of these varieties being very obscure. 1. Theomania, or religious delusion. The subject conceives himself to be, in a special manner, the object of Divine favour, or wrath. Religious ecstasy or terror takes complete posses- sion of him : he has visions of angels or of the Trinity ; he hears voices which command him to offer up a human sacrifice, and he kills those who are nearest and dearest to him. Or it assumes a purely melancholy aspect, under the idea of final perdition. This is a very obstinate form of the affection. 2. Demonomania. This is a true monomania, the subjects of which are called demoniacs ; in which the patients have the idea that they are possessed of a devil, and will use the most grotesque means to expel him ; in other respects being apparently sane. 3. Pantophobia. The subject of this form has the free exercise of reason in other respects, but is in a state of perpetual terror.. He will TRAGEDY OF MENTAL OBSCURITY 191 take no food lest it should be poison ; every one whom he meets is an enemy watching him, and every natural occurrence is an omen. 4. Hypochondriacal Monomania. The varie- ties of this are innumerable, all having refer- ence to the physical or functional condition of the body. The sufferer labours under a fear- ful and an incurable affection ; he has living creatures in his stomach, heart, or head ; every sensation is connected with danger or approach- ing dissolution ; or he is dead, or his sex changed, or he is some other animal. This last delusion has been classed by itself as zoanthropia. 5. Erotomania, or love madness. This is a sentimental affection, as distinguished from the physical disorders known as satyriasis and nymphomania. It appears to have but little connection essentially with sexual sensations. The mind is perpetually fixed upon one object ; in its pursuit everything else is disregarded ; blows, ill-treatment, and neglect are all inefficient to cure the propensity. It gives rise to fearful jealousy, which may cause homicide, and most frequently terminates in suicide or general paralysis. Next to theomania, it is the most obstinate of these affections. 6. Dipsomania. A maniacal, insuperable tend- ency to the abuse of alcoholic liquors, very fre- quently accompanied by intense horror of the practice, but inability to conquer it. It is to be distinguished from mere drunkenness. 7. Pyromania. A morbid disposition of mind, 192 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME leading to acts of incendiarism without any motive. This may be either impulsive or pre- meditated. It occurs chiefly, but not exclusively, in young people. 8. Kleptomania. A propensity to steal in an absurd and motiveless manner. A gentleman confessed to his spiritual director that in spite of all efforts he could not resist the tendency to appropriate what was not his own. The priest having permitted him to steal, under the condition that he always returned the articles, he was quite content, picked the priest's pocket of his watch during confession, and returned it immediately afterwards. 9. Suicidal Monomania. Many forms of mental derangement are accompanied by a tendency to suicide ; in some this morbid propensity seems to exist almost without any other symptom. This is also sometimes impul- sive, sometimes the result of abnormal reasoning and premeditation, but very frequently imitative. It often accompanies the homicidal variety. The curability of this affection, when well established, is always open to doubt ; as, from various well-authenticated cases, there seems to be no limit to the period of time which may elapse in apparent soundness ; and yet the propensity may return, and the act be finally accomplished. It occurs most frequently in adults, but sometimes in children of the tenderest years. I have no intention of entering at great length TRAGEDY OF MENTAL OBSCURITY 193 into a discussion on suicidal insanity. I, how- ever, desire simply to draw attention to the question, from the fact that in the same way that criminal instinct is attended very often by no pre- monitory symptom of insanity, so also is the suicidal impulse deficient in any abnormal mental phenomena. Both homicide and suicide may be committed by people who have had certain symptoms which have been latent, but are not apparent to the members of that individual's family, and consequently no precautions have been taken in the matter. Their suspicions not having been aroused as to any abnormality, they allow their relative to go unmolested and unprotected ; and I would say, that, if they had taken proper medical advice from those qualified to give it, many homicidal and suicidal acts would have been prevented. 10. Homicidal Monomania (manie sans delire, manie raisonnante, fureur) is a moral and im- pulsive insanity. Such are some of the names given to a most important affection, under the influence of which a person, in whose intellect no flaw or imperfection can be discovered, may be suddenly urged on to commit murder, unpre- meditated and motiveless, and be considered irresponsible according to law because of un- soundness of mind. No question in the range of science can be of more importance than that of criminal responsibility or irresponsibility none more difficult none requiring in each individual case more caution, more knowledge, 13 194 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME and acuteness in its determination. No wonder that some are disposed to cut so Gordian a knot by the assertion that criminal irresponsibility is impossible. There are many varieties of homicidal in- sanity : some are influenced by chimerical and irrational motives ; some have no motive at all, but feel impelled to commit the act of violence against which they continually, and sometimes effectually, struggle. Conscious of their excited condition, they beg to be confined, or they implore the object of their blind fury to leave them. Some, again, act instantaneously ; the will being overpowered by the impulse. There is no interest, no motive ; most frequently the person killed is a child, or one most loved. The circumstances to be considered in forming a judgment in such cases are those preceding, during, and after the commission of the act. The constitution must be taken into account as to excitability, the habits of life, and as to peculiarity or eccentricity. The hereditary relations must be inquired into for traces of insanity. Those subject to this affection are generally found to have been of mild and ami- able disposition, and of religious impressions ; but for some tune slight changes will have been marked. The act may be coincident with puberty or some physical irritation. Often preceding it there may be persistent headaches. The crime may be again distinctly traceable to imitation. TRAGEDY OF MENTAL OBSCURITY 195 At the time of the act, the difference between the criminal and the maniac is very strongly marked. The former kills, from motive or interest, those who oppose his schemes, or those whom he dislikes ; the latter kills, without motive, those who are dearest to him. After the deed the criminal flies, conceals himself, denies the fact, professes insanity sometimes, and adopts every conceivable method to screen himself. Nothing can be more opposite than the conduct of the monomaniac : he completes his murder, and the orgasm has passed away ; he remains by his victim, and gives full details of the murder, aimless and motiveless. Peculiarities in Impulsive Insanity. The symptoms of homicidal insanity may be so masked as to make it impossible of detection. It is seldom that we find any delusions or hallu- cinations, and apparently very little impairment of the intellectual faculties. A morbid condition and perversion of the moral sense, social affections, feelings, and propensities generally exist, but the victims to it may possibly be quite capable of reasoning, particularly when calm ; but under any undue excitement, the moral alienation entirely misleads and perverts the judgment, and the consequences can neither be estimated nor regarded. Directed by an impulse, which is headlong and irresistible, the unfortunate subject of this disease may be hurried to deeds of outrage and blood, which will shock the stoutest hearts and excite the 196 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME strongest sympathies of human nature. We know that it is exceedingly difficult to effec- tually distinguish between vice and perverseness, and the legitimate consequences of disease ; but certainly there is such a distinction, and it is clearly marked by the following strong and remarkable features want of motive, uncon- sciousness of and indifference to the crime, admission of the fact with the absence of grief, remorse, repentance, or satisfaction. Often the consciousness of the enormity of the deed comes upon him with such force that he attempts suicide, or delivers himself up to the hands of justice, imploring that he may be put to death to escape from his despair. A careful and conscientious examination of circumstances like these would generally con- duct to a correct judgment. Of late years there has been a very great increase in cerebral disease, and there is one form of mental disorder which evinces itself at a much earlier age than formerly. In the olden time softening of the brain was con- sidered to be a disorder incidental to old age, but at the present day I have known several cases of this complaint between the ages of thirty and thirty-five. It is a terrible state of affairs when the nervous system, at such an early epoch in life, becomes impregnated with an incurable mental malady. We might raise the question, Why is softening of the brain seen at the present day at an earlier age than TRAGEDY OF MENTAL OBSCURITY 197 previously ? My answer is that the brain at the present moment is more overworked. That its psychical functions are unduly exercised, strained, and taxed in the great effort required, in the severe struggle and battle of life, to obtain intellectual supremacy, professional emolument, and status, is a fact which the physician specially engaged in the treatment of this class of maladies cannot ignore. It is difficult to say why that portion of the delicate nervous tissue, so intimately and mysteriously associated with the phenomena of mind, should be more amenable, in the present epoch, to the influence of those causes which are known to exercise an injurious influence upon the organ of thought. Has the brain deteriorated in its structure ? Has it less power of resisting the effects of agents brought to bear upon its functions than formerly? It is an admitted fact that the type of nearly all disease has, within the last fifteen or twenty years, undergone a material modification. We rarely witness the acute and full-blooded diseases of our early days, requiring for their successful treatment active and anti-phlogistic remedies. Something is certainly due to the advance made of late years in the science of pathology and therapeutics ; but this does not altogether explain the fact referred to. Although the average duration of life appears to be greater than formerly, there can be no doubt that the power of vital resistance has sensibly diminished, and that not only the brain, but other important 198 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME organs, now yield more readily to the influence of disease. The altered habits of society are to some extent dependent upon this condition of the vital organism. However disposed we may be in the present day to exercise a rigid temperance in all that concerns life, the human constitution cannot bear with impunity and safety an increased amount of stimuli and mental work. This was not the case in those halcyon days, as they were termed, when men were recognised as being two-, three-, four-, and five- bottle men. This happy change in the habits of society is certainly, in a great measure, attributable to the social advance of the age and the improved state of morals ; but to some extent, may not these altered and temperate habits arise from a consciousness of our inability to live upon par, as men were accustomed to do thirty or forty years ago ? I think in a degree the fact admits of this explanation. It is, however, my desire more especially to direct attention to the inexcusable neglect with which the affections of the brain are generally treated even after repeated warnings, and the lamentable amount of ignorance that unhappily frequently exists respecting these disorders. This neglect and ignorance is fraught with much irremedi- able mischief alas ! often leading to the sacri- fice of valuable human life. The poor, over- wrought brain meets with but little attention and consideration when in a state of incipient disorder. The faintest scintillation of mischief TRAGEDY OF MENTAL OBSCURITY 199 progressing in the lungs, heart, liver and stomach immediately awakens alarm, and medical advice and treatment are eagerly sought ; but serious, well-marked symptoms of brain disorder are often entirely overlooked and neglected ; such affections frequently being permitted to exist for months without causing the faintest shadow of uneasiness or apprehension in the mind of the patient, his medical advisers, or his friends. Morbid alterations of temper depression of spirits, amounting sometimes to melancholia headache severe giddiness inaptitude for business loss of memory confusion of mind defective power of mental concentration the feeling of brain lassitude and fatigue excessive ennui a longing for death a want of interest in pursuits that formerly were a source of grati- fication and pleasure restlessness by day and sleeplessness by night all obvious indications of an unhealthy state of the functions of the brain and nervous system, rarely, if ever, attract the attention even of his medical adviser until the unhappy invalid becomes unequivocally deranged, and commits an overt act of insanity. Then the exclamation is, " Poor fellow, his mind has been affected for months ! " whilst no one expresses any surprise that he should, in such a state of mental disorder, have hanged himself or cut his throat ! If a person, in a previous state of normal mental and bodily health, is conscious that abnormal changes are taking place in the mind that trifles worry and irritate that the 200 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME brain is evidently unfit for work that the spirits are flagging that all the evils of life are magni- fied ; if he is disposed to be fanciful imagining things to exist that have no existence apart from himself believing that kind friends ill-use and slight him ; if symptoms like these, or analogous to these, are associated with headache, derange- ment of the stomach and liver, and want of continuous sleep, the patient may assure himself that the state of his brain is abnormal, and requires careful consideration and treatment. How often such apparently trifling symptoms of brain disorder precede the fatal act of homicide and suicide ! How much more may be said for those driven by unrecognised and neglected disorder of the brain and mind to acts of self- destruction ! Love of Life. The sad and premature death of many a gifted child of genius has led me into the above train of thought. How mysterious is the act of suicide how difficult it is to reconcile with our a priori knowledge of the instincts of human nature, the fact that a person can deliberately commit an act of self-destruc- tion ! There is no feeling so strongly implanted in us as the love of life. It is an instinct of nature to strive to preserve our being, and this instinct cannot easily be overpowered and crushed. One of our poets, in alluding to this subject, after declaring life to be the dream of a shadow, " a weak-built isthmus between two eternities so frail that it can neither sustain TRAGEDY OF MENTAL OBSCURITY 201 wind nor wave," yet avows his preference for a few days', nay a few hours', longer residence upon earth, to all the fame which wealth and honour could bestow, says " Fain would I see that prodigal who his to-morrow would bestow For all old Homer's life, e'er since he died till now ! " " Is there anything on earth I can do for you ? " said Taylor to Dr. Wolcott, as he lay on his deathbed. The passion for life dictated the answer " Give me back my youth ! " These were the last words of the satirical buf- foon. There is an anecdote recorded of one of the favourite marshals of Napoleon, Le Due de Montebello, which finely illustrates the strength of this instinctive principle. During a battle in the south of Germany, the Duke was struck by a cannon-ball, and so severely wounded that there was little hope of recovery. Summoning the surgeon, he ordered his wounds to be dressed, and when help was declared unavailing, the dying officer, excited into a frenzy by the love of life, burned with vindictive anger against the medical attendant, threatening the heaviest penalties if his art should bring no relief. The dying marshal demanded that Napoleon should be sent for, as one who had power to save ; whose words could stop the effusion of blood from the wound, and awe nature itself into submission. Napoleon arrived just in tune to witness the last fearful struggle of expiring nature, and to hear his favourite marshal 202 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME vociferate, as the lamp of life was just being extinguished, " Save me, Napoleon ! " I have heard of a similar case in humble life. A man on the point of death vowed he would not die, cursing his physician, who announced the near termination of his life, and insisting that he would live in defiance of the laws of nature ! In both these cases we see clearly manifested the passion for life, the instinct of self-preservation, which it is almost impossible to master. TRAGEDY OF CRIMINAL ABNORMALITY TRAGEDY OF CRIMINAL ABNORMALITY Statistics of Crime and Lunacy. In England and Wales at the present day there is a popula- tion of 36,075,269. The proportion of criminals in every 100,000 is 464*8. During the year the total number of receptions into prison on convic- tion amounted to 167,695. The number of the insane is 135,661, being one in every 269 of the population, or 37*12 per 10,000. We are alarmed when we compare these statistics with those of 1859. In that year there were 36,762 persons of unsound mind, and one insane person in every 536 of the population ; so in fifty- three years we see we have 98,899 more lunatics than at that time. A simple rule of three will show us that in about three hundred years from now the world must be populated by lunatics. Nothing, in my opinion, can stop this. Insanity is advancing by progressive leaps, as is shown by the official annual reports during the last fifty years, which testify as to this. A Mad World. In order to substantiate what I have just stated, as such a statement may not be credited, I compare the increase of insanity 205 206 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME during the decades of 1859 to 1909, a period of fifty years, or five decades : In 1859 there was one lunatic in every 536 of the population. In 1909 there was one lunatic in every 278 of the population. Prospective increase to be anticipated calcul- ated at the same rate of increase : In 1959 there will be one in every 139 In 2009 ,, 69 In 2059 34 In 2109 17 In 2159 In 2209 4 Allowing for any slight inaccuracies in the calculation, and for the progressive increase in lunacy as yearly demonstrated, we shall be a mad world in three hundred years' time. A well-known English psychologist has stated that in order to have a genius born into the world, you must get two lunatics to marry. I believe in the truth of this more than it might appear to any casual thinker. The result of this will be that in three hundred years the world will be populated by lunatics. They will intermarry, and the great mad race will be followed by a race of geniuses. It is an open question which will be the best to be governed by, lunatics or geniuses. In the former there is method in their madness, whilst in the latter there is that absence of all method and reasoning power which would make a nation ruled and governed by CRIMINAL ABNORMALITY 207 geniuses not an enviable thing. I prefer the world with all its progressive increasing madness rather than either of the alternatives mentioned by me. As opposed to the increase of insanity, there has been a considerable decrease in crime. During last year 68 1 prisoners were sent to Brixton Prison, who had been specially remanded by the justices for an examination to be made into their mental condition. In addition to this, 405 prisoners have been placed under observa- tion in the prison, and examined as to their sanity. In local prisons, 136 prisoners were certified as being of unsound mind at the date of their reception, whereas the number of those certified as being feeble-minded was 359. The Chairman of the Visiting Prison Committee of Holloway remarks : ' We desire to repeat what was stated in our Report of last year, namely, that we would welcome the establishment of the principle that the Secretary of State shall have power to transfer weak-minded cases from prison, and to maintain them in special institutions until medical authorities can certify if they can be released with safety : and we believe that such institutions would be a fitting pertinence to the prison system." During the year there were 186 prisoners certified as insane among the convict prisoners and debtors in the local and convict prisons and inmates of Borstal institutions and inebriate 208 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME reformatories. They had all been sentenced to various terms of imprisonment, varying from seven days to seven years. At the time of the trial, no plea of irresponsibility had been raised. The prisoner's real mental state either showed itself immediately after conviction or within a period variable in duration after actual im- prisonment. I mention this to show that when the criminal acts were perpetrated no doubt the seeds of lunacy existed already in the system, and that their mental condition was actually responsible for the offences. One case among these, especially, is recorded of a man, aged twenty-five, charged with wound- ing with intent, and sentenced to seven years' penal servitude, who underwent his sentence for a period of fifteen months before the insanity developed, when he was pronounced to be suffer- ing from congenital deficiency. This, in other words, means mental deficiency from birth, and therefore it appears to me very strange that his condition should not have been recognised at the time of the trial, and that he should have been treated like any ordinary responsible criminal. Non-Recognition of Insanity in Prison. Many cases of which I have record were detained in prison a long time while suffering from some marked mental disease. Many of the causes of insanity existing in these 186 insane prisoners are stated to be unknown, but the chief form of mental disease appears to be delusional insanity. CRIMINAL ABNORMALITY 209 There was one old man, aged seventy-four, sentenced to two months' hard labour for stealing. Four days after admission he was certified as being of unsound mind ; now it must be apparent to any student in psychology that this same mental state must have existed at his trial, and some time previous to it. Out of the 186 cases, 26 of them had been of unsound mind, and had been treated as lunatics, previous to the date of their last offence. Many of these prisoners have been tried, and convicted on several occasions without any question being raised as to their mental con- dition. One man who had committed a moral crime, and who had been previously convicted and imprisoned three times, and who also on several occasions had been discharged on account of deficient evidence, was observed on his admission to be abnormally pallid, and to have a constant movement in the eyeballs. After having been three weeks in prison, he was suddenly seized with an attack of mania, and conveyed to an asylum. There is no doubt that the peculiar symptoms observed at the time of his admission were due to cerebral disease, which ultimately evinced itself. Another man suffered from mental depression and had auri- cular delusions; these developed rapidly in prison, and he was dealt with accordingly. Another prisoner suffered from the delusions of monomania and persecution. These delusions were so masked as to deceive the prison auth- 14 210 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME orities for a long time ; whilst another suffered from attacks of recurrent insanity. At times he appeared to be rational, whereas on other occasions he was the victim of delusions. Many other cases are tabulated in which mental depression, irritability, natural feebleness of intellect, and other conditions not amounting to actual disease, existed at the time of admission. These symptoms ultimately increased, and the prisoners were transferred to asylums. Criminal Convictions Impossible in America In the United States of America there are 100,000 murderers who are at large. On an average, 9000 murderers are committed for trial every year in the States : many of these are persons who, if not actually of unsound mind, are on the borderland. 75,000 have never seen the inside of a prison. The law is so uneven and peculiar out there, that a trial may be post- poned indefinitely, while every possible excuse is made to defeat justice. A man who was accused of burglary, because the indictment stated that the house was in- habited by six persons when he committed the robbery, and the official indictment only showed there were five occupants, escaped conviction. In another case the indictment was dismissed by the court because the word " father " was spelt with two r's. In another court the indict- ment was quashed because the letter / was left out in the word " malice," and in another case where the a was left out ii> the word CRIMINAL ABNORMALITY 211 u breast." The worst case, however, which I have to record was when the Supreme Court in America allowed a criminal to escape because the crime of which he was being tried was described as " being against the peace and dignity of State " instead of " the State." In Texas a man was tried six tunes for the same murder ; four juries convicted him, and two juries disagreed. On three occasions he was sentenced to death, and in another court to twenty-two years' confinement in prison. The Court of Appeal reversed the conviction each time, and the prosecuting attorney at last gave up the case as hopeless. I mention this to show the uncertainty of justice in the United States of America, a fact which I became personally acquainted with in certain lengthy cases which came before the tribunals when I was over there as a witness. The same argument would hold good with refer- ence to the trial of criminal lunatics, or to the trial of criminals where the plea of insanity has been raised ; a cunning American attorney will prolong the inquiry ad infinitum when such a plea is raised. Our asylums contain many persons who have committed acts which apparently justified their incarceration in prisons, but whose mental condition proved their irresponsibility. With how many criminals has it happened that the criminal act was committed during a paroxysm of mental derangement, but that during the 212 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME subsequent inquiry they appeared of sound mind ! There are many suicides among sus- pected criminals that have taken place during a period of mental aberration ; many educated persons who have been cured of insanity have given their experiences of their fellow gaol inmates, stating that the majority of their acts were committed whilst under a powerful insane impulse, against which their very soul struggled. We may come to the conclusion that insanity of a greater or less degree is frequent among criminals, that the greater number of crimes are committed whilst in this condition, or in a condi- tion which may be changed into it, and may for the time being be latent and obscure. If an educated man, brought up in every possible luxury, accustomed to associate with the highest classes of society, commits a crime, and finds himself in prison surrounded by hardened criminals of every class, with whom he has no sympathy, probably sneered at, despised, and mocked at for his better feelings, he is likely to become insane from his very surroundings, though the act for which he is suffering may have been caused by passion and be motiveless. Effect of Solitary Confinement on the Mind The important question relative to the influence of what is termed " solitary confinement " on the minds of criminals, is a subject of great gravity. It is not my purpose, on this occasion, to enter at length into its consideration. I merely now desire to raise a feeble voice against CRIMINAL ABNORMALITY 213 a system of treatment which, in my humble opinion, is fraught with much mischief to the minds of those unfortunately exposed to its pernicious influence. Were I disposed, I could cite the particulars of many cases of incurable insanity which could be most undoubtedly traced to this cause. The advocates of the solitary system of treating prisoners may have it in their power to adduce instances subversive of my view of the question, and be able to point with exultation to numerous cases of persons who have escaped unscathed from the solitary cell. This proves nothing. A man may expose himself with impunity to the influence of a most virulent contagion, but, because the poison has no effect upon his con- stitution, it would be most illogical to infer its non-existence. A man naturally with a strongly constituted mind, united to a vigorous body, may for years be confined in a solitary dungeon without one ray of light beaming upon his solitude, and his mind may give no indications of diminished power. I am ready to admit that positive insanity may not always develop itself as the effect of solitary confinement. The mind may not be so disturbed as to give rise to " derangement " of the intellect. The per- ceptive faculties, and even the powers of ratio- cination, may present little or no symptom of disease ; and often, even in cases of protracted solitary imprisonment, they are capable of a healthy exercise. But it should never be for- 2i 4 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME gotten that the mind may be seriously injured without its presenting any evidences of delusion or false perception. The absence of such morbid phenomena is often referred to as demonstra- tive of the position that the solitary system of treating prisoners is not destructive to the sanity of the human mind. Such reasoners take as a test of insanity the presence of a false creation either of the mind or of the senses, and will admit no man to be insane who does not believe in the reality of ideas which have no exist- ence except in his imagination. This is not the philosophical, the medical, or the psychological test of insanity. If positive delusions of the mind are not engendered by the system of treat- ment, great impairment of the intellectual powers, often amounting to imbecility, are, in many cases, the inevitable and the natural and melancholy sequel. A priori reasoning must force such convictions on the mind. It is an undeniable axiom in physiology that the brain is the material organ of the mind ; and, without discussing the metaphysical question as to the mind being a principle per se, capable of a separate and independent existence, no person entitled by education to arrive at just conclusions on a subject necessarily involving in its consideration scientific details, could, for a moment, hesitate to admit the truth of the position, that the human mind, during its present state, is entirely dependent for its manifestations on the condition of the material organ or organs with which it is CRIMINAL ABNORMALITY 215 associated. The brain is the physical medium through which the mental powers are developed. Such being the case, the state of the mind is de- pendent on the condition of the cerebral apparatus. Any agents, be they physical or moral, directly or indirectly interfering with the natural and healthy action of the brain, must, as a natural consequence, derange or weaken its functions. To guarantee health of mind, it is an indispens- able condition that the brain should be regularly exercised. Occupation is essential to the integ- rity of the mind. The brain, like the organs of digestion, requires food. Mental assimilation must be progressing, materials must be supplied, otherwise the mind will either prey upon itself or the brain for want of a stimulus in its ideas will become deteriorated in its physical condi- tion, producing great debility, perhaps imbecility, of mind. To preserve the intellectual powers in a state of health setting aside altogether the idea of insanity, they must be subjected to regular exercise. If a person be placed in such a position that he is excluded from all intercourse with his fellow-men, no attempt being made to bring the power of the mind into operation, the brain will fall into a state of atrophy, and great weak- ness of mind will result, as the natural physio- logical consequence. This position is undeniable. Experienced men have frequent opportunities of witnessing cases of " impaired mind " often the most distressing cases to treat as the 216 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME effect of the mind, or brain, not being sufficiently exercised. Instances presenting the following characteristics are not of uncommon occurrence. A man, accustomed from early life to active mercantile pursuits, accumulates a fortune sufficient to enable him to support his family in affluent circumstances. He retires from his counting-house with the determination to spend the remainder of his days in domestic felicity, free from all the anxieties and annoyances incidental to the life of a man engaged in the pursuits of commerce. At the commencement of his new career everything looks promising ; he appears a contented man. In a short period, he feels the want of something ; the mind is not at ease ; he is dissatisfied with his position. He then discovers that his ill-health and dis- turbed mind are the consequences of an abstrac- tion from his accustomed stimuli. He is advised to return to his counting-house, and to resume his former occupation. He does so, and the mind is soon restored to its healthy equilibrium, and he is again a cheerful and a happy man. Such an instance, which is not a hypothetical one, will illustrate my position in reference to the exercise of the mind being an indispensable condition of mental health. I will leave the supporters of the solitary system to prove how this condition can be complied with under the painful circumstances in which criminals are placed who are subjected to this mode of punishment. CRIMINAL ABNORMALITY 217 There is another view of the question which appears to be entirely overlooked. The fact of a man being a criminal is prima facie evidence, not of his being insane, but of his having, if not a predisposition to mental derangement, at least a very irregular, ill-governed, and, it may be, an unhealthy mind. The irregularity of mental operation this perversion of the moral principle is often associated with latent insanity, and is frequently but one of the many phases which the minds of those assume who are hereditarily predisposed to mental aberration. A man is not necessarily insane because he is guilty of an atrocious crime ; but the tendency to crime is so repeatedly connected with deranged con- ditions of the mind, that common humanity would induce us to inquire whether the criminal offence is not the first overt act of insanity. As mental aberration often manifests itself in acts which the law considers criminal as crime is so frequently associated with derangement of the mind, and with a constitution predisposed to insanity it becomes the sacred duty of the Legislature to protect criminals from being exposed to the influence of agents known both to generate disorders of the mind and to develop those affections in persons constitutionally liable to them. The time, I trust, is not very remote when more philosophical, and, as a consequence, more liberal views will be taken of those actions designated criminal, and when, without exhibit- ing any maudlin sentimentality towards those 218 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME who violate the conditions which bind society together, we shall, in the spirit of our common Christianity, look with greater leniency on the faults and failings of our fellow-men. Among the principal objections to the solitary system is the assertion that it favours the development of insanity. For the illustration of this, I draw attention to the extent to which insanity occurs amongst prisoners generally, and especially amongst those subject to solitary confinement, with particular reference to facts stated on the authority of physicians and officers of prisons. In every prison it may be concluded that at least five per cent, of its occupants are in a doubt- ful condition as to soundness of mind. There are insane persons whose disease appears either before or after sentence, but is first detected after entering the prison, in consequence of a medical examination. Many crimes are com- mitted during the period of incipient insanity by such persons who are not quite insane, but who become so after condemnation. Amongst prisoners there is often found a certain number whose whole general condition seems to be the result of commencing disease, and which in a higher degree predisposes to every form of mental derangement. Prisoners, both before and after condemnation, are exposed to many dangers of mental disorder. The discipline of prisons may prove a cause of insanity amongst the inmates. CRIMINAL ABNORMALITY 219 Very frequently a certain number of prisoners are found with a partial aberration of mind. They are generally either those who have been imbecile from youth, or those in whom education has been neglected or entirely wanting, or those in whom, in consequence of a dissolute life, the mind has been remarkably weakened. Vice and insanity must be carefully distinguished from each other ; there are cases, nevertheless, in which it is difficult to mark the point of transition from the one to the other, however easy this may appear to the uninitiated. Also, that insanity is more frequent amongst prisoners of the educated classes than the uneducated, is dependent upon the fact of the change of cir- cumstances which more deeply affects them ; and this is not remarkable, when it is considered that they are more shocked by their captive condition, more restrained from their ordinary pursuits, and that the life of such prisoners corresponds but little with their early life, which with the uneducated is not the case. High officials and officers of rank on the Continent enjoy the privilege of expiating their offences in for- tresses, there is little restraint on their freedom, or limitation as to their diet or cloth- ing ; nevertheless, confinement has a depressing effect on both mind and body. In fact, restric- tion of freedom, of habits, and of modes of life, acts injuriously on the body and mind, and predisposes to corporeal and mental disorders. Wherefore, then, must the prisoner of a well- 220 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME furnished cell be specially subject to these dis- orders ? Experience teaches the contrary, and also the opinions of highly learned and experienced men, who, as physicians, have attained to an indisputable reputation. Mental Condition of Criminals. The mental disorders of criminals are of singular interest, more particularly those obscure affections which may be arranged as a transition series between positive criminality on the one hand, and criminality as the result of manifest insanity on the other. Cases of this kind are dis- tinguished, perhaps, more by the anomalous mode in which the vicious or criminal pro- pensities are manifested than in any other fashion ; and their importance as yet, perhaps, not sufficiently recognised can scarcely be exaggerated ; as from the circumstances under which they are observed, they offer to the psychologist an excellent opportunity for the careful and systematic study of many of those slight deviations of the healthy into the morbid action of the brain, which are all-important in mental pathology and therapeutics. These cases, moreover, are equally important to the medical jurist, as from them he may, with the greatest probability, hope to obtain many satis- factory aids in the diagnosis of certain obscure forms of insanity accompanied by criminal acts, and for the want of which he is not infrequently placed at a disadvantage in a court of law. A prisoner confined in one of our large prisons 22. Feigned insanity, unmasked after trial; this man's photograph as feigning insanity is on the frontispiece. 23. Lunatic who attempted homicide. 24. Mania of exaltation leading to attempted murder of soldiers. CRIMINAL ABNORMALITY 221 is so situated that he may be observed steadily and systematically, and the conditions under which he is placed, and their influence upon him, may be fully ascertained and accurately estimated. The evidence, therefore, which would be obtained regarding obscure mental affections under these circumstances might be expected to have a peculiar value in its bearing upon the legal doctrines of the responsibility of the insane ; it would doubtless have great weight, removed as it would be from the refracting medium of the procedure of a court of law. No evidence probably would more certainly and quickly operate with both the public and the judge, in inducing them to admit the justice of the proposition, than that in which positive in- dications of the existence of a morbid state of the mind are ascertained to exist in a prisoner at the bar. He ought to be dealt with in a different fashion from the ordinary criminal. Punishment in such cases is not only useless, but it is gener- ally harmful ; and if hopeless insanity be not the result, it will most probably aggravate the vicious disposition of the prisoner, and at the termina- tion of his period of imprisonment he will forth- with be guilty of other and more serious criminal acts. Prisoners of the class referred to require to be treated as lunatics and not as criminals, and their confinement should have for its object the testing of their true state of mind, and the adoption of such means for relief as may be 222 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME deemed necessary ; while their release should be made dependent, in a great measure, upon the condition of the mind at the time. The following cases serve to illustrate the more obscure mental disorders of criminals. A labourer, living in Westmoreland, was tried at Worcester, and sentenced to four years' penal servitude for burglary. He was first confined in the City of Worcester Gaol for about five months, and on his departure the governor gave him a character to the following effect : His conduct was most refractory ; he twice attempted to break out of his cell ; he smashed the windows ; many times threatened the life of the governor and surgeon ; his ordinary language was too disgusting for repetition ; and, in short, he was the " vilest brute " he ever had in custody during a governorship of thirty-five years. The prisoner was ultimately sent to Penton- ville. He was confined there for upwards of a year, during the whole of which period his conduct was marked by insubordination. He disturbed the prison, attempted an escape, threatened the lives of the officers, and, to carry out his threats, devised several weapons of a very ingenious construction. When the term of separate con- finement had expired he was removed to Port- land, but in consequence of his highly mutinous and insubordinate conduct, after about three months' detention, he was removed to another prison, and placed in the penal class. When he CRIMINAL ABNORMALITY 223 had been about five months there, he committed a murderous assault upon a warder, for which offence he was tried at the Central Criminal Court and sentenced to penal servitude for life. In pursuance of this sentence, he was sub- sequently sent to Pentonville for the second time. On entering the prison, and while in the courtyard awaiting his formal reception, he threatened repeatedly that he would murder an officer before the expiration of his imprison- ment. His subsequent conduct was very similar to what it was during his former imprisonment. He rebelled against all the rules, and murmured at the dietary, which, he asserted, was insufficient to maintain his strength. Sometimes he pre- tended to be too weak to leave his bed, or that he was actually on the point of death ; at other times he maintained that immediate death was preferable to the completion of his sentence, and begged that he might be forthwith put to death. All this time his bodily health was good, and he retained his natural stoutness. The character originally given him by the governor of the gaol was, to a certain extent, confirmed ; for he appeared to be lazy and ill-conducted, morose, evil-minded, and an impostor. His term of imprisonment in separation having expired, he would have been sent on again to Portland, but the whole tenor of his prison life rendered it probable that insanity in a latent or unrecognised form was present, although neither incoherence nor delusion was evident. It was 224 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME therefore considered advisable to recommend his removal to Dartmoor, where he would be under medical observation while his mental condition continued to be in an unsatisfactory state, and where the discipline would be better suited to his case. Before the necessary warrant arrived, he one day made a request to be allowed some indulgence in addition to his diet, and, when this was refused as unreasonable, he savagely attacked the medical officer, and stabbed him with a weapon he had previously constructed for the purpose, and which he had kept concealed in his coat sleeve, wounding also two of the warders who came to the rescue. When spoken to shortly afterwards on the serious nature of his offence, he expressed no contrition, but, on the contrary, regretted that he had " not killed the doctor," as he had intended, alleging that for some time past his food had been " powdered " or poisoned by the medical officer's orders. As this was manifestly an insane delusion, the prisoner was placed in the infirmary, where he was visited by an " expert " in insanity, who pronounced him to be a proper subject for a lunatic asylum. In accordance with this view of the case, the prisoner was removed to an asylum, from whence, after a detention of somewhat less than five months, he was sent back to Pentonville. With murderous threats in his mouth, lavishing abuse upon the establishment he had just left, and per- sisting in the story of the " powdered food," he was readmitted ; his mental condition, however, CRIMINAL ABNORMALITY 225 on readmission was but little altered. I am convinced from the history of the case sub- mitted to me that the prisoner was still the subject of mental affection and unfit for the discipline of a prison. In fact he was of unsound mind, suffering from well-marked symptoms of homicidal insanity, and, as such, was a subject for treatment in a properly constructed hospital for lunatics rather than for a penal establishment. A carter, who was a reputed thief, was con- victed at the Bolton Sessions of larceny, after a previous conviction, and was sentenced to six years' penal servitude. He was first confined for about six months in the ordinary county prison, where he was regarded as being " sullen," " idle," " insubordinate," and was flogged for refusing to work. From thence he was sent to Wakefield Prison, where his conduct during an imprisonment of nine months was " bad," and ultimately to Portland, where he was detained between eleven and twelve months, and where he obtained the following character from the governor : " Very bad ; a most insubordinate and idle prisoner ; I fear incorrigible." From Portland he was removed to a London prison. There he remained fifteen months, during which period his general conduct was " bad," and he was flogged for insubordination, and was passed on to Portsmouth. He remained in the latter prison only twenty-six days, and was then, on account of refusal to work and continuous insub- 15 226 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME ordination, removed to Pentonville, to undergo a third period of probation in separate confine- ment. During his imprisonment here his con- duct was very similar to what it appears to have been in other prisons. He was generally idle and insubordinate. At times he was violent, smashing the windows and threatening the lives of the officers. Although no delusion was manifested, yet the silly laugh, the motiveless misconduct, and other features in the case, sufficiently indicated the existence of weakness or unsoundness of the mind, and the necessity for special treatment. The prisoner was placed in the infirmary and put to associated labour. Subsequently he was removed to Dartmoor, as an unfit subject for separate confinement. He was visited and examined by a medical man, who gave an opinion to the effect that the mental condition of the prisoner was such as to excite a grave suspicion as to his responsibility, although the symptoms were not sufficiently pronounced to justify a removal to a lunatic asylum. A young man, aged seventeen, was convicted of burglary, sentenced to six years' penal servi- tude, and sent to Pentonville. He was a some- what weak-minded lad, and, when he had been there about seven months, exhibited consider- able excitement, and gave way to paroxysms of ungovernable violence. Under suitable moral treatment in the infirmary, where he received special attention from the schoolmaster, he CRIMINAL ABNORMALITY 227 became orderly and tractable, and encouraged a hope of amendment and recovery. A prisoner of sullen disposition, after he had been a month in prison, contrived to open a vein in his arm with a steel pen, avowedly with a suicidal intention. A second time he resorted to a similar proceeding, and when means were adopted to prevent him from inflicting injuries of this kind on himself, he threatened to starve himself, and for several days refused food, until at length, finding that nourishment was about to be administered by means of a stomach-pump, his resolution forsook him, and he took his meals in a natural manner. He was treated for some time in the infirmary in association, and subse- quently was removed to Dartmoor as an unfit subject for separate confinement. A soldier aged twenty-four, who had been a private in the Royal Marines, was sent to Pentonville from Dartmoor. Being considered an unfit subject for the discipline of that prison, he was removed therefrom. He was tried by a general court-martial, and sentenced to fourteen years' penal servitude, for striking his sergeant. In pursuance of his sentence he was first sent to Maidstone Gaol. His conduct there was violent and disorderly, and after detention of four months he was pronounced to be mad, and was removed to Bethlehem. He was confined as a lunatic there and also at Fisherton Home for about a year and three-quarters, and was then conveyed to Maidstone Gaol. He remained 228 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME two months in Maidstone, and was again pro- nounced to be mad, and placed in Bethlehem Hospital. After the lapse of five weeks he was discharged thence as sane, and removed to a London prison, where he was detained about six weeks. His conduct during that period was " bad," and he is said to have feigned an attempt at suicide. He was then removed to Portland, where his conduct for two months was " very bad." He attempted suicide, and was sent to Dartmoor. At Dartmoor he used threatening language, violently assaulted the officers, and was then, after three months' detention, removed to Pentonville, to undergo a period of probation in separate confinement. From the time of his reception into Pentonville until his removal he conducted himself in such a frantic manner as to raise grave suspicions of his sanity, inde- pendent of his previous history, which, I think, sufficiently shows that he was, at all events, an unfit subject for the discipline of separate confinement. These cases possess many features in common, and differ from each other but little, except in degree. They illustrate a peculiar class of prisoners received into Pentonville and the convict prisons. Prisoners of the class referred to are characterised by inveterate idleness, obstinacy, and insubordination, by gross and apparently motiveless misconduct. They are at times violent and smash everything within reach. They assault officers, disturb the prison CRIMINAL ABNORMALITY 229 by shouting, and set all order at defiance. Some are also intractable malingerers ; others threaten or attempt suicide. Such men occupy, as it were, a neutral territory between sanity and insanity, oscillating from one to the other, until at length in some cases incoherence or delusion becomes apparent, the mental equilibrium is perceived to be lost, and they fall obviously into the domain of insanity ; in other cases the mental condition continues doubtful, and in the prisons they are as often regarded as " cracked " or crazy as they are in the lunatic asylums as criminals and impostors. With these the authorised prison punishments are found to be worse than useless, and the existing systems of discipline, whether separate or associated, appear to be productive of little benefit. To deal effectively with them before actual insanity is established, a special and peculiar discipline is needed ; for, so far as my experience extends, separate confinement is not attended by any good results. Doubtful Sanity. As to how prisoners of doubtful sanity should be dealt with, becomes a question of very considerable importance. It is evident from the cases which I have related, and many others which I could refer to, that imprisonment, whether of the associated or the separate character, aggravates, as a rule, the morbid condition of the mind, and fails alto- gether in its proper effects. Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum is not intended for doubtful cases, but for confirmed lunatics. It has been 230 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME suggested that the establishment of an institu- tion, intermediate in character between a prison and an asylum, and conducted on the principles of a lunatic asylum, is required. An institution so constituted would offer the following advan- tages : 1. It would relieve the pressure of the asylums, by providing certain moral and medical tests for convicts who appear to be deranged, as to the reality of their symptoms, whether of idiocy or insanity; and thus, with the most feasible prospect of detecting malingerers, it would be sure to produce fair results in doubt- ful cases. 2. It would secure the best chance of recovery in hopeful cases. 3. It would afford ample opportunity for the application of reformatory treatment to all of those classes. The lunatic hospitals in London do not supply the need, and, in the provinces, the great county and the borough hospitals cannot be made available for doubtful cases of lunacy. Discrepancies of Laws between Rich and Poor It is a very curious thing that, inasmuch as the proportion of lunatics among the higher and middle classes of society is a quarter of the whole number, the proportion of criminals amongst the same class is so extremely small as scarcely to amount to an appreciable quantity. It might be inferred that where so many are found incapable of subjecting their passions to CRIMINAL ABNORMALITY 231 reason, crime would abound among them to a much greater extent if legal criminality and inordinate indulgence were identical in their origin, progress, and results. By the perusal of the records, crime, with very rare exceptions, is confined to the pauper class. It is an admitted fact, and I might say pro- verbial, that many of our laws apparently are made for the poor and not for the rich. The poor are often deprived of food and warmth, which are the most pressing of our natural wants. The cravings of hunger must be satisfied at ah 1 hazards ; the necessity for clothing is equally urgent. Hence the pauper is often tempted to appropriate property of others, not for excessive gratification, but for the indispensable nourish- ment of his animal nature, and in strict obedience to animal instincts. Not only is legislation con- tinually at work for the protection of property, but our judges, for the most part, reserve the severest penalties of the law for theft or fraud, visiting crimes against the person with compara- tive lenity. Every assize and quarter sessions produces instances of very severe sentences for felonies of this class, in absurd contrast with imprisonment of a few months for manslaughter or assaults with intent. The life of a man or the honour of a woman is often ludicrously weighed against the theft of a loaf or a yard of broadcloth in our scales of criminal justice. The extreme severity of the law and the judicial caprice with which it is administered, not to 232 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME mention the enormous expenses of prosecu- tion, induce many to overlook the injury they sustain ; and thus the pauper who begins by stealing to supply actual want is emboldened by the possibility of impunity to steal for the gratification of his animal passions. The higher and middle ranks of life are not exposed to similar temptation till a long career of extravagant indulgence has reduced them to actual want. Even when their own resources fail them, the benevolence of friends, or more prosperous relatives, steps in to save them from actual destitution. Thus the insanity induced by intemperance will often overtake them before they violate any law but that which is imposed by the social code of decency. Even when reason is rapidly declining, she will retain sufficient restraining power to prevent a man incurring unnecessary hazard, when he can as easily obtain satiety of gratification without exposing himself to legal retribution. The loss of caste is also a restraining penalty, strongly operating in aid of reason among the higher orders, but it is unknown to the low-born pauper. Their sensual excesses, therefore, generally take a direction which entails no public ignominy. As for disgrace in their domestic circles, it is covered by affection, or, at the worst, retrievable by amendment ; but whatever be the direction of a pauper's passions, if gratified at all, they must be gratified at the expense of others ; hence the penal law, though made alike CRIMINAL ABNORMALITY 233 for all, seems, by its almost exclusive application, to be intended for him alone. Were the pauper criminal a man of wealth, he would become insane before he is marked a felon ; but being a pauper, he becomes a felon before he is ripe for the asylum ; abridgment of opportunity, and the discipline of a prison, preserve him in the incipient stage. In confirmation of this view of the subject, it may be remarked that, in the comparatively few cases in which men in the higher walks of life become amenable to the law, it is for some of the offences that fall within the description of malicious violence to the person. When the passions of a malignant type are those habitu- ally indulged in, as in anger, jealousy, or revenge, then reason, though aided by all the restrictive penalties of the social code, becomes subdued as easily as in the lowest class. Murder and man- slaughter in all its varieties of guilt, violence to women, and even vindictive injuries to property, are crimes not confined to the pauper class ; though far more frequently seen among them, simply because reason has not been fortified by habits of self-control, and strengthened by education. Struggles between Reason and Excess. Man, as an animal, is not only endowed with in- stinctive properties for self-preservation, but created for responsibility. Volition is given to him that he may be a free agent, and certain faculties that may be designated as " reason " are 234 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME also given to guide his acts by reference to their consequences. His animal instincts impel him in a right direction, and his volition, partaking of animal instinct, carries him to excess ; reason's function is to restrain volition in its tendency to excess, by the fear of penal consequences injurious to the animal nature. An unceasing conflict is thus maintained between two antagon- istic powers. There can be no compromise between them ; one or the other must succumb. If reason habitually triumph, she retains her seat till death ; if she habitually yield, she abdicates at last from debility and exhaustion. I have shown the identity of crime with insanity, in its progress, objects, and results. Intemperance, in its largest sense, is the predisposing cause of both, except in such lunacy as in its develop- ment betrays the acknowledged signs of local disease or organic malformation ; this proof is deduced from statistics published by authority, or sanctioned by large medical experience. The crowning act of irrationality or crime is no index to guide us to the diseased passion ; for though, in our unsophisticated state, each has its peculiar province in stimulating to acts necessary for gratifying our instinctive wants of self-preservation and self-generation, yet passion begets passion in such large variety, that at last we cannot distinguish the progeny from the parent stock, or appropriate to each its peculiar functions in the animal economy. We cannot trace back the crime or the folly CRIMINAL ABNORMALITY 235 to its motive, from its own peculiarity of feature. One man commits murder to conceal the shame of a minor offence. Others perpetrate the same crime as a trading speculation, some again from sheer cruelty, or from a combination of vanity and cupidity. Not one of them is free from the visible taint of irrationality. Yet, apart from the circumstances disclosed on trial, who could assign an adequate cause for their respective crimes, except in the habitual and intemperate indulgence of some favourite though latent passion ? It is in this comprehensive sense that intemper- ance is included among the predisposing causes of lunacy, for which a remedy should be provided. Like causes produce like effects, and the excess on the side of lunacy may be accounted for by the fact already noticed more than once : that intemperance, where it leads to legal criminality, is often arrested in its progress by the imprison- ment of the offender, while it proceeds unchecked by the abridgment of opportunity, so long as its irrational excesses keep within the pale of the law. The distinguishing trait of irrationality is recklessness of consequences, while good sense, and the self-denial which it inculcates, are equally marked by a prudential regard to consequences. The more speedy and certain these consequences are, the less is the effort of self-denial required. Even the habitual drunkard will not drink a tumbler of brandy at a draught, for he has sense 236 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME enough remaining to know that it is immediate death. Burke and Hare, who made a large amount of money in Edinburgh by murdering various people, and selling their bodies to the hospitals for dissection, would not have done so had they for a moment anticipated that they would have been detected and probably lynched. At the trial Hare turned king's evidence, and was liberated ; Burke was executed. On his libera- tion Hare obtained employment, but his fellow- workmen discovered who he was and threw him down a pit, as a result of which he lost his sight. For many years I saw him parading Oxford Street with a dog. Little did his supporters know who he really was. Law's Uncertainty. The criminal of every class always speculates on impunity, and he realises that there are more chances in his favour than is commonly supposed. If he is detected, he knows perfectly well he has every chance of escaping prosecution. There are very few persons who would be willing to run the risk and inconvenience of acting as prosecutor in an ordinary case. There is the waste of money, days hanging about the court, having to leave one's work to attend there at the pleasure, if in the country, of an unpaid magistrate; often having to travel many miles to the assizes or quarter sessions, there to be detained several days, and to pay one's own travelling expenses, and perhaps those of a dozen witnesses. Hotel CRIMINAL ABNORMALITY 237 expenses have to be met and also legal expenses, which often pass into the hands of a solicitor, who absolutely neglects your case, leaving it to the counsel, who pursues the matter with in- difference, ignorance, and unconcern of the vital issue. These are sacrifices which a man may, in his simplicity, submit to once, but never a second time. The prisoner knows all this, and therefore takes the risk when he commits a criminal act. He also knows that, if the case comes up for trial, there is a possibility of his being acquitted, either from some legal over- sight or from the sentimentality and uncertainty of a British jury. Out of 28,833 commitments in one year, 7251 were acquitted or discharged in consequence of the prosecutor not appearing or declining to prosecute. Finally, if committed, he is at the caprice and the whims of either an austere judge or a facetious one in his favour. Only 15,499 were sentenced to less than six months' imprisonment ; in other words, two- thirds were convicted, and the others were either not prosecuted or discharged. Inequality of Sentences. The world derive their impressions of legal obligation from their experience of it as seen in others, if not in themselves. They have no instruction in the principles of jurisprudence, or of ethics. Their estimate of the criminality of excessive self-indulgence is formed by its visible effects. They restrain an intemperate propensity, 238 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME because they see the drunkard revelling in misery, or the thief carried away in handcuffs to the cells of a prison. Such plain, matter-of- fact lessons as these are sufficiently intelligible, and their impressiveness ought not to be diluted. But what must be the confusion created in their minds as to the heinousness of crime or the guilt of excess, when in one town the poacher is visited with more severity than the burglar, and in another with less ? When the bigamist is imprisoned by one judge for a month, and by another for a year ? When the perjurer is fined to-day, and imprisoned to-morrow ? When for attempted murder a man is sentenced to penal servitude for life at the New Bailey, and to a few months' imprisonment for a like offence at the county sessions, or discharged with a reprimand by another court inclined to be more merciful ? What can they know of extenuating circumstances who have not attended the trial, heard the evidence, or seen the witnesses under cross-examination ? A dyspeptic, irritable judge is likely to deliver a different sentence than one in the enjoyment of perfect health and with a tranquil mind. Such is human nature. Our diversities of judicial administration are yet more singular : a cow may sometimes be stolen with more safety than a cabbage, a banker's bag at less risk than a pocket-handkerchief, or a rib broken at less expense to the assailant than an eye blackened, so far as the individual sentences are concerned. CRIMINAL ABNORMALITY 239 Our criminal code is alike deficient in certainty of definition, prosecution, conviction, and punish- ment. The first, second, and fourth of these defects admit of remedy, and till that remedy is applied by a graduated classification of crime, and, more than all, by displacing the whole body of county justices, and transferring their criminal jurisdiction to responsible stipendiaries, educated in law, we cannot hope to obtain that restrictive efficiency which ought to follow the administration of all punishment intended to be exemplary to others. In dealing with the practical part of the subject, we may classify criminals as follows : 1. Those possessing hereditary tendencies. 2. Ill-balanced organisations, which are easily influenced by evil associates. 3. Those with naturally good and bad ten- dencies suffering from poverty and neglect. If we examine the history of those who have inherited a tendency to crime, we find that the evil has been fostered even from infancy, where, by proper training before they reached the age of discretion, it might in many cases have been followed by good results. But unfortunately many of them are allowed to pursue their career of hereditary crime unchecked. They are left surrounded by an atmosphere of moral malaria, which deadens all that is lovely and elevating, and leaves their better faculties in a state of hopeless torpor ; for, like their progenitors, they are instructed from their very infancy to become 2 4 o INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME the willing slaves of the lowest propensities. Initiated in lying and theft as soon as they can lisp, and suffering either from excess or deficiency of nourishment, they become confirmed criminals, acted on by the strong instinct of self-preserva- tion. The fear of punishment may at times deter them from an overt act ; but under strong temptation, even with the practical certainty of conviction, the consequences are unheeded. They lack any higher motives to restrain them, whilst the hope of impunity often renders them reckless. Under every varying circumstance they are liable to yield to their strongest impulses, without even the slightest compunction. With regard to the punishment of either children or criminals, it should have nothing of vindic- tiveness about it, but should be strictly reformatory. And in order to improve this condition of things discrimination should be made between the various classes of criminals. I regret very much that the state of the law in our own country dealing with criminal lunatics is so different from that existing in other countries, that no excuse is required to once more allude to and briefly discuss the ques- tion from a legal standpoint. A relative becomes mentally afflicted, he commits a crime, the plea of insanity is put in at the time of the trial, and he is found " Not guilty " on these grounds, much to the satisfaction of his relations waiting to receive him with open arms. A terrible awakening is the result ; and the unforeseen CRIMINAL ABNORMALITY 241 sequel is Broadmoor. When once there, the difficulties are insurmountable. I have heard it often expressed that it was a matter of regret that the plea was raised, as a short sentence would have followed instead of a life-long incarceration among lunatics. In England, in criminal cases, an acquittal on the ground of insanity is tanta- mount to perpetual imprisonment, and under the most degrading circumstances. Insanity is urged as an extenuating plea the jury, fully recognising the irresponsibility of the prisoner, acquit him of the charge. The unhappy lunatic, who is no more accountable for his criminal act than a man would be for the wanderings of his intellect whilst under the influence of a disturbed dream, instead of being given over to the care of his friends, is handed over like a responsible felon to public officials, and forthwith sent to the criminal department of Broadmoor, there to spend the remainder of his days as the miser- able companion of idiots, and as the associate of the worst class of criminals. Here our law is in a most dangerous and unsatisfactory state, and only those who are compelled by circum- stances to realise the difficulties and obstacles in getting a relation, after complete recovery has taken place, released from Broadmoor, are able to grasp the reality of the situation. His attack of insanity for which he was tried may probably have been temporary and tran- sient in its character. Our human law in its profound wisdom recognises amongst criminal 16 242 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME lunatics no distinction of classes. A man once a criminal lunatic continues, unless something unforeseen happens, as such a one during his natural life. A recovery is regarded by the authorities as impossible, and the very mention of liberation from restraint is considered as highly dangerous to the safety and welfare of society. The law, owing to its harshness in this one particular, often stultifies itself. I remember some time ago the wife of a distinguished member of my profession, in a paroxysm of unmistak- able and obvious sudden mental derangement, abstracting from a shop an article of insignifi- cance. The facts connected with the case, as well as the previous history of the lady, clearly and conclusively demonstrated the fact, beyond all possibility of doubt, as to the existence of a morbid state of mind at the time of the com- mission of the alleged criminal act. Every witness at the trial, including medical experts, admitted this. A unique plan was here adopted. No plea of insanity was raised, for the reason previously alluded to, of the likelihood of life imprisonment in a criminal lunatic asylum. No medical evidence was tended. It was appar- ent to the learned legal advisers engaged in the case that if this unhappy lady, who, in a moment of uncontrollable mental excitement and consequent loss of self-control, had brought herself within the jurisdiction of the law, were to escape on the plea of legal irresponsibility caused CRIMINAL ABNORMALITY 243 by mental derangement, she would inevitably pass from the Central Criminal Court to the dreary and desolate wards of a criminal lunatic asylum. In the days I am speaking of, Broad- moor did not exist, and the majority of criminal lunatics were sent to Bethlehem. It was also well known and recognised that once there as a criminal lunatic, all efforts to obtain a trans- fer or release would have proved ineffectual. The husband of the lady, who was a personal friend of my own, together with his legal advisers, had a clear perception of this painful alternative, and it was thought better to lay before the jury a clear and succinct statement of the true facts, leaving it to their justice and humanity to decide the issue. The manifest imperfection of the law caused this risky line of defence to be adopted. It was thought safer to run the risk of a conviction, with its accompanying obloquy and punishment, than urge as an excuse the plea of insanity, and thus incur the danger of perpetual imprisonment among the insane. The line of defence proved satisfactory to a merciful jury. The law pretends to acquit on the ground of irresponsibility, induced by a diseased brain and disordered mind, and yet punishes those so acquitted with the severest penalty, short of actual death upon the scaffold. This anomalous state of our existing law is a disgrace to a Christian and civilised community. TRAGEDY OF EARLY MENTAL COLLAPSE TRAGEDY OF EARLY MENTAL COLLAPSE Mental Forewarnings in Children. Those who have had special training in mental disorders will have but little difficulty in discriminating between a naughty child, who is presumably in possession of its normal senses, and a youthful morally irresponsible delinquent. Unfortun- ately this form of moral insanity is frequently observed in children of both sexes, especially in those of a precocious nature, and when at the age of puberty. Ungovernable temper, unreasonable behaviour, impulsive desires or emotions, vicious conduct, and unnatural cruelty, are generally more or less present as premonitory symptoms. Moral insanity in children is frequently inherited. Of 21,333 cases of lunacy taken casually, I find that 8 occurred in those under ten years of age, and 1161 between the ages of ten and twenty. Other reliable statistics show percentages as follows : From 5 to 9 years . .0*9 per cent. 10 14 . 3-5 15 19 - 20 347 248 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME Speaking generally, I may say that insanity is very rare in children under the age of twelve, except those who are actually born idiotic or insane. The history of such a case, obtained from the parents, could not mislead anyone to regard such an individual as amenable to ordinary discipline should it commit certain vagaries in the same way as a naughty child. There are certain forms of mental disorder which, though born in them, are for a time latent. In youth- ful insanity the prognosis is very unfavourable. In 42 cases, of which I have the record before me, I find that mental disease showed itself be- tween the ages of fourteen and sixteen, whilst of this number 18 were inherited from the parents, and 18 completely recovered, though in some of these cases a relapse took place. Ungovern- able temper and an inability to apply themselves to work were prominent symptoms in these cases, which might also be mistaken for moral delinquencies. I believe that if such cases were recognised in the very early stage, and submitted to proper moral treatment and discipline, much good might ensue. I agree with many authorities that in some cases improvement might take place by judicious and firm treat- ment, and that no possible harm could thereby take place. It is much to be regretted that in England there are no special schools where these can be educated. It is a frequent duty of mine to give notice to the school authorities as to the inability of such an individual to attend. EARLY MENTAL COLLAPSE 249 In such instances, there being no intermediate residential school for weak-minded children, they are drafted into lunatic asylums, where they will probably continue for the remainder of their natural lives, and associate with lunatics, where nothing is done in any possible way for the training of the mind ; whereas if placed in such a school as I have suggested, there would be every chance of the mind being saved from absolute destitution. Separation from home and its associations is most essential. This is the most difficult thing to impress upon the parents, who most unwisely cling to the one weak member of their flock, their morbid offspring, until it is too late for any treatment to be of avail. Kleptomania and pyromania are both associ- ated with certain forms of moral insanity existing in children. Now, as to the distinc- tion between a naughty child and an abnormal one, we find that in the former the child is conscious of the fact that it is doing wrong, and is aware that it can help doing so if it likes ; whilst at the same time, dreading any punishment which may be inflicted, its actions are consequently checked by the same. The latter is unconscious that it is committing a crime, and is indifferent as to chastisement, which is disregarded and would probably act as an incentive to crime. The principal means to prevent crime and insanity in children is a proper education based on the peculiar temperament, not only of the 250 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME child under consideration, but of the parents themselves, if this can reasonably be obtained by those undertaking the training of such. There are certain premonitions in child-life which in themselves should cause apprehension and fear as to the probable future in store, be the education or training as perfect as it is possible to make it. I will, for reference sake, tabulate what I consider to be the principal forewarnings to place us on our guard. 1. Cruelty. If the child has any leaning towards cruelty, we should try to avoid every- thing which tends in that direction. Torturing animals, especially cats, is a symptom frequently seen in children with such tendencies. Also pulling off the legs of flies, catching mice and burning their eyes out, or similar wanton cruelty, are abnormal indications often to be observed. The child with such inclinations requires careful and assiduous watching. 2. Obstinacy. An abnormal child is often insanely self - willed. This is associated with general perverseness. Such a child is selfish, and often the teachers and parents, not recog- nising this grave ingress of such a symptom, will lose sight of it in their training of the child. This is often much exaggerated in children who have been spoilt. 3. Passion. This is an abnormal symptom against which we have to be carefully on our guard. It is very often associated with anger and revenge ; in some children the outbursts EARLY MENTAL COLLAPSE 251 are only momentary, whereas in others it is quite uncontrollable. 4. Temper. This may be called a modified variety of passion. It is not so intense, how- ever, as passion. In some children temper is ungovernable, and when this is the case it is indicative of an abnormal child. Many children commit suicide in a fit of temper. Hence the importance of its recognition as being a morbid indication to be watched. In many cases it will gradually develop and in- crease in violence. 5. Moroseness. This, associated with general perverseness, is a symptom of the abnormal child. This develops from the child being spoilt in its early years. It becomes sullen, ill-tempered, saucy, and impatient, not only to its parents, but to strangers as well. It is a very obstinate symptom to grapple with. 6. Solitude. A desire to be alone, away from other children. This is a frequent but unnatural habit for any child to indulge in, and such a child requires the utmost vigilance. It is a warning of the utmost importance. 7. Irritability and Peevishness. This is often of such an extent, that it becomes impossible to tolerate it. Frequently every will of the child is gratified with a view of removing this, but to no avail. It is very contagious to other members of the family, and, unless soon recog- nised, will impregnate other children who come in contact with the victims to it. 252 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME 8. Obscenity. This is associated with general coarseness both in habits and conversation. It is unnatural for an ordinary child to be thus, and therefore its existence requires urgent observation and action. 9. Dishonesty. This in children, if not at once checked a difficult thing to do, however leads to terrible consequences hereafter. It is the forerunner of crime. Many children who exhibit this, even in its elementary character, become confirmed criminals in the near future. I know of no more positive indication of youthful de- pravity than this. It is an objective symptom, which is apparent to the observation of every- one with whom the child comes in contact ; but it is often made very light of by the parents themselves, until one day their eyes are opened to a terrible calamity ; though even then they may be reluctant to admit irrespon- sibility. Very often keeping the change when sent to pay a small bill, if not checked, will develop into greater acts of theft. 10. Sadness. Sadness is allied more or less to moroseness. A sad child is naturally always a melancholy one. Abnormal melancholy is a well-recognised form of mental disorder. Most of the suicides are due to this, and children's sadness often leads to the termination of their alleged melancholy existence. 11. Excitement. This is frequently seen in childhood. Ungovernable and uncontrollable attacks of excitement are responsible for the EARLY MENTAL COLLAPSE 253 infliction of bodily injuries, and often of murder itself. 12. Habits. Any change in the habits of a child is a precursor of what is to come. A child up to a certain age may have been apparently quite normal ; if, therefore, it changes its ordinary habits and behaviour so as to be unlike its old self, as in adults so in children, it is a warning of the most serious nature. 13. Morality. An ignorance of all that is pure and moral is often observed in children about the age of thirteen. That many of these are morally irresponsible for this, there can be no possible doubt. They require firm and judicious surveillance. If this real mental state is not recognised, very often a serious and irrevocable disgrace will fall, not only on themselves but on their families. The diagnosis between responsible moral crime and the reverse can only be arrived at by the psychologist versed in such matters. 14. Arson. Unfortunately this is a common indication of abnormality in children ; and many a valuable property is destroyed through this. The child gloats with exultation at the burning. This is not what is recognised as pyromania, but an abnormality in the child, an insane mischief, the symptoms of which have escaped notice. 15. Twitchings. I have no intention of dis- cussing medical matters in this book : I merely mention them when I find it inevitable to 254 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME do so. In alluding to twitchings, I mean what is usually understood as choreaic convulsions, as seen in St. Vitus's dance ; it is such an important premonition in children's mental diseases, that I feel it is imperative for me to mention it. It is often seen in the over- worked child ; it is a warning to at once re- move such a child from all scholastic influence. The kind and loving watchfulness of home-life is alone suitable for such a case. I have fre- quently seen terrible consequences result from sending a child liable to these nervous twitchings to school, and the fact of their existence is a suffi- cient reason to justify the prohibition of school until all such indications have passed away. It is no good realising this after all the harm has been accomplished. Nervous twitching is an alarming abnormal symptom of the greatest gravity, and requires immediate recognition. In such a case do not listen to the opinion of the school authorities as to no possible harm being feared. Realise the true physiological and psychological bearings on the matter, that twitchings are the result of an abnormality in the nervous system, and that if that nervous system is still further influenced by the en- deavour to force knowledge into a structure already temporarily deranged, permanent brain disease must follow. 16. Precocity. A precocious child is generally an abnormal one. Before going to school it has in all probability been a show-child at home. EARLY MENTAL COLLAPSE 255 On every possible occasion perhaps it has been brought into the drawing-room, to test its memory or extraordinary intelligence for its age. When sent to school its precocity will further increase. It will be placed in a form far in advance of its age, and the child will be found at the top of its class. A glorious future will be predicted both by the school teachers and the parents. A time will come, however, when the brain will decline to be further stimulated by learning, and will refuse to respond. The brain has become stunted; too much pressure has been brought to bear upon it ; the gigantic and abnormal intellect has only " blushed but to deceive." In after life nothing but continu- ous failure is seen. These brilliant effulgences will in all probability have exhibited some of the symptoms mentioned by me, and will often, when tempted, yield when placed on their own resources ; but instead of becoming distinguished and brilliant members of society, they will, in many instances, become outcasts. This is my experience of such a class. 17. Dizziness. In describing the premonitions of crime and insanity, I stated that no one symptom must be taken as positive evidence of that condition, but that the symptoms men- tioned were those observed either taken singly or collectively ; and the same remark applies to the subject I have just been discussing. Many children who are liable to slight attacks of dizziness, which are very often a precursor 256 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME of epilepsy, have a tendency to walk in their sleep. In other cases an alarming symptom to be observed is an apparent loss of conscious- ness for a few seconds, accompanied by the swaying of the head ; such symptoms should put the parents at once on their guard. I have known children about the age of thirteen, who, without any apparent disturbance in their ideas or consciousness, are suddenly seized by an unaccountable paroxysm of passion. This will develop at once with no cause, or a very slight one, and they will often seize a knife or any convenient instrument, and will often wound or even kill anyone who happens to be near at hand at the time an absolutely motiveless crime in most instances. Other children will become reckless, and, though unable to swim, they will jump into the river, or suspend themselves out of sheer bravado from a parapet or window-sill, heedless of the depth below ; while others will risk their lives playing with gunpowder and firearms. Another symptom frequently met with in children, tainted with insanity, who are destined sooner or later to become criminals if not properly dealt with, is a desire to exaggerate and to tell untruths. There is a great connection between exaggeration and lying. They will try to persuade persons of their wonderful physical powers. Some of those whom they come in contact with will apparently believe in what they are told ; but in reality the untruths are so impressed on the minds of those EARLY MENTAL COLLAPSE 257 who make such statements, that it amounts to nothing more nor less than a delusion of an abnormal mind. The exaggerated ideas have no existence except in the insane imagination of the children themselves, and they are incipient symptoms of a form of mental disease, which sooner or later becomes associated with crime. Talented Children. Many precocious children of ten years or even younger exhibit a wonderful talent for music or calculation. They are versed in historical events, and will quote poetry at great length ; this unusual mental condition is an abnormal one. It is not natural that children of that age should be so endowed. I look upon a good many of the musical prodigies of the present day with a certain amount of suspicion, and I am never astonished when a mental collapse or even worse takes place. I have often been asked the earliest age at which I have observed symptoms of mental alienation. I know of a case where an infant of fourteen and a half months suffered from hallucinations. She appeared to be incessantly seeking for imaginary objects in front of her, stretching out her hands to clutch them. She would often cling to the sides of her cradle to be able to reach them better. Her little mind was so completely absorbed with these hallucina- tions, that her actual vision appeared to be entirely abolished. I feel sure that if we could investigate this matter, many cases similar to that which I have just described could be found. 17 258 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME Children predisposed to an abnormal mental condition are liable frequently to transform their dreams, which have become impressed upon their minds, into hallucinations. A pretty and intelligent little girl of seven years of age suddenly became insane. Her mother was under treatment for a mental affec- tion, and it was observed shortly that the child became irritable and capricious, and gave way to the most violent fits of passion, during which she would break and destroy everything which came to hand. Soon afterwards she became subject to attacks of ecstasy, in the course of which her features had a seraphic expression, her eyes remaining fixed upon the sky for a great length of time ; she would cry aloud with a voice vibrating with emotion, " I see the angels; they are coming to me." When the crisis was past, she was very excitable for some time, but gradually became tranquil, and could answer rationally the questions put to her. A boy, aged six, extremely difficult to manage, and who was very irritable, had become during the past four months unbearable. When he was placed under observation, he would not remain quiet, but was continually mounting upon the chairs, tables, and window - seats, and rolling in the dust ; he ate gluttonously and irregularly. He would listen to nothing, but got into a rage if anyone wished to control him. He perpetually escaped from surveillance, and was never found again until he "had accom- EARLY MENTAL COLLAPSE 259 plished some mischief. On account of his violence, which rendered some serious result not improbable, it was necessary to impose mechanical restraint upon him. When he found himself thus disabled, he became enraged, in a most extraordinary manner for a child of that age. " As soon as I am at liberty, I will set fire to the house, and if I can find a pointed knife, I will stab you to the heart ; I should rejoice to see your blood flow and to kill you." In his father's house he had often used similar language ; and it was the fear on the part of his parents, that he would at some time carry his threats into execution, that had led them to the resolution of placing him in an institution. It was found that it would be dangerous to keep such a patient there ; he therefore returned home. Another case is that of a boy who possessed a good memory, learnt his lessons well, who had been confirmed, and was generally ad- mitted to have an intelligent appearance. Unfortunately, from his earliest years he evinced every bad instinct ; he stole every- thing to which he took any fancy ; he was the terror of his playfellows, whom he pinched, struck, and abused in every way ; he obeyed no orders, and wandered about incessantly. His parents had never been affected with mental disturbance, and he was an only child, so that jealousy could have had no share in producing these results. His instincts became 260 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME more and more perverted, and as he uttered threats perpetually, and became vindictively mendacious, and talked continually of killing someone, his mother determined to place him in an asylum. There he became the terror and scourge of the patients, always pinching, biting, and striking. His victims were especially the imbecile and idiots. This kind of instinct exists also amongst these classes particularly. He avowed quietly all that he had done ; he said, " I have no pleasure except in doing mischief. I should like to shed your blood. When I pushed against my mother, it was to throw her down." On different occasions he manifested a desire to stab her with a knife to kill her. It was naturally, and without anger, that he did wrong. He knew well that it was wrong, but felt no regret ; he struck a blow as another child would give a piece of bread to a beggar. He spoke without reserve. His conversation was upon the most indifferent matters ; the eyes had no particular expression. He retained the remembrance of what he supposed to be an injury, or of an unpremeditated wrong, and avenged it on the first opportunity. Religion was tried, in the first instance, in vain, as a cure. These cases establish clearly the fact that mental derangements may occur in childhood ; but they constitute rather perversions of instinct, sentiment, and the moral faculties, than well- defined types of mania or monomania. This EARLY MENTAL COLLAPSE 261 tendency, moreover, is in relation with the psychological dispositions of this period of life. A little child of eight openly admitted that she wished to kill her own mother, her grand- mother, and her father ; her object being to inherit their property, and to have an oppor- tunity of indulging her passions. The child was morose, pale, and silent ; when spoken to, her answers were very abrupt. Her health improved by a residence in the country, but on being brought back to town she became again pale and melancholy. For a long time the cause remained undiscovered ; at length it was found that it was a case of moral depravity of the worst description. It is often found that children commit crime apparently without any motive, especially girls between the age of sixteen and seventeen, and boys between seventeen and eighteen. I have records of a number of cases where crime was committed without motive, and where not the slightest animosity existed towards those persons against whom the outrages were perpetrated, at this particular age. In by far the greater number of cases, the disease manifests itself partly under the influence of hereditary predisposition, and partly under the influence of puberty. On inquiring from the parents the character of the children, the answer has almost always been, that they were, for no cause at all, sometimes sad, and at other times wild and ungovernable ; they could never 262 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME apply themselves steadily to work ; they had no talent, or, if it existed, it only flared up brilliantly for a moment ; and they would submit themselves to no rules. Some were apathetic, and were not to be excited by emula- tion ; others exhibited a volatility which could not be restrained ; many had been subject to spasmodic attacks. The incubation period was often protracted. In the instances when recovery took place, they were liable to relapse ; but there also remained a remarkable strange- ness of character, and an inability to assume any fixed position in life. Some afforded in- secure evidence of the recovery being permanent. The conclusion is, that though, in a certain number of cases, recovery takes place, the mental alienation of children and young people is a most serious disease partly from their antecedents, and partly on account of the imperfect develop- ment of the organs. Suicide in Children. I have already men- tioned the liability of children to commit suicide, which is a form of insanity both of passion and crime. Out of twenty-six cases, the age varied from five years to fourteen ; one was five years old, two were nine, two were ten, five were eleven, seven were twelve, seven were thirteen, and two were fourteen years old. Eighteen were boys, eight girls. Out of twenty- two of these, ten were drowned, ten hanged themselves, and two broke their necks. All the girls were drowned. Four of the twenty-six failed in the "attempt. EARLY MENTAL COLLAPSE 263 The inadequacy of the motive is often very surprising. One boy aged five years killed him- self after having lost a bird ; another, of twelve, because he was only the twelfth in his class at school. Sometimes the reasons are more serious. A boy of fourteen was accused of having stolen a snare for birds, and threatened with imprison- ment. He continued to work for a few days, and then hanged himself. A child of eleven years old drowned himself, because his mother committed suicide. Many cases of child suicide appear to be in consequence of punishment or ill-treatment, or in anticipation of the former. A child of thirteen years, the only son of parents in easy circum- stances, was reprimanded, and struck by his father. The next day he went to see his com- panions and said, " I have been struck by my father : he will not do so again ; I am going to drown myself." They laughed at this, supposing it to be a joke ; but he effected his purpose, and was found twenty-four hours after, drowned. A little girl, eleven years old, was promised by her father a reward if she executed her task well, but threatened with a severe punishment if the contrary. She left home early in the morning and met a neighbour of her father's, who asked her where she was going ; to which she replied she was going on an errand. Suddenly she threw herself into the river, but was rescued, after a determined effort to get under a boat. A child of five years old threw himself into 264 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME the river on account of his mother's ill-treat- ment of him. The suicides of children are almost all remarkable for their sang-froid and pre- meditation. It is certain that before puberty, the idea of death is not accompanied by that sentiment of horror which often, in more advanced life, preserves from suicide. Up to a certain age, children do not comprehend death ; somewhat later, they scarcely feel the horror of it. I have seen many children die who were old enough to know that they were about to quit this life ; yet I have never observed any expression of terror or despair. Two pupils belonging to the same clerical school, aged respectively nine and fourteen, were intimate friends. Apparently it was their custom to treat the school officials with discourtesy, this sometimes amounting to absolute rudeness. They also played all sorts of cruel practical jokes upon them, to the extent of placing pins in their chairs. They were ultimately detected and severely reprimanded. The result of their detection in this wilful viciousness was to induce them to determine upon committing suicide together. One morning at two o'clock they left the school, escaping by a staircase which led from the kitchen, and reached the public thoroughfare, and at once made their way to the railway. On arriving there, they threw themselves upon the line just as an express train was passing. In the pocket of the youngest of the boys was a letter in which was written, EARLY MENTAL COLLAPSE 265 " There is no hope of our reforming," at the same time mentioning by name several persons whom they accused as being responsible for their suicide. In the pocket of the eldest child was a letter written to a girl at a local school, as follows : "I loved you, and I love you." Another boy committed suicide after having been expelled from school for inducing his school- mates to refuse to do homework. He was eighteen years old. One evening he informed his friends of his intention of terminating his existence, and went into the park, shooting himself with a revolver which he had obtained from his father's house. When he was buried, another boy delivered an oration on suicide at the graveside. I have dealt at length with the discussion of the abnormal mental diseases of children owing to the fact that, with the exception of a few idiots or actual imbeciles, I believe that the criminal instinct among insane children is much stronger than the same instinct in adults. In other words, insanity, if not recognised, or, if when recognised not checked in children, is bound to lead to the perpetration of some dreadful crime, when the eyes of their parents are sadly opened. By the word " children " I mean all children up to the age of sixteen. Unfortunately, when insanity has once evinced itself in children below that age, the chances of recovery are very remote. Improvement may take place under treatment and surveillance, but in my opinion, I am con- vinced that they can never be trusted to be alone and unprotected in the world. Most of the cases of criminal insanity among children are due either to the intemperance of their parents or to the hereditary taint, not only of insanity itself, but also of the seeds of crime, which may have been latent in the parents themselves. Insane Characteristics. Very often children predisposed to insanity exhibit some organic malformations of the frame, especially of the nervous system or its appurtenances, too visible to be overlooked some strong hereditary taint or inveterate scrofulous diathesis. Some of the children thus predisposed are deaf, others short-sighted ; or they are disfigured by glandular enlargements, or with a short leg, a strumous hip-joint, a club-foot, or naevi, encysted tumours of the scalp, or crooked, squat features with an acute facial angle, and a low slanting forehead. The vertex is often prolongated, and the hair straight and stiff, and radiates from the crown, falling over the head like a night-cap. The eye indicates a great deal its movements are restless or drowsy, and the upper eyelid hangs down half over the globe, or else, from sudden emotion, is spasmodically elevated, showing the white of the eye round the iris. There is a spasm or twitch of a leg or an arm, and the chin is thrown up ; in moments of gratification, chiefly sensual, the smile of pleasure passes off into the grin EARLY MENTAL COLLAPSE 267 of the risus sardonicus. The mouth is generally open, the under lip pendant, and it often slavers. In general, the stature is short, with a long back, stunted legs, and long arms. All these signs may not exist in conjunction, nor any one of them in so marked a form as in that before delineated, but that they do exist in a more or less modified degree the practised eye will not be slow in perceiving, nor in deducing the legitimate inferences therefrom. I have, in the preceding observations, taken but a cursory view of the all-important subject, the education of children predisposed to mental derangement. At present this field of inquiry is untrodden : thousands of children, with a clear and obvious predisposition to insanity, are left without the advantages of that education of the moral, intellectual, and physical faculties which alone can save them from the fearful abyss into which, at a future period, they must be hurled, unless something is done to avert so direful a calamity. In many of these cases, where the nervous system is in a precocious state of development, and the unnatural amount of intellectual capacity and vital energy devel- oped in early life clearly indicate the exist- ence of a latent tendency to affections of the cerebral apparatus, literally nothing is done to quell the impending storm, or adapt the vessel for the approaching hurricane ; the mother and the father, delighted with the precocity evinced by the darling child the infant prodigy instead 268 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME of keeping down these unnatural and unhealthy manifestations of nervous and mental vigour the sure harbingers of terrible disease ! do their best to encourage the excited brain and fragile mind to the exercise of its utmost power, until the poor creature sinks prematurely into the grave, the victim of water on the brain, or chronic inflammation of the encephalon ; or lives only to linger out a painful existence, at an advanced period of life, in a state of positive imbecility, or as an inmate of a lunatic asylum. Mothers ! Fathers ! Listen to the voice of experience. Remember that the precocious child is often like a meteor it flashes in all its brilliant effulgence for a few minutes above us, and then expires. Believe me when I say that the seeds of a fatal, incurable, and terrible disease of the brain and mind are often the consequences of the mistaken fondness and excessive indulgence of those who ought to be the last to bring about such sad results ! The consumptive, the scrofulous, the gouty diatheses, are marked in the outer lineaments of the human frame, and the practised eye of the physician can generally predicate with accuracy the possibility of such affections being developed at certain ages, provided the constitution is subjected to agencies known to excite into actual development these diseases. In the same manner the maniacal diathesis is easily detected by the observant and experi- enced physician, who should use every devised EARLY MENTAL COLLAPSE 269 means at his command to steer the young craft into the harbour of rescue. Mental Training of Youthful Abnormalities. At birth the child is organically imperfect, the general organisation being immatured. From the first dawn of existence the Creator has pre- arranged the means for the ultimate maturity of the brain, nerve centres, and nervous system in general. As the child grows older and develops, so the brain likewise responds. The higher instincts come gradually into play and prominence, requiring careful management and training so that things may be continued in the right direction in after life. As the " Twig is bent so is the tree inclined." As soon as we are able to form any proper conclusions and judg- ment of any special child, through any peculiarity or phase of temperament or feeling, we must at once bring the serious consideration of this into our dealing with such a child. If the child evinces disposition for cruelty, everything should be avoided which stimulates that action. Passion or severe hardship, on the part of the parent, intensifies that power, and children who delight, as a consequence of their tendency, in a cruel disposition will, if efforts are not made in the other direction, evince similar tendencies. One important thing to recollect in the mental training of youthful abnormality is, that if we stimulate that power by either precept or example, we also stimulate the organisation on which it depends for its manifestation. In 270 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME training children with abnormal mental con- ditions, we have to ask ourselves the question, Who is responsible for this state of affairs ? As a rule, we have not far to look for our answer. When we see the terrible spectacle presented to us every day in any great city of a wretched child being left in a perambulator outside a public-house, whilst the parents, responsible for its wretched advent into the world, are drinking to their heart's content never, as a rule, leaving the cursed regions of their iniquity until in a condition which renders them a disgrace to civilisation we cannot hesitate to decide as to the proper course to deal with the progeny of such debauched and degraded parents. At once remove the children before it is too late, before they are old enough to imi- tate the habits of their fathers and mothers ; let them be forthwith taken from the environ- ment in which they are, and a possibility, and I would say a probability, exists of making them respectable members of society. Leave them where they are, and they are bound, unless some miracle takes place, to follow in the foot- steps of those responsible for their very existence. I dwell upon this question as the children of drunkards are either drunkards themselves or lunatics, and consequently they are born into the world with the actual seeds of abnormality sown in them, seeds which, if not planted in another soil, must blossom into the same species of plant as that found in their parents. Removal, there- 25. Very bad case of moral insanity in a boy ; showing the impossibility of judging such cases by appearance ; one of a class very common. 26. Twins, aged 18, liable to periodical attacks of mania simultaneously, showing the sympathy existing between them, as if their brains responded the same time. 27. Three cases of arrested mental development in children ; two are sisters. 28. Man with the brain of a child in size and development, with criminal impulses of the worst description. EARLY MENTAL COLLAPSE 271 fore, from the environment is consequently our first consideration, and after this we must bear in mind that from their very temperament and hereditary disposition, we must expect com- plications in the not far distant future unless great care is taken in the education of such a child. Most of our criminal youths possess ill-balanced and hereditary tendencies. Others have abnor- mal organisations which are easily influenced by evil associates. Crime being hereditary, we must bear in mind in educating the children of criminals that everything must be done to imbue every good principle and action into the child. From my long experience in the study of crime, I am led to the opinion that the majority of youthful criminals we see in the dock owe their position there to the evil influence and example of their parents. Various shades and gradations are found in these individual cases, but they are, as a rule, the minute shades and varieties of an hereditary disposition to insanity. In my humble opinion, there is too much Greek and Latin at the present day driven into the heads of youths to the exclusion of all else. I would especially single out Greek in my condemna- tion. The language has long since been dead. Requiescat in pace. A pupil may pass through his educational curriculum without his master finding out in the least what his talents really lead him to ; who, ignoring the physiology of man, or the antecedents of the boy, when 272 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME they find him capricious, idle, captious or rebel- lious, have only one remedy and that is punish- ment for what he is mentally incapable of resisting. The punishment will only aggravate the evil to a great degree, and hasten the explosion of the disease, which must inevitably occur. The duty of the instructor here is evidently plain. He should endeavour to ascer- tain carefully whether this condition can be remedied by any other means, and what these remedies are. A child considered to be a show- child or a genius is generally an abnormal one, and consequently requires careful and special handling and tuition. I have known many infant geniuses whose parents, either father or mother, are or have been inmates of lunatic asylums. The partition which divides genius from madness is but a very fragile one. There is no doubt but that bad training in youth, combined with injudicious education, are the chief predisposing causes to a future develop- ment in crime. " Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it," " The child is father to the man," are sacred truisms on every lip. It has been suggested, not without reason, that inasmuch as the father has been responsible for the birth of the child, he should be equally held respon- sible for any crime or act committed by his progeny. To ensure a happy result in the education of the abnormal, the culture must be commenced EARLY MENTAL COLLAPSE 273 % at the dawn of its development. The rough hewing of the great model of mankind, Alfred the Great, was begun by his mother in the nursery ; and it is a fine eulogy even on his memory to record that it was a psychical influence, a literary reward, that was his first stimulus to good. By careful and youthful training and a proper and discreet education, the development of the nobler organs in man commences the intellect. We must not expect too much at first ; if we press too hard we shall mar instead of make. Instead of sending rich and fertile blood to the brain it will be a poor and impoverished fluid. The pride of progress is excited early in life, and if this stimulus takes the right course, it will develop into a life of utility. In dealing with abnormal children, those often influenced by ungovernable passions, the remedy is very plain. We must give a sound form of education, practical and religious. I say education, not instruction. Nothing is more dangerous than acquired knowledge without the capacity to make proper use of it. It is through not dis- criminating between instruction and sound education which should consist in the literal educing of the faculties of the mind, as a counter- acting agency to the instincts that some author- ities have adopted their singular and paradoxical notions on the direct ratio between education and the increase of crime. An education which merely instructs, encourages crime ; one which 18 274 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME co-ordinates the faculties of the mind, which gives exercise to reason and judgment, at the same time that it represses without ignoring the instinctive part of man's nature, will elevate his position in the scale of creation, and turn those faculties to the service of his fellow creatures, which otherwise would be employed to their destruction. If the emotions of the child be constantly trampled down as it grows older, it will assert its claims and break forth into abnormality, crime, or both. If we endeavour to elevate the tendency of the mind, we shall be enabled to counterbalance many of the selfish and morbid feelings which are wont to predominate; the weaker tendencies will ultimately collapse, whilst the stronger ones, influenced by our education, will triumph in their development. By these means the child's mind wih 1 be brought nearer to the fulfilment of its higher destiny, and the moral constitution will be rendered less liable to those epidemics of weakness and crime which are wont to occur, and are so prevalent at the present day, especially among the abnormal. Religion must be made the basis of all secular knowledge. We must be led to believe and recognise that the education which fits the possessor for another world is vastly superior to that which has relation only to the concerns of this life. Let the education of the heart go side by side with the education of the head, and we inculcate the ennobling thought that we live EARLY MENTAL COLLAPSE 275 not for ourselves but for others. Let us realise that in dealing with abnormal developments everything that can be done by kindness and consideration must be brought into action. We must not expect too much. We must not blame their obstinacy in not responding to our efforts, and we must realise that the mind we are trying to influence is impoverished by disease, and that the owner of such a mind is depending, for very existence, upon the sympathy of those more fortunate. TRAGEDY OF WOMAN TRAGEDY OF WOMAN WOMAN'S life is but one long drama, in which the tragedy of abnormality plays an important part ; whilst in her normal state her struggle for existence is so unjustly and cruelly interfered with, that she is regarded by many as a Comedy of Errors. Man has asserted himself so much of late, that it appears that even for woman to dare to exist, his permission must first be asked : whereas, to justify her very presence in the world, the same superior being must be consulted, and his gracious consent first obtained. At the present time, when so much has been written and said as to women and their general incom- petency, and when they have been subjected to unjust malignity, and attacked often by those ignorant of the sex question, to whose opinion undue and unwarrantable importance has been given, it has occurred to me that no chapter on the abnormality of woman would be complete without treading on the much debatable ground of the present position woman holds both in her social and other relations with the opposite sex. I therefore propose to deal, in the first 279 280 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME place, with woman in her abnormal state, and afterwards with woman in her psychological and social sphere. The Female Brain. Science has proved that women, with a few exceptions, have smaller brains than men. Some German authorities have stated that in considering the size of the brain in the two sexes, we have to take into account the fact that man is bigger than woman, and therefore the relative size of the body must be considered. A large massive brain is supposed by many to indicate great mental power. Physi- ologists have told us that the female brain con- tains less grey matter than that of the male, and that certain lobes occupying the centre of the brain are larger in the male than in the female. With regard to the physical comparison of the brain in the two sexes : in experiments made in 1600 brains it has been demonstrated that, taking the average, the female brain weighs 44 ounces, or 6 ounces less than that of the male ; but this is not to be wondered at, taking into consideration the difference in stature between a man and a woman, which, in the number of cases I have cited, may be taken on an average to be five inches. But there is one important fact to be here considered that the quantity of brain has nothing to do with its quality. This differs very materially in certain cases. We find the smallest brain sometimes possessing the greater amount of intelligence. Again, we have the opposite ; so this cannot - be taken TRAGEDY OF WOMAN 281 as our guide. Some leading authorities affirm that the frontal lobes are greater in males than in females, while the occipital lobes are more voluminous in the female. It has also been shown that the blood going to the female's brain is less pure than that going to the male's. The female brain contains 4,500,000 corpuscles to the cubic millimetre, whereas the male has 5,000,000, and the arteries supplying the male brain are larger than those supplying that of the female. Carlyle tells us that " Nature gives much to the healthy child " ; so, in my opinion, will education, energy, and advancement in learning, together with healthy occupation for the brain and body in woman, lead to a more full development of the female brain, so that she may take her place in society and in the honour- able professions, and may become, if she is not already, a formidable rival to man. During the last decade, insanity and crime have increased among women to a remarkable degree. This increase in insanity is rather more than two to one among the females over the males, whereas there are 832 criminal insane males as opposed to 263 females ; but though the female criminal lunatics are numerically less, there is an increase of 2 per cent, among the criminal lunatics belonging to the female class. Statistics, as a rule, are rather dangerous to quote in any book of this description, but I do so simply from the fact that the increase of insanity in the direction I am alluding to 282 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME has been observed and maintained for many years. It is not only in England, but in some other countries as well, that statistics show that women are more liable to insanity than men. The total number of registered lunatics belonging to the female sex is 72,533, and to the male 63,128. With regard to the proportion in which the sexes are affected with insanity, it varies very much in different parts of the world. In Great Britain and Ireland the proportion of males to female insane is stated to be as twelve to thirteen. In Italy we find the number of male lunatics is greater than that of the females. But in France there are more females than males insane, in the proportion of fourteen to eleven. Calculating statistics derived from all parts of the globe, we see that the proportion of insane men over women is as thirty-seven to thirty-eight. The concurrent testimony of French and English physicians tends to show that the number of the male sex affected with lunacy, as compared with the female sex, is greater in the higher than in the lower ranks of society. Mania is the most frequent variety of insanity seen among women, and although they are usually more excitable and emotional, there are far more cures effected amongst women maniacs than among men afflicted with the same form of mental disease. The principal causes pro- ducing insanity among women are different TRAGEDY OF WOMAN 283 according to the rank of life they may move in. In the so-called society ladies much insanity is due to the unnatural life of excitement led by them. In the poorer classes we find the worry and ties of domestic life, pecuniary anxiety, want, and often a drunken husband, who spends all his wages and leaves the woman and children on the verge of starvation. The cares of domestic life are equally responsible for much of the lunacy in the upper classes as in the lower. They are more liable to succumb to nervous complaints brought about by their duties, though they are exempt from the worry, bustle, and excitement to which men are subjected in their struggle and fight to hold their own in the business world of life. Women are free from such anxieties, the responsibilities of which fall to the share of the male competitor. One of the chief forms of mental disease to be found in women is hysteria. When so suffer- ing, they become so absorbed in themselves, and believe so firmly that they are afflicted with every disease imaginable, that they often succeed in deceiving those around them. In such cases they are so sensitive that they brood over any sharp word that may have been spoken to them, distorting it until they feel that they have been cruelly wronged. Small slights are ex- aggerated to neglect and wilful unkindness, and they pass from discontent to happiness, from tears to laughter, with marvellous rapidity. Many crimes have been committed by women 284 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME labouring under a supposed wrong. The faith- lessness of man plays an important part in the history of female insanity, and the delusion that certain public men are in love with them is a very common mental complaint among women. This form of insanity has often very unpleasant consequences for the objects of their delusions, as they are frequently persecuted by women who imagine that they have been en- couraged in their feelings. The majority of kleptomaniacs are women. In many instances, kleptomania is an impulsive act ; at other times it is premeditated. This is proved in many cases where the so-called " lady shoplifters " are found to have large pockets concealed under their cloaks. With these it is a very difficult matter to establish the plea of irresponsibility, as a premeditated act is generally considered to be the result of a sound mental determination. On the other hand, female kleptomaniacs who go into a shop, and are suddenly seized by an impulse to steal any goods they may see lying on the counter, may at the time be suffering under a morbid impulse which a few minutes before they were unconscious of. The articles stolen by these impulsive klepto- maniacs are, as a rule, useless, whereas the lady with her pockets secretly hidden from view generally fills them with what she desires, or with what she considers may be of use to her. Klepto- mania, as I have said before, is far more common among women than among men. We rarely find TRAGEDY OF WOMAN 285 the plea of irresponsibility raised as an excuse for theft committed by men. The question may be asked, Why is this ? My reply is that klepto- mania may be considered to be a form of hysteria. Be this as it may, it is a form of well-recognised moral insanity, and one to which women are particularly liable. Many of these women move in good society, and at the time the crime is perpetrated they have, as a rule, ample means to secure any comfort they may desire. They have every luxury, with a sufficient income to satisfy their whims. The impulse to steal comes upon them without any warning, and they are unable to control this irresistible power. In many instances there is no time even to con- sider the consequences of their acts. The im- pulse overpowers their will, and lands them eventually in the prisoners' dock. I remember the case of a woman, moving in good society, who appropriated every umbrella she came across. Her house became a sort of asylum for umbrellas. Until the actual theft has been committed, these women are considered, by their friends, to be both intelligent and truthful. The act being generally impulsive, the woman rarely recognises the significance of her crime ; but when it is brought to her knowledge, and she realises what has taken place, she recognises the full gravity of what she has made herself responsible for. In some cases, however, even with the pre- meditated pocket in the cloak, the woman cannot be considered to be of sound mind. Insane 286 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME people are often methodical and cunning, and it is often this method in their madness which accounts for the large pockets found in their cloaks. Kleptomania is often associated with debility and physical weakness in its victims, and other disorders of the nervous system besides hysteria, which I have previously mentioned. Inasmuch as all crime is hereditary, so is kleptomania, and this is one of the chief factors in the deter- mination of responsibility or irresponsibility. Kleptomania occurs rarely before adolescence, except in the case of weak-minded and imbecile girls. It is per se a disease found in the female sex. I can recollect only one instance in which the plea of kleptomania was brought forward in a man. There were exceptional circum- stances surrounding this case, and he had lost his mental control through a severe attack of influenza. In boys it is much more common. Many women found in the wards of our asylums are victims of the morbid mania to steal, a form of moral insanity with no further subjective or objective symptoms. They are rational on every other point, and so long as they are safe under lock and key, their friends are satisfied that the proper thing is being done for their pro- tection. It is a sad thing to see comparatively rational women, generally young, highly gifted, yet legally restrained because they are unable to resist appropriating property to which they have no right. TRAGEDY OF WOMAN 287 Another form of insanity in women, often seen in our asylums, is a melancholic religious type. This form of insanity is called static melancholia, and the victim to it will sit in a corner of the room, crouching down with her head resting on her hands, a most abject type of melancholia. Most of these entertain the idea that they have committed the unpardonable sin, and that they are condemned to everlasting perdition. Nothing will convince them to the contrary. Their whole conversation, their thoughts and all their actions are based on this supposition. Religious revivalism of a sensational character, injudi- ciously organised, is often responsible for this. Men will take part in such an agitation without arty harm ensuing to their minds, though some- times emotional boys become affected. Not so with women. They give vent to their feelings, and often their fragile brains become deranged as a consequence. From my experience among the criminal classes, I am convinced that a criminal woman is far worse than a criminal man. Thirty per cent, of crime is committed by women, but though the percentage is smaller than among men, the crimes in themselves are of a more atrocious and revolting character. Degenera- tion and insanity in women are closely allied, whilst the abnormal criminal woman is far more vindictive and cruel than the man. Many men are urged to commit crime by women, and this suggests to my mind that when a husband 288 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME and wife conspire together to do some dreadful deed, the wife as a rule is the leading party in the transaction. Our criminal history shows that the man often wavers, but the woman urges him on to the completion of what has been in contemplation. " Infirm of purpose, give me the dagger," said Lady Macbeth to her fal- tering and still wavering husband. What was true when these words were written is true at the present time. I have often assisted at the medical examination of many prisoners previous to and after conviction. I have given special attention to those of the female sex, and have been much impressed with their general hard- ness to the crime committed, and the peculiar indifference shown by them. The possibility of severe punishment did not in any way affect them. They were lost to all sense of shame. It is difficult to give the true reason for the difference between men and women criminals, but it seems that woman's nature is so full of emotion, ordinarily aroused by love and pity, that when she is excited in the wrong direction, she becomes a fiend, and her conduct entirely beyond her control. In a few rare cases, we find repentance, and these listen to reason, and ultimately become reformed characters; but these are few and far between. So far as rny own experience goes, the majority of abnormal female criminals whom I have been called upon to examine have, as a rule, badly shaped heads. Of course there -are excep- TRAGEDY OF WOMAN 289 tions, but many of them have large projecting ears and flat foreheads ; they are easily excited and roused to passion or indignation, and many are absolutely indifferent to even their motherly instinct. I was in Paris during the last Revolution, and was brought face to face with a number of female Communists, who tried to set fire to and wreck Paris. I examined many of these at the time, and came to the conclusion that they were nothing more nor less than irresponsible criminals whose brains had become affected in consequence of the then existing state of affairs. The majority of these women had a certain peculiar type of cranium ; their cheek-bones were very prominent, their foreheads were broad, and in many there was a want of expression in their faces ; whilst in all there was a deficiency of every normal feeling that we are accustomed to find in the sex. They had degenerated to the verge of actual insane animal brutality. Heedless of the enormity of their crime, they rushed through the streets of Paris, committing destruction and arson at every opportunity, being utterly regardless of the terrible con- sequences of their acts. Reason had left their mental threshold for the time being, and they could only be classed among the number of acutely maniacal lunatics. These women re- joiced in the name of " petroleuse " as opposed to " petroleur," which was the term used during the Commune to denote the male perpetrator 19 2 9 o INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME of arson and assassination, their brains being tem- porarily deranged by self-indulgence in absinth. I also examined many of the latter, but the majority of these I regarded as responsible for their actions, whereas the acts of the women were those of abnormality. After the Revolution to which I have alluded in Paris had ended, there was an enormous amount of undue mental excitement, especially amongst women. At one time this seemed uncontrollable and likely to lead to very serious consequences. There was one house situated in the Montmartre quarter of Paris where the actual Communist rebellion commenced where a woman, the wife of a French vine-dresser, lived. She was of a nervous temperament, very irritable, melancholy, and bad-tempered. After the Revolution was supposed to have ended, her house was the favourite place of resort of the women of the neighbourhood ; they held there a kind of female club. It was doubtless on account of the extreme nature of her political opinions that her house was chosen as a place of meeting. She used to read aloud the most violent passages of the revolutionary journals, and comment upon them in language so furious as to be worthy of one of the famous Knitters of '93. After peace was restored, and the club dis- solved, she preserved all her former vehemence and violent political aspirations ; but it was impossible for her nervous system to resist for an indefinite space of time such a state of con- TRAGEDY OF WOMAN 291 tinual and marked excitement. She was seized one night with a violent fit of hysteria, which left her for some days after in a state of complete and melancholy prostration. From that time her ideas took another direction the fear of death seized her, and she fell into a state of melan- choly and hypochondriasis. She believed every moment she was about to die, bade farewell to her friends, and made arrangements for her burial. She refused to take medicine, saying it was useless. She repeated incessantly that she was lost. Whenever the bell of the church sounded, she said it was her funeral knell. She heard voices crying in the street that her end was near, that her body was decomposing, and that her carcase was only fit to be thrown to the wolves. These hallucinations became so trouble- some that she was obliged to remove from her usual bedroom, which looked upon the street, to a small garret at the back of the house. At the end of some months her mental alienation took another form. She fancied that one of her daughters who had watched over her during her illness, and of whom she was very fond, had been threatened with arrest, and was in danger of being taken to prison. She was so much under the influence of this prevailing idea, that she was always crying out, " They want to take my daughter, but I forbid it ; they shall not take her, poor girl ; what harm has she done ? " Every moment she hastened to the window to see if the gendarmes had come to take away her 292 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME child. It was impossible to disabuse her of the painful notion ; and this childish fear, which had so taken possession of her, led her by a fatal induction to meditate a frightful crime. After remaining in the most melancholy state for nearly six months, her countenance one day brightened up suddenly with a smile of joy, as if some ray of light had traversed her soul, and she cried out : " Thank God ! I have just found out how to prevent their taking away my child. They shall not have her ! They shall not have her ! I will kill her ! yes, kill her ! ' and her face beamed with a look of ghastly satisfaction. Her friends, knowing the state of mind she was in, did not attach much im- portance to her statement ; but a few days after- wards the inhabitants of the opposite house were roused in the night by the appearance of a lurid flame at the windows of the room of the woman and her daughter. They hastened to the house, and proceeded at once to the room, and on entering it a most frightful spectacle presented itself. The daughter's bed was on fire ; the poor child had just woke up, and was half-suffocated by the flames and smoke, and her father, aroused by her cries, was making every possible exertion to revive her. The woman stood in the middle of the room, repeating with a fiendish laugh, " Ah ! Ah ! well done ! I have just suffocated her. They may come for her now, but they won't have her." In fact, seizing the opportunity when her husband TRAGEDY OF WOMAN 293 and the other children were fast asleep, she had risen quietly, piled a heap of straw under the bed of her sleeping child, and ignited the same. Previous to the Revolution there had been no abnormal symptoms. The mind be- came unhinged, the result of the excitement occurring at the time. Many other similar cases could be related of insanity due to Revolutionary causes. The French asylums, also the Italian ones, were filled with persons driven mad from this. I had the opportunity of visiting these public institutions immediately after the excitement was supposed to have subsided. The normal woman will sacrifice her lover rather than injure her child. The female crimi- nal, who may be said to be an abnormal person, will do otherwise ; she will destroy her child so as to preserve her paramour. Women, often not content with killing their victim and seeing him suffer, will add a diabolical refinement of torture to the crime. Female criminals, as a class, have inferior cranial capacity, but their facial diameter, especially the jaw, is larger than that found in the ordinary woman. Among the common crimes committed by women may be men- tioned that of destroying their parents, especially when they have become old and burdensome. In criminal women, as a rule, the stretch of arms and length of limb are less, and the average height is greater than in normal women. Drunkenness, as in men so in women, is re- 294 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME sponsible for a large amount of crime. Unfor- tunately I have found it incurable in women. Every possible excuse will be made to obtain drink. A shrewd husband may possibly detect this in his wife, and be induced to try the proper means to prevent a continuance of it. I find, however, that this is not usually the case. The husband of a drunken woman is generally, for some reason or other which I am unable to explain, the last to actually grasp the real state of affairs. He will shut his eyes to the fact of the drunkenness, and use every possible argu- ment to convince others as to the impossibility of this being so. Whilst he is so eloquently pleading her cause and trying to prove the rumours are wrong to her friends in the drawing- room, his wife is disgracing herself upstairs in her bedroom, gradually becoming insensible from drink. It is the greatest curse, the greatest sin found in womanhood. It is not only re- sponsible for the unhappiness of the home : it prevents all social enjoyment of friends, it brings disgrace often on an honoured name, and insanity, or even worse, on the children of such a woman. It is a mistaken idea to imagine that it is only that dirty, wretched, fallen individual, clothed in female garments, hanging about the gin palaces, that I am describing. It is the wealthy and educated woman who is the worst type of drunkard, and who is the most difficult to manage the secret drinking of the home the mistress of her household who "has one or TRAGEDY OF WOMAN 295 more of her servants in her secret pay, who do what she asks them unknown to the husband. They are paid by her specially for the purpose of gratifying her lust and of secretly supplying her with drink, and in testifying to her husband as to her sobriety. What I now say relates very often to the primary stages of drink in women, before the objective alcoholic evidences have become apparent. Nearly every crime com- mitted by women is the result of this alcoholic indulgence ; and if we search the criminal statis- tics it will be seen that there is rarely, if ever, a case of suicide in women in which drink has not played a prominent part, and that the suggestion made in Shakespeare, "Screw your courage to the sticking place and we'll not fail " might be paraphrased as follows : " Impregnate your brain with alcohol, and whether you contemplate suicide or murder you will not fail." The maternal instinct, or the want of it, is responsible for many of the crimes committed by women. Infanticide is so often seen at the present day, that it is generally supposed that such an act is an insane impulse ; though I have come across many in whom the act was a pre- meditated one. A feeling of disgrace, loneliness, desertion by the betrayer, and the seeming im- possibility to face the world again and to return to the old home, are strong predisposing causes for the commitment of the act. Sentence of death usually follows, to be respited to one of imprison- ment. Often the woman only realises the dreadful 296 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME nature of her deed after she has accomplished it beyond all recall. The woman's brain is much more liable to be temporarily affected than the man's. Temporary insanity is of much rarer occurrence among men. The insanity of revenge causing crime is often seen in women. In nearly every instance, except when revenge is associated with delusions for which there is no foundation, the woman is conscious of the fact that there are ample grounds and justification for the exercise of revenge. This is generally associated with calm and quiet deliberation, weighing the pros and cons in a sound state of mentality. Suicide is as much a crime as homi- cide ; the former is, however, much more pre- valent among women than among men. The deficiency in the power of mental control, the suddenness of the act, the inability to resist it, are more conspicuous amongst women. Women are often liable to make false accusations against members of their household as to thefts, being conscious all the time of the whereabouts of the goods alleged to have been stolen. These false accusations do not always relate to imaginary thefts, but often to allegations of a more serious character, which in themselves, at first sight, appear to have a possibility of truth. The minds of those making such accusations are generally morbid. It is often the first indication of insanity. In this form of criminal abnor- mality hysteria usually plays an important part. The woman poisoner, alleged poisoner, or one 29. Alcoholic murderess. 30. Typical case of melancholia from disappointed love. 31. Woman driven mad by deception, culminating in the insanity of revenge. 32. A mad prophetess with delusions ; a typical case. TRAGEDY OF WOMAN 297 aiding and abetting, occupies a prominent position in our criminal jurisprudence. They gloat over the sufferings of their victims, and, as is so often observed among female criminals, by their very boasting or desire for notoriety, they betray themselves. They are unable to keep their secret. Whilst under cross-examina- tion in a court of justice, not being possessed with the sangfroid of men, they betray their guilt. A curious variety of abnormality observed in women, and one which is of great frequency, is a total indifference to the wishes of their husbands, and a seeming hatred to them for no possible or feasible reason. Should there be children, or at least one child, as this hatred evinces itself often after the birth of the first-born, this feeling extends to the child. Absolute neglect both of husband and child are shown. Here the desire of selfishness becomes a prominent one. Heed- less of the happiness of husband, child, or the comfort of the home, she is wrapped up entirely in her selfish desires. These must be gratified at all costs. If her husband declines to yield to her many and often extravagant wishes, she evinces her abnormal inclinations by openly ill- treating their offspring. She considers herself an injured person, and does not hesitate to vilify him before her friends and relations on every possible occasion. To them she depicts him as a brute of the lowest type, though in all probability he is quite the opposite, and has 298 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME hitherto yielded to her whims in every possible way, both to his own discomfort and to his financial position in particular. Her misrepre- sentations know no bounds. Heedless of the inability of her husband to meet her extrava- gances, she rushes heedlessly on, incurring fresh liabilities on every possible occasion. Her vanity, her selfishness, are beyond rational limits. She misrepresents everything, both to her hus- band and to others. Her home is neglected, her children are badly and insufficiently clothed ; but what cares she so long as she can buy, or obtain on credit, costly clothing for herself ? She is irritable, and often gives vent to abusive threats and violent behaviour to obtain what she desires. Her temper is ungovernable. She endeavours to make the children, as they grow up, hate their father, and to impress upon them that she is a poor, neglected woman. Her example is in every way most injurious and pernicious. Things come to such a pitch that her husband is unable to stand it any longer, and declines to be further respon- sible for the debts incurred by his wife. The matter ends in one of the following ways. Either the wife, after repeated threats of suicide, leaves her husband and child, and seeks consolation elsewhere, or the real abnormality of his wife's condition becomes apparent, and proper steps are taken to bring matters to a climax by having her placed under proper supervision and legal control. It is an abnormality of the worst description, and one which in itself "constitutes TRAGEDY OF WOMAN 299 a form of lunacy, obscure at first, but with every probability of a further development later on by the commitment of some objective act of insanity. Puerperal cases of insanity are of frequent occurrence. They belong to the type known as recurrent insanity, inasmuch as after each child is born the insanity usually reappears. This takes place until such cases become chronic. If there is hereditary tendency, it is incurable in these cases. It is generally associated with raving lunacy of a terrible description to witness. Our asylums contain many of its victims. Women are specially liable to interchangeable attacks of mania and melancholia, with periods of complete lucidity frequently intervening ; a distinct name has been given to this, folie circulaire, by the French authorities. A melancholic woman, exhibiting but slight mental symptoms, will suddenly, for no apparent reason, become maniacal, during which stage she is noisy, destructive, and unmanageable. Suddenly this will disappear, and for some time she will become rational, quiet, obliging, and industrious, even for months. Her relations will be delighted and look forward to her leaving the asylum, when, as suddenly as the lucidity commenced, she will, for no reason, fall into the depth of despair and dejection, remaining by herself apart from the other inmates of the ward ; she will become slovenly, taciturn, and silent, in many instances having to be fed mechanically. This condition may continue for some months. 300 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME When this occurs in elderly women, there is less regularity in the periodical alternations than in those between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five. In such the melancholia, the lucidity, and the mania remit at nearly stated intervals. The percentage of recoveries in insanity may be stated to be 36*5 in males, and 38*8 in females. There have been fewer subjects of late which have occupied the public mind, or raised more divided discussion than the position which woman should hold in the world. Opinion is divided. Some are for keeping her entirely in the background, without giving her a chance to advance. Others not so prejudiced, who have carefully studied the sex question, have more open minds ; whilst there are many, and this number is rapidly increasing, who believe that there should be no impediment placed to the progress of woman in whatever capacity or profession she enters. A mistaken idea is prevalent, that, for certain physio- logical reasons, a woman's work, outside her maternal duties, must be inferior to a man's. In my opinion there is no scientific ground for this belief. While, of course, it must be admitted that many forms of manual labour are too severe for a woman, I hold that in any field of work where her strength will permit her to compete with man, she is able to do so with equal ability, and her physiological peculiar- ities will be no hindrance to her success and continued exertions. The increasing number TRAGEDY OF WOMAN 301 of women in the city offices and other professions is proof to the contrary. For many years I have watched the progress of women in their endeavours to surmount the obstacles of tradition and prejudice, and to establish themselves in the many professions now open to them. They have proved their ability and thoroughness beyond a doubt. At the time of the Franco-German War, I was stay- ing in Paris, and out of curiosity I used to attend classes at the cole de Medecin on war surgery, then being held. Whilst there, I became per- sonally acquainted with many women who were commencing their training in medicine. I took the opportunity of watching their dis- sections closely, and then: attention and sincerity shown at the lectures were conspicuously marked ; it was evident that they were very much in earnest, and were determined to succeed in the career they had chosen. At the time of which I am speaking, women had just begun to study medicine, not only in France, but in most parts of the world, and naturally it was of interest for me to see how they were likely to progress in the new field just opened to them. What impressed me particularly was the skill and neatness of their work, especially of their dis- sections. Since that time I have been thrown into con- tact with a great many lady doctors, and I have found them one and all observant, clever, and very keen in their profession . It is, however, in the 302 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME suddenness of any great emergency and unforeseen danger in a case that they are liable to lose their nerve. Women are not as yet admitted into the legal profession in England as they are in France. This is one profession in which, apparently, there has been no female agitation to enrol. No encouragement nowadays is given to female pleaders. I have seen, however, a keenness evinced by the woman litigant. Although women are not allowed to enter the Church of England as ministers of the Gospel, they have already proved themselves in many ways keen biblical students. Apart from the learned professions, women have great oppor- tunities as hospital nurses, where after a thorough training, they have a wide scope for useful work, and can earn a good living. Many of them find comfortable positions in India at very large salaries, where the demand for properly trained nurses exceeds the supply. One of the most overcrowded professions for women which has of late years increased to an abnormal extent is that of the stenographer and typist ; but though there is an overwhelming army of competitors, there is still more room for com- petent high-class operators. I do not propose to discuss the competition between men and women in the various pursuits previously mentioned, as they do not come within the province of my subject, but I should like to mention in passing some of the un- suitable occupations for which a woman's TRAGEDY OF WOMAN 303 physical nature entirely unfits her. This would include all work in which hard manual labour occupies an important position. How- ever willing she might be to undertake it, it would be wrong, from her construction and development, if we allowed her to overtax her strength by doing work which is undeniably in man's sphere. On the Conti- nent, however, women are not so highly regarded as in England. They do manual labour in the same way as men. Their services are utilised especially in unloading ships or in carrying heavy weights. I think that some sort of modification should be shown in any occupation where a large number of women are employed, and where they are required to stand for too long a period. An instance of this can be seen in large laundries, where the women in the ironing room are practically in the same position the whole of the day. Women feel the effects of this long standing very much ; this has often been proved, and publicly discussed. This inability should debar them from acting as conductors of cars or doing similar work, even when it is not com- bined with hard manual labour. The relations of women are threefold material and spiritual, corporeal, and moral. By her corporeal nature she is the type and model of beauty ; by her spiritual, of grace ; by her moral, of love. History is replete with examples of women who have played a conspicuous part in the affairs of life. It was for a woman that 304 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME Troy was besieged for ten years by all the myrmidons of assembled Greece. It was for a wrong committed against a woman that Tarquin and his race were expelled from the Roman throne. It was a woman who rallied the energies of Great Britain, and vanquished the descend- ants of Brutus at Colchester till forced to yield to superior numbers. Whether directly or in- directly, whether for good or ill, women are continually influencing history, proving the old saying that " The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world ! " A perfect woman is, indeed, the most exalted of terrestrial creatures, physically, mentally, and morally. The philosopher, profound in his theories, the poets of all ages, and the most universal instincts of the popular mind, concur in this doctrine, each in their own way. The poet, the sage, the artist, see in woman the type of excellence, the mirror of the divinest attributes of the Deity, the model of the good and of the beautiful ; hence it is that she has always inspired genius. The ancient Greek philosophers included not merely power and wisdom, but love, in their idea of God ; the latter being the highest of the Divine attributes, and typified by woman as creating love. It is from an obscure, instinctive perception of the same idea that maternal love is typified by the ardent imaginations of Southern Europe, under the figure of the Virgin and Child ; TRAGEDY OF WOMAN 305 the unselfish, self-sacrificing love of maternity waking up in them a sense of the sweetest, highest attribute of the Divine mind, and co- mingling, although imperfectly, with the funda- mental doctrine of Christianity, the love of God to man. If we look at the position woman holds in creation, and the destiny which she has to fulfil to complete the designs of the Creator, we see at once that love must necessarily be the most important factor of her existence, and must influence her actions, proving itself the moving spirit of her life. Upon her devolves the great duty of perpetuating the human race ; and in fulfilment of this duty her feelings oscillate between man and the offspring she bears. The most beautiful and perfect woman physi- cally is the most excellent and perfect mentally, and when these fail to combine in the same person, the fault must be attributed to the im- perfections of the organic system. It is in this respect, indeed the psychological imper- fections in their relation to corporeal disorder and defect that woman presents the most interesting problems for inquiry and solution ; and it is only by a wide and comprehensively philosophical study of the influence of the cor- poreal organs on the nervous system, that any- thing like a satisfactory solution to the enigma of woman can be arrived at. The ancients had a notion that man was originally androgynous, a being compounded, 20 306 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME like a flower, of the two sexes in one ; that sub- sequently a division took place, and as only half an individual comes into the world at each birth, under the altered circumstances the two halves so separated seek to be united again to each other, in virtue of an imperious sympathy ; and that inconstancy in love and marriage resulted from the difficulty which the two halves experi- enced in finding one another. Such a theory may have probably originated in the biblical account of the creation of woman, for we find Milton broaches the identical idea in his noble epic. Eve relates how Adam claimed her as his own. " ' Part of my soul, I seek thee, and thee claim, My other half.' With that thy gentle hand Seized mine." I have no intention to enter upon a discussion of the misery occasioned in the world through unequal and imprudent marriages. As a general rule, it may be taken that a manly man is attracted to a womanly woman, and that an effeminate man is accustomed to lean upon and look up to a masculine woman. But the majority of men prefer a soft low voice in a woman. " Her voice was sweet and low ; an excellent thing In woman." Nothing shocks the amorous sentiments and dissipates them so much in man as a coarse, harsh voice in woman. The illusion created by the charms of the person is strangely broken TRAGEDY OF WOMAN 307 if on hearing her voice it be not in harmony with her other attractions. On the other hand, nothing is so touching and captivating in woman as a tender, loving tone of voice ; and it is certain that amorous feelings modify it much. A young lady, remarkable for her musical and poetical talents especially for tender lyrics naively remarked to a friend, when complimented upon her singing, " I never sing half so well as when I've had a love-fit." The universal ideal of any nation should be neither higher nor lower than the level of that all - pervading, all - influential body of female opinion. A moment's thought will show this to be the case ; no idea could prevail in society were it in every household a matter of question and disunion. The women must either oppose or defend any dogma. If they oppose it, the proposition falls, or survives in a modified form ; but if they defend it, they enforce it with the weight of prejudice added to that of reason. Whether it be by the means of beauty, or the power of tears or finesse, the uncultivated woman is equal, in fact, to the uncultivated man ; if he loves her, she rules him, and manages to obtain her own will under almost every circumstance ; if he ill-treats her, she conspires against him ; and if he denies her a voice in Parliament, she takes care to exercise it at home. If he mis- understands her and misuses her fine nature, he finds that he has created a torment more intense, because nearer, than any other can be ; his wine 308 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME is turned to vinegar, his roses are changed to scorpion's tongues. The silence of history in reference to women, while it is amply significant of the public estimation in which they were held at any given epoch, is in no way significant of that natural and indestructible balance which the Creator made when he " formed man in his own image, male and female created he them." Now, whatever may be said of the "rights of women," it is her obvious duty to marry and bear children ; but it is also generally admitted that this mission can only be fulfilled by a few. In England the proportion of women who are married during the year is about one in every seventeen of the population ; or, speaking gener- ally, there are about two million unmarried women, the majority of them faced with the problem of how to earn their own living. This is a difficulty which has to be met and overcome. Nature provides that the maternal cares and household duties should fall to the woman, while the labour of providing food and 6omfort for the home devolves on the man. The order of society deprives millions of women of a mate and a protector, and, in order to solve the problem of existence, women are forced to go out into the world to compete with men in the spheres of usefulness which men have left open to them. As a result of the instinctive selfish- ness of man having closed to her some of the most remunerative professions, she is sometimes driven, in her inability to find suitable employ- TRAGEDY OF WOMAN 309 ment, to accept the bitterest poverty and degradation. Celibacy is more frequent in the middle or higher classes of society than in the lower, with whom prudential considerations have less weight; hence it is that the old maid is seldom to be found in that class. It is not difficult to trace the gradual development of the mental and corporeal peculiarities of the woman who has passed middle life in celibacy. A great void in her nature has been left unfilled, except occasionally. At first, the future victim of society's conventionalism is " as scornful as scornful can be " in the flush of youth and beauty. She expects to see " wit and wisdom and gold " at her feet, and hardly under- stands how it is that year after year glides away, and she is still unmarried, until she discovers, when it is too late, that pride and haughtiness mar woman's charms however beautiful she may be, and that, anyhow, they repel the timid lover. Then, when the climacteric period is dawning upon her, she possibly makes a foolish marriage, in sheer desperation, with one her junior in age, her inferior in station, and an unequal companion in every respect. Or, if prudence still guides her, she lavishes the love with which her nature is instinct on nephews and nieces, or some pet in the family. Or the love that would have found its natural outpouring on a husband or children may be directed by religious feelings to suffering humanity, and she may become warmly charit- able ; or if the intellect be contracted and 310 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME selfish, it may find vent in the care of domestic or tame animals. Hence the cat, the parrot, and the Pekinese, are connected popularly with arid virginity. We must not forget the type of old maid who has perhaps been thwarted in her love, who may have been deceived by her lover, and who has allowed his unfaithfulness to distort her ideas of life and to warp her whole nature. She becomes the pest and scourge of the circle in which she moves ; and in extreme cases- verging upon, if not actually the subject of, insanity she is little less than a she-fiend. Her whole life is devoted to an ingenious system of mischief-making and often of swindling her friends. She is intrusive, insolent, regardless of the ordinary rules of politeness ; ever feeling insults where none were intended ; ungrateful, treacherous, and revengeful not sparing even her oldest and truest friends. Add to these mental characteristics, a quaint, untidy dress, a shrivelled skin, a lean figure, a bearded lip, shattered teeth, harsh, grating voice, and manly stride, and the typical old maid is complete. Sometimes the aged childless, mateless woman is otherwise. Religious duties take the place of the domestic, and the abounding love, which she cannot lavish upon husband and children, finds a more sacred outlet. When this is the case, an admirable character is the result. Humility, an unobtrusive goodness of heart, a wide com- prehensive sympathy for the unfortunate, and a love of social and domestic pleasures, are a few TRAGEDY OF WOMAN 311 of the qualities of these women who, having failed to fulfil the great physical end of their existence, have sufficient heart and head to know that they have other moral duties to perform. It is from this class that spring the sisters of charity, the Florence Nightingales of our great battle hospitals, and the women who are the most untiring, active agents in the good works of religious societies. When occupying her true position as wife and mother, the circle of family relations husband, children, father, son, and brother are to the true woman, and to all she blesses with her presence, a " perpetual fountain of domestic sweets " ; blessed with these objects upon which to lavish her love, she wants none else. " . . . To know no more Is woman's happiest knowledge and her praise." Often her warm, truthful love is slighted ; or Providence denies her half the delights of wedded life, and she is childless. These circumstances have an important influence on her character, for good or evil as the case may be. To the psychologist, who desires to see the human species improve progressively in all that constitutes the glory of man as a created being, the wilfully childless wife and the low state of infant mortality at the present day must con- stitute a matter of deep regret. The remedies for these evils are within reach, although cer- tainly difficult of attainment. One of these is a wider sphere of industrial occupation for women, 312 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME whether married or single, so that marriage and children should be rendered more desirable by becoming less burdensome to the man. With the improvement in education, and the greater opportunities afforded to women of the present century, no doubt the poorly-pensioned gentle- woman will no longer esteem honest industry to be derogatory to her dignity ; to-day there are many of these suffering the pinch of poverty in silence ; they " cannot dig ; to beg they are ashamed." The golden rule should be applied to girls which so generally pertains to boys, namely, that every woman should be taught some useful art adapted to her faculties and social position, and by which she may be able, if circumstances require it, either to add to her husband's income, or to maintain herself and her children. One important thing to be remembered is that in the education of women attention should be properly paid to the cultivation and discipline of the faculty of attention. In this day of hurry and bustle, great injury can be done to the mind by the rapidity with which tasks have to be accom- plished. In my opinion mathematics, if possible, should form an integral part in the preliminary education of women, in order to acquire a sufficiency in mental training. Men have the advantage over women, by being obliged to go steadily through a course of mathematical train- ing and study, whereby the mind, being thus early developed, disciplined, and trained by the TRAGEDY OF WOMAN 313 severest intellectual studies, becomes at once more capable of combating with the difficulties surrounding the stumbling-blocks in the various professions. One of the arguments which is often raised at the present time as to the un- fitness of women to take their part as opposed to men, is their peculiar ailments. As woman was organised and formed to take her own part in the world, that being the will of the Creator, I cannot believe that, taking women as a class, they could have been made so disqualified or handicapped in their struggle for existence. Before the history of this century comes to be written, we shall find that women have amply proved their ability to compete successfully with man in any sphere of work which does not come under the definition of manual labour. THE TRAGEDY OF HEREDITY THE TRAGEDY OF HEREDITY CRIME, alcoholism, and insanity are inseparable ; they are handed down through inheritance, and where one is seen the other is sure to follow. Drink is the most prolific factor in crime, and it is the most powerful propagator in lunacy. The character, peculiarities, qualities, and general temperament transmitted from parents to their offspring, and so often seen in them, are called heredity. It is sometimes a curse, and sometimes a blessing. The " curse of heredity " is apparently the destiny of man. Our very existence in the world is ushered in, and sus- tained by this weird, incomprehensible power. In whatever sphere of life we move during the various and changeable epochs of our career, whatever may be our ultimate calling in the world, from the infant in his cradle to the old man in his dotage, "Like father like son" is, as a rule, a prominent feature in our very being. Throughout our life we are incessantly reminded of this, if not by others, by a certain uncontroll- able influence existing within our very nature, innate but quite irresistible. As soon as the 317 318 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME babe begins to show any signs of intelligence, it will develop hereditary propensities. " How like its father ! " " How like its grandmother ! " is often exclaimed by the near and trusted relatives of the child. That heredi- tary instinct, that peculiar movement observed, is one existing in its parents. It shows what a power, even in early life, heredity plays. As we grow up these hereditary tendencies become more in evidence and more pronounced. The pursuits, the amusements, the grief, the happi- ness, sadness, or excitability in our temperament are all acquired from heredity. Generally a morose father will have a morose child, though very often this infirmity has skipped one genera- tion and is inherited from the grandparents ; and a lively and happily dispositioned child will have inherited this in the same way. Inasmuch as we find these same developments in the habit and character of the child or youth, so, as full develop- ment takes place, will heredity assert itself in every step of life, be it for good or evil. The question is often asked whether abnor- mality is likely to show itself throughout an entire family. Authenticated researches have recently been made in France, and the same result holds good in any other country. The conclusion arrived at is that the eldest sons and daughters may as a general rule consider them- selves lucky if they escape abnormality. The eldest sons of many of our noble peers are good illustrations of what I now say. The scions of TRAGEDY OF HEREDITY 319 a noble house, indeed ! The smaller the families are the more likelihood is there that abnormality will evince itself. The limitation of families makes the increase in abnormal children a cer- tainty. The birth-rate in France is less than the death-rate, and to this has been attributed the large amount of crime seen in that country. During 1911 there were 34,869 more deaths than births, which shows a serious diminution in its population. The most solid and sound mentally is gener- ally the child which is born fourth or fifth. As in nearly every family in France the average number is three, so is that nation paying the penalty of its indiscretion. Those who are eager to do their duty towards their country should therefore consider what I now say. A diminution beyond the figures I have given only adds further to abnormality. Heredity so perniciously influences our race, and affects our minds to such an extent as to play an important part in the questions of crime, insanity, and drink. With regard to its power in producing mental disease, a tale has to be unfolded. Without any possible doubt, heredity is the most powerful factor in producing insanity at the present time. During last year 19 per cent, of the total admissions of males into lunatic asylums in England and Wales were due to the inheritance of the complaint, whilst in females this number was much higher, being 23 per cent. 320 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME Considerable difficulty is always experienced in obtaining these statistics, from the fact that families who have had the painful necessity of incarcerating one of their members in an asylum as a " person of unsound mind," thus branding their relative with the stigma of insanity, are very loath to confess as to the heredity existing, and hence often state the " supposed cause," which is printed on all documents of admis- sion to be filled in, as being "unknown." The figures I have here given are the actual cases which own up to heredity. I think I am not far wrong in stating that this number could be doubled ; and I say this, without fear of contra- diction, from my own experience in the matter, that more than one half of the lunacy, not only in England, but in every part of the universe, owes its origin to the " curse of heredity." In addition to the actual lunacy so produced, there is a marked mental instability existing in the 149,000 degenerates, not certified as being insane but at large, who owe their present appalling condition to the inherited mental infirmity of their parents often produced by the excessive abuse of alcohol who possibly may have inherited this craving themselves from a second or third generation. As very recently the inhabitants of London have been greatly alarmed by the published data of the London County Council asylums showing the gradual, progressive, but terrible increase of lunacy in London, it may be of interest to further detail TRAGEDY OF HEREDITY 321 these facts. During the last twelve months there has been an increase of 478 lunatics in these asylums as compared with last year. The total number of lunatics chargeable to London is 27, 48 1 . To prove what I have stated, as to the percentage of heredity being higher than that given officially, I would draw attention to the fact that in one of these London County Council asylums, where the medical superintendent has taken the trouble to investigate individual cases, and not to be content with the " supposed cause " as given, we find that 68 per cent, in males and 60 in females owe their lunacy to the power of heredity. In another asylum, where equal care has been taken to arrive at proper conclusions, the number is 68 3 males and 64*3 females. There are 700 inmates in these London County Council asylums who are actually related as parents and children, brothers and sisters. And there are 2246 in- mates in these asylums whose relatives have actually been similarly incarcerated, whilst at the present time one-third of the patients are still confined as lunatics. There are certain varieties of insanity more liable to be influenced by heredity than others. Epileptic mania, melancholia, recurrent mania, and moral insanity are the most common inherited forms of insanity that we observe. Nearly every case of insanity which is due to heredity, except idiocy and imbecility, shows itself at or about the period of adolescence. Inasmuch as we have the criminal instinct from heredity appearing at 21 322 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME the same period of life, so also do we have the insane temperament developing, and also the epileptic. Though it is usually found that hereditary insanity is handed down direct from parents to the offspring, I have known many instances when, though the lunacy has been rampant in the parents, it has skipped one generation and appeared with all its force in the third generation. The experienced eye of the physician accus- tomed to these cases often detects in the infant child certain nervous anomalies which to his mind are sure indications of what is in store in the not far-off distant future. We often find that the children of those predisposed to insanity, either directly or indirectly, are unlike the ordi- nary normal child wilful, peevish, perverse, with a tendency to cruelty, untruthful, subject to fits of ungovernable rage and passion, in fact, abnormal symptoms which open the eyes of those versed in such complaints as to what must happen sooner or later. It has often been a question to me whether when such symptoms are at first observed the removal from the actual surroundings of neurotic parents, or perhaps from the actually insane parents, might not prevent the inevitable from happening. The great diffi- culty to contend with in such cases is the objec- tion raised by the parent at parting with the child, and the absolute denial, or recognition on his part, of any abnormality, or of the mischief which is in store for his progeny. -The defence TRAGEDY OF HEREDITY 323 in a court of law, as an excuse for murder com- mitted on the ground of inherited insanity, only receives its recognition occasionally. I remember in one homicidal case I was engaged in, when the counsel was trying to prove the hereditary nature of the complaint, and had established the fact of the lunacy of the parents and aunts, the judge remarked with a sneer and a snigger, evidently from ignorance of the im- portance of heredity : " Perhaps you will tell us about his great-grandfather now." He evi- dently ignored as many a person does, ignorant of the importance of the subject as bearing on responsibility or otherwise the consideration of heredity in arriving at a calm, Christian, and righteous judgment. There is great difficulty in getting heredity recognised in our courts of justice whether through ignorance or prejudice it would be difficult to say. It is not my object to discuss the question as to the prevention of this terrible state of affairs, but only to show, beyond all shadow of doubt, what we have to thank heredity for. I am sorry to say that, with a few exceptions, I am able to trace the hereditary influence of insanity in most families with which my professional duties have brought me in contact. I have known as many as six members of the same family to be insane whose parents before have been similarly affected. I knew a woman who was incarcerated in an asylum for ten years, coming out periodically, and returning again, after adding another mem- 3 2 4 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME her to the population. With such a dreadful state of affairs, what can we expect but that the statistics, showing the influence of heredity in producing insanity, must go up by leaps and bounds ? I now come to the hereditary nature of drink. Drink, crime, and lunacy, as I have previously said, go hand in hand ; the former is generally responsible for both the others. It is associated with heredity very often, and acts as an exciting cause in one so predisposed. The children of inebriates are either lunatics, criminals, or drunkards themselves. Inasmuch as so many murders and suicides are committed by drunken persons, I regard chronic alcohol- ism as the worst form of mental disease we have to deal with, and one which should be more clearly recognised by the State than it is, as being a dangerous variety of insanity, and one to be legally dealt with, as in the case of dangerous lunacy. There is no other complaint so fatally inherited as intemperance. " The sins of the fathers fall upon the children " was never used in a truer sense than when brought to bear on chronic alcoholism. In the whole world, more than 25 per cent, of the total lunacy is due to drink, and, as the craving is as a rule inherited, we have the powerful factor of heredity again responsible for this state of affairs. What Burton once said, that " If a drunken man gets a child, it will never likely have a good TRAGEDY OF HEREDITY 325 brain," was never more applicable than at the present day. When I was in America, I was told by one of the superintendents of a large asylum that, out of 300 idiots he had under his care, 145 were the children of drunken parents. I have already coupled crime with drink and insanity. There are whole families of criminals just as there are whole families of lunatics or drunkards, all of which have inherited their taint from the parents direct, or from previous generations. " Murder will out " is true. There is a large amount of crime closely associated and connected with heredity . In investigating serious cases of crime, we ought to take into careful con- sideration the probable existence of hereditary influence. Though the parents may not actually be insane in the accepted version of the term, nevertheless there may be existing some abnor- mal indications of eccentricity, deficiency of will- power, or other peculiarities, which, though not justifying detention as a " person of unsound mind," must be taken as evidence of mental deficiency, and which would account for the criminal instincts in the progeny. Crime differs from drink in its hereditary nature in this particular, that often it is only seen in one member of the family, who consequently brings disgrace upon an honoured name. It would not be difficult to give examples of this. I know of families, some of the highest in the land, who have both criminals and lunatics to inherit their greatness. Some mistaken in- 326 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME dividuals prefer a criminal in their family to a lunatic. Some there are who decline to put in the defence of Non compos mentis to a criminal charge, when the evidence is voluminous as to the mental instability of the accused. I have known this happen even when the family is tainted up to the hilt with lunacy already. On the other hand, drink shows itself in various members of the same family, and I have often known it influence every direct member of that family, i.e. brothers and sisters. So there is a distinction between the hereditary influence of crime and of drink, in so far as it relates to its effects. Of course, as I have previously stated, there are exceptions to crime being confined to one single member of a family ; but the heredi- tary nature of crime is not so pronounced, not so epidemic, if one can use such an expression, as the drink habit. I believe at the present day that there is a vast amount of crime committed by those who, even if they cannot be pronounced to be legally or medically insane, occupy a sort of neutral place, due to the heredity seen in their parents. Hereditary disease often appears in members of the same family, but in a different form. Inherited diseases often occur in the same in- dividual, passing from one disease to another; thus forming a sort of interlacing of disease. From this we may infer that there is a correla- tion of morbific forces. To apply this theory TRAGEDY OF HEREDITY 327 to disease, we must admit that there is a force of some kind always at work, both in health and disease. As a proof of this, I would mention that I have known insanity to commence on the subsidence of lung complications, and con- sumption to show itself after an attack of acute mania. We are in the dark as to the origin of hereditary mischief ; our oldest historical works do not mention this. The period of life in which hereditary diseases are wont to occur is between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five, especially in epilepsy, which is very hereditary. Hereditary diseases are therefore without any doubt convertible. There are certain groups which illustrate this. Many patients I have known who have been chronically insane and who have ultimately died of consumption. The symptoms in these cases, so far as the con- sumption is concerned, were masked or latent. There is a certain hereditary connection between insanity, cancer, consumption, gout, and other diseases of a like nature, and, as previously stated, a certain correlation of morbific force. The truth of this theory was strikingly exemplified in a case of melancholia which came under my observation. The patient was a young lady, who had been for some time in a state of acute depression, bordering on suicidal mania. Her case resisted all treatment. Suddenly, whether from the effect of the medicine or from other causes, a copious eczematous eruption appeared in different parts of her body. She at once felt 328 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME relieved, and expressed herself as being much better. She informed me that this was not the first time that her skin eruption and mental disease had alternated. I have known many similar cases showing the interchangeableness of one disease into another, this so far acting as a cure in many cases. With regard to the question as to how long insanity or any other hereditary disease may be feared in subsequent generations, I am glad to be able to affirm that insanity, like gout and consumption, when inherited, can, and often does, wear itself out in succeeding genera- tions, and leaves the offspring of the parents themselves, who were liable to inherit these diseases, entirely free from them altogether. In other words, the first generation has insanity or some other convertible disease ; the second generation is liable to this, and must think itself fortunate if it escapes it. But if it should escape this hereditary influence, then the third genera- tion may be said to be in all probability exempt from the hereditary disease of the first genera- tion, as the morbific poison will have worn itself out. Exceptions to this are, naturally, some- times seen, but this is the probable course of events. In certain cases, where heredity does not itself develop lunacy, it acts as a predisposing cause, to be affected by certain exciting in- fluences. Many trivial causes, which would show no deleterious influence in an ordinary individual, would stir up the latent insanity in TRAGEDY OF HEREDITY 329 one predisposed to that malady. Heredity is a powerful factor in itself, and has great in- fluence in producing either insanity or any other disease, especially when associated with and impelled by a powerful exciting agent. There are certain specific blood diseases, which the scope of this book will not allow me to enter into fully, which are responsible not only for insanity, but every possible disease too terrible to conceive. No chapter on heredity would, however, be complete without briefly alluding to these. It has been shown, without any possible doubt, that such specific blood diseases are respon- sible not only for diseases of a like description, but for a large amount of the insanity found in every part of the universe. This is inherited ; a specific disease cannot be obliterated ; it is a blood disease, and is handed down from genera- tion to generation in the same way as lunacy is. Many cases of paralysis, especially locomotor ataxy in a poor afflicted wretch, are traceable to the fact of a specific disease having been in existence in the father. So far as insanity is concerned, and with this I prefer on this occasion to deal, it is admitted that even cases of inherited insanity are curable in the same way as most other forms of the same complaint in which there is no inheritance. In such cases, however, there is more probability of a relapse taking place than when no predis- posing cause exists. It is strange to recognise how slight may be the effect of any exciting 330 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME cause in one predisposed to insanity. Thus a slight illness, fever or cold, a little mental dis- turbance, the shock of the death of relatives, are often sufficient to excite lunacy in one predisposed, whereas, in others not so influenced, no effect would take place. Heredity plays an important part in suicide. This tendency sometimes runs through the various branches of a family. The actual know- ledge of the fact that one's father or mother committed suicide acts as a strong predisposing cause for suicide. I have known this in a great many cases. It makes one anxious and watch- ful at the early approach of any possible mental indication of a morbid nature in one so predis- posed. Temporary insanity is the verdict given at the coroner's inquest, and there the matter ends. The French authorities well recognise this, and to a much greater extent than is done in England, from the fact that suicide is more common in France than in England. Whole families are known to have committed suicide when arriving at precisely the same age. In most of these instances no appreciable reason can be given for the act. The hereditary taint being too powerful to overcome, and the very " suggestion " of having arrived at a similar age in which other members of the family have perpetrated the act, is sufficient as a powerful incentive. I have examined in France, the records of these cases, which, of late years, have very much in- creased. I say, without fear of contradiction, TRAGEDY OF HEREDITY 331 that in the case of every patient admitted into an asylum and reported on as being suicidal, the fact of heredity will generally be also stated. I would mention the sad but significant fact that as soon as any premonitory indication of mental disease appears in any person whose father or mother committed suicide, the patient's mind will at once revert to it, though he may not have thought of it for years, and the fact may have been apparently forgotten by him. But when he begins to lose his mental balance, the recollection of this at once comes back to him with increased force. He is unable to forget it for a moment, and, as a result, this hereditary suicidal tendency converts what, under other conditions, would possibly be a harmless case into one of acute suicidal insanity requiring supervision and restraint. Suicide is therefore one of the tra- gedies of heredity, and one for which the wretched victims who yield to it are in no way respon- sible, but, as a consequence of its hereditary potency, they cannot resist the impulse. Many persons afflicted with certain peculi- arities owe their condition to the direct law of hereditary transmission. This transmission will not only reproduce the exact disease, but also every possible peculiarity existing in the parents themselves. Any special sensibility of sight, touch, smell, or hearing which may be well-known irregularities in the parents, are often found in the children. This is not only trans- mitted to the actual families, but is handed 332 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME down from generation to generation. Such being the acknowledged fact, why should not the intellectual peculiarities be in a like way inherited ? The same tastes, passions, excit- ability, and strange anomalies are often found in parent and child. The children are themselves conscious of this propensity, but at the same time they are unable to conquer it ; it is to them a second nature, innate in them. Sometimes a public scandal will open the eyes of the world and draw attention to this. The curse of drink stands out prominently as one of the inherited passions. Drunken parents often transmit their brutalising habits to their offspring, and if these do not follow literally in the wake of their parents, they exhibit some form of moral or mental obliquity, or nervous disorder, clearly traceable to a deterioration of physical brain structure caused by a long indulgence in the use of intoxicating drinks. Again, we have another strong inherited passion that of gambling. We have instances of this always before us. A parent guilty of abnormal excess, whatever its nature may be, hands this down as a veritable inheritance to his wretched offspring. The criminal instinct is a very strong hereditary gift. The majority of criminals inherit this propensity. Often it is the parents who should be dealt with, and not merely the actual perpetrator of the act. There is one strange phenomenon, viz., that an insane person inheriting the disease will often exhibit the TRAGEDY OF HEREDITY 333 same symptoms as its parent did when affected, and in precisely the same order. One curious fact is that a girl's insanity will as a rule resemble her mother's, and a boy's his father's, and that the lunacy will assume the same character in both. This shows the power of heredity in the matter. Many instances of this could be given. A lady became insane twenty-five years after the birth of her child. This same child became insane at precisely the same time after the birth of hers. As a result of the revolution in Paris, a man became melancholy and shut himself up as a recluse for ten years. When his daughter arrived at the same age she did likewise, refusing to leave her room. An inmate of an asylum imagined that all the world had plotted to poison her. The mother of this patient had the same delusion at exactly the same age as it developed in the daughter. A man, after strug- gling hard against suicidal impulse for many years, committed suicide. He could never pass a river without the strong suicidal tendency showing itself. His eldest sister having for many years entertained the same dread, together with the same struggle against it, followed her brother's example. In this case a curious similarity was observed. In the same way as her brother could not pass a river without the dreadful impulse, so too the sister had to be actually accompanied by a companion when passing the river side. A lady made three efforts at suicide, once by attempted drowning 334 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME and twice by hanging herself. She failed. The mother had made precisely the same attempts, in the same way, at the same age. A lady entertained a delusion that a certain monarch of a foreign court was in love with her. She managed to force her entrance into the royal palace and to prostrate herself before the monarch. She was handed over to the charge of her sister, who removed her to an asylum. Subsequently this sister herself became mentally afflicted in precisely the same way. Many other cases could be cited showing the hereditary nature of mental disease, not only as to its time of development, but in the actual symptoms observed in the insanity, which fact demonstrates most conclusively and positively the power which heredity plays in mental disease. Men and women are beginning to realise the importance of heredity, but it is a difficult matter to deal with, as any discussion of the subject is studiously avoided by many through a squeam- ish delicacy. The foolish tendency to avoid the question prevents the truth from being arrived at, or, if stated, they fail to grasp its signifi- cance, thus preventing many of the ills of life being done away with, owing to the lack of a practical knowledge of physiology. It is a will- ing obedience to the laws of heredity that makes the parents a blessing or a curse to their children, bestowing upon them either the gift of vitality, health, and strength, or bequeathing to them the poison of disease, deformity, and TRAGEDY OF HEREDITY 335 debility. It will only be the power of enlightened and unselfish parental devotion that will raise mankind to the highest pinnacle of physical and mental perfection. It must be a terrible thing for a parent to look upon a child deformed, lame, blind, deaf, or mentally unfit for the struggle of life, and to know that, through his folly, he himself is the author of the infirmity ; or to watch daily the sufferings of an invalid daughter, silently fading away before his eyes, and dying in early youth, the victim of his own vices ; or to watch the steady progress of an unmanageable child, driven irresistibly on towards crime and lust, while reflecting in his face the passions and follies of his parent's youth. If such a parent sinned in ignorance if he has obeyed the laws of morality as far as he knew them, his sufferings even then must be terrible ; but if he erred wilfully, and deliberately defiled his soul by feeding the flame of passion until it had burnt up all his better impulses, until his depravity is seen in his lurch- ing gait and debauched features, what unspeak- able horror must seize such a man unless he be indeed dead to all shame when he sees his child following in the same paths of licentiousness and folly, a silent reproach to his own self. We talk glibly about the dread of a hell in the far-off future, but it can be nothing to the hell of one's own making. The fear of purgatory after death is nothing to the fear of plunging one's own child in the hell of passion here. It is 336 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME probable that there are thousands of parents among us who would indignantly refute the suggestion that they were at all responsible for the imperfections in their offspring, but who are daily embittering their lives ; and there are doubtless many parents whose hearts are hard- ened by the vice and ignorance of their children, who never dream that these ailments and vices are but the dregs of a poisoned chalice returned to their own lips. It may be taken as one of the inviolable laws of nature, that in all cases where children are born deformed, blind, deaf, or idiotic, so im- perfectly and feebly organised that they cannot come to maturity under ordinary circumstances, or who, at an early age, evince signs of mental decay, or have a tendency towards vice and intemperance, we generally find that the fault lies with the progenitors. Whether the parents have sinned in ignorance or in wilf ulness, the effect of their sin falls upon the children, and they suffer for the follies of the parents. If the laws of God are violated by the parent, the penalty must be paid, and if he violates them knowingly, his suffer- ings are increased by the agonies of remorse; but his sin has to be expiated whether he is repentant or whether he is callous for the sorrow he has brought on those near and dear to him. The evils resulting from imprudent marriages, and the conditions of the law of transmission of hereditary tendencies to disease both of mind and body, are beginning to be known, and the im- TRAGEDY OF HEREDITY 337 portance of the subject recognised, but there are many obstacles in the path of perfect knowledge. First and foremost amongst these is the mourn- ful ignorance about physiology, and the wilful blindness to the lessons it would teach, which, if understood, would go far towards solving the problem of the growth of crime and insanity. In considering the question of heredity, the difficulty experienced is, not how to demonstrate the peculiarities handed down to us, but to show what we do not inherit, and what are actually normal and original on our part without the assistance of heredity in any possible way. You can trace a wart on the nose through three generations, and a night terror through six. The Apollo-like form, the judgment, the very delicacy of touch and taste, the infirmity or absurdity which in turn we may be proud or ashamed of, may be the mere repetitions of characteristics which distinguished or degraded our races long ago. The very thought or opinion to which we tenaciously adhere, and are proud of as our own original idea, and for which we would die, rather than renounce it, may be nothing more than a cast-off habit originating in a discreditable ancestor. There is an individuality within us which neither training nor circumstances nor will of our own can either impart or entirely extin- guish; but the very strength and indestructibility of this will suggest to us the suspicion that it is the representative, and the accumulation, of unmeasurable antecedents. It is a matter for 22 338 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME congratulation that intelligence and imagination or musical talent run in families ; and, however little complimentary it may be to a genius to be assured that he is the scion of a good stock, further speculation might stop were such capa- cities the only ones transmitted ; but the pernicious and poisonous parts of our nature appear to be most easily reproducible. The bandy legs, the crooked back, which mark certain families and are handed down from generation to generation, might step into the world and out of it without comment or special notice ; but when it is established that every attitude we acquire, every feeling we cherish, every habit we nurture, and every mode of thinking, may connect us not merely with the past, but will inevitably appear in our descendants, and must, through them, affect for good or evil the community in which in ever- widening circles they move, the subject assumes a new importance. It is strange, but nevertheless true, that the furious passion, the pettifogging spirit, the very screwed-up, stern mouth, the contemptuous nose, now extant, may touch the confines of humanity and die out in the last man. I have proved that crime is hereditary ; theft is a chronic malady, passing from father to child. The question has often arisen as to how far transmitted tendencies to crime should affect responsibility. It is no doubt a disease, and should be taken into account in judicial inquiries. It is not simply whether the TRAGEDY OF HEREDITY 339 taint spreads uninterruptedly or intercurrently, or whether it involves both sexes in the same pro- portions ; it is not the broad harsh outlines that strike us most. But under such premises it is quite possible that we are not dealing with a criminal at all. When deciding the question of the influence of heredity on a person's testamentary capacity, this is of more value than is generally considered. Other questions are considered of alleged weight, whilst the one I refer to generally remains un- noticed. It is more important and more signi- ficant than is supposed. If a man executes a will whilst the germs of consumption, the eclipse of heart disease, or the struggling elements of abnormal mentality are attempting to assert themselves, giving rise to a diseased train of thoughts and imagination, during which he is too conscious of what is imminent, and from which he cannot get his thoughts or mind away, he cannot be expected to make his will in the same lucid way as if a different state of affairs existed, or with as sound a judgment as if the sober sense of reason, assisted by sound bodily health, un- influenced by heredity, guided the pen. The hidden processes of hereditary decay, unde- veloped, it may be, but still latent in the system, and generate by their influence certain trans- mitted conditions which influence our reasoning and testamentary capacities. The question may be asked, Is there a danger or a penalty to be dreaded from the law of descent ? The headmaster of a public school, the bearer 340 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME of an historic name, lived for fifty years a classical enthusiast, with intense devotion to his studies. He died a madman with inflammation of the brain and delirium. He had five sons. These went out into the world. One was a poet, compos- ing in solitude and darkness, whilst continually smoking and taking opium, as many other poets have done before him to produce pleasant hal- lucinations. The poetry was beautiful in its nature. Another son, an artist, was an epileptic, and became a drunkard. The third was a clergy- man, but preferred to live in absolute solitude ; whilst the fourth was a dissolute man about town, of feeble constitution, prone to every possible form of debauchery, though at the same time with certain instincts for the beautiful and good, a strange mixture so often seen in similar cases. The last son was a boastful braggart, who spent his life at the bar of public houses, surrounded by beer and skittles. The first danger from such propagandists was that their homes would become the stage of their own Nemesis; the second that they would increase and multiply and form alliances and ties in the webwork of an old country where lineage is interwoven with the thinkers and rulers and representative men of the day ; the third, that with their undoubted hereditary gifts and genius, there would flow among the channels which they might command, in the flush of youth or the waning force of age, wild fancies and forms, and gloomy fanaticism and bacchanalian orgies, TRAGEDY OF HEREDITY 341 which might have the flavour of genius without its vigour or purity ; and the fourth, that they would dwindle and degenerate into drivel and delirium. I have briefly described what might have taken place in these five sons of an illus- trious and learned parent. I will now relate what did actually happen. Two found their way into asylums ; the others were either child- less, or, if not, their offspring were idiots. It is indeed a dark picture, one of the darkest nature ever furnished, of the power of heredity. The question is often asked whether heredity is more likely to be handed down in its dark- est side or its brightest. I have no hesitation in saying that, so far as my own personal experience goes, the vices and abnormalities stand out predominantly over the virtues and good qualities. Certain politicians inherit the abilities of their fathers, but I often think that this is only a mixed blessing. If they do not actually inherit these, it is a sort of mental suggestion to their admirers that they do, and suggestion rules the world. It acts upon the imagination of others so as to make them, some- times, believe anything. We have read of mad kings and mad philo- sophers, but these are innocuous compared with that politician who acts as a fate ; who is heir to a vicious organisation ; he is merely the last of a series of changes which may reconstruct or revolutionise the people he governs. It is marvellous how far such pulses may reach and 342 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME be appreciable : the original element remains amid all the admixture of different and con- flicting natures with which it may be brought into contact and interfused. If it be remem- bered that the deepest and most permanent impression is made by mothers, and that the off- spring are copies of a feebler nature, though perhaps the purest, we come into contact with another source of deterioration. It has been demonstrated that the insanity of the mother is more frequently hereditary than that of the father, in the proportion of one-third. Of the records of lunacy I have, in 453 cases I find that the taint descended in 194 from the father and in 259 from the mother. It is thus proved that the taint of insanity affects more children when issuing maternally than when paternally, and this in the proportion as stated. Again, it has been shown that mental derangement in the female is more frequently transmitted to the female than to the male children. The following are a few of the results of heredity, caused by imprudent marriages. Many of these show themselves at the present time. 1. A man who had been an inmate of a lunatic asylum marries a sane woman. There are several children. One daughter and one son are insane. One child stammers, another is phthisical, whilst the others are normal. 2. A sane man marries a woman lately dis- charged from a lunatic asylum. The issue is one TRAGEDY OF HEREDITY 343 daughter, who is insane, and who is ultimately confined in the same asylum as the mother has returned to. 3. A man suffering from recurrent insanity, in a lucid interval marries a melancholic woman. They are childless. 4. An eccentric passionate man marries the daughter of an eccentric religious enthusiast. The issue was a daughter, who was allowed to die of abstinence whilst labouring under morbid religious ideas ; and a son, who, previous to becoming insane himself, married ; the child born of this marriage had two attacks of puer- peral mania. There are many persons of royal descent who owe their abnormalities to the intermarriage with those of near blood. In every court in Europe this is found, and, in my opinion, this ought to be prevented if we desire a healthy and strong race. Tribes that are stationary, secluded, separated from others by mountains and morasses, and by the more stupendous barriers of blood-feuds, did the same thing. The result of this was that every man was his neighbour's cousin. If inspection is made of small country registers, we shall discover the closeness and intricacy of consanguinity existing a web of cousinship which makes the whole world akin. In England, ever since the Norman Conquest, we have been intermarrying and inbreeding in consumption, lunacy, cancer, scrofula, or here- ditary peculiarities, the result being a rapidly 344 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME degenerating race of feeble-minded and weakly- constitutioned individuals. We are now brought face to face with this, and the problem of what to do to eradicate it is beyond our present solution. A foreign writer, in his account of London, stated that among the population, roughly speaking, there might be said to be distributed as follows : 120,000 gamblers, thieves, and beggars ; 30,000 drunkards, found so in the streets, who could give no account of themselves ; 180,000 habitual drinkers ; 150,000 persons sub- sisting by profligacy. Most of these were due to heredity. I do not profess to vouch for the accuracy of these figures, but simply give them as they appeared to the writer of the book to which I am referring. To these I would add the number of lunatics already mentioned in London, of which number 18,000, or 66 per cent., were due to heredity. The following table appears in the 65th Report of the Commissioners in Lunacy. It is so signifi- cant and so clearly put, that no excuse need be given for reproducing it here. Possibly the annual Blue Book may, as most Blue Books do, only have a limited circulation, and, as a conse- quence, may only be seen by the privileged few who care to read such publications. The table refers to 2246 persons of unsound mind, confined in the London County asylums. These 2246 cases represent 1043 individual families. It is an illustration of instances of two or more TRAGEDY OF HEREDITY 345 of the same family having been in the asylum at the same time. Pairs. Cases. Mother and daughter Mother and son Father and daughter Father and son Brother and sister Two sisters . Two brothers . Husband and wife Other relationships, collaterals, etc. Total 1 08 instances of 3 of a family insane 17 ,, 4 ,, 3 i 5 > i 6 i ,, 7 ill 64 72 52 163 IS9 105 49 138 222 128 144 104 326 3i8 2IO 98 2 7 6 913 1 7 130 Total : 2246 cases made up from 1043 families. The above cases only refer to patients resident in the London County asylums. If a total analysis was made of all asylums, the result would indeed to too tragic to believe. The figures already given show the devastation made by heredity in insanity. I doubt whether any other hereditary complaint could tell such a convincing and sad tale. I have records of 1181 cases of insanity, of which number 315 inherited insanity directly or indirectly. Of this number, 79 men and 96 women had insane parents. Of these 79 men, 42 had insane fathers and 37 had insane mothers, whilst in 3 cases both parents were insane. We 346 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME find sometimes that the child of an insane parent does not inherit the disease. The conclusion we arrive at is, that in such an instance the exemp- tion appears to be from the fact that the child has inherited the constitution and temperament of the parent not insane. If, however, we find that the child resembles in appearance the insane parent and manifests the same idiosyn- crasies or peculiarities of disposition and temper, then there is every reason to apprehend that it will be more or less disposed to the disorder of the parent it resembles. The facts I now state are incontrovertible, and are based on sound knowledge and experience, and should be a guide to ah 1 who have relatives or friends who are insane and in whose family such a likeness is seen. It has also to be seriously considered when matrimony is contemplated in a family where this is found. This fatal resemblance, more- over, must guide one in the consideration of the training and education of those thus liable to insanity by inheritance. It is also an important feature in criminal cases where the plea of insanity, as an inherited factor, is under dis- cussion, and should be made much of by the defending counsel in such a case. The early discipline and education of such a child requires most careful attention. Unless great discretion is used in not subjecting it to violent emotions, passion, and caprice, in fact in subduing these passions if they exist, the child will get beyond all mental bounds of restraint and TRAGEDY OF HEREDITY 347 discipline, and the seeds of heredity will blossom out. Such a child must not be sent to school, on any consideration whatever. Every oppor- tunity should be given for it to run about the fields and take sufficient exercise in the open air. We thus ensure a proper development of the organs of the body. Avoid unduly exercising the intellectual faculties. Very early mental cultivation, and the excitement of the feelings by strife for the praise and satisfaction of receiv- ing an honour awarded to great efforts of the mind and memory, are injurious to all children, but to those who inherit a tendency to insanity or nervous disease it is criminally pernicious. The transmission of any infirmity is not always direct, and it is not always in the same form. It may be modified by the influence of one sound parent ; it may skip a generation ; it may affect one child more, and another less ; it may attack one child in one form, or another differently ; and so, in a thousand ways, it may elude observation. It may not be detected, for the reason that it may only destroy or paralyse one mental faculty, or even merely diminish the vigour and mental activity of the child, and leave him weak physically and mentally, though not actually abnormal ; or it may give fearful activity to one animal passion differing from that of the parent, and thus reappearing in the child under the disguise of a different dress. Variety is the great law of nature, and it holds good in the transmission of diseased tendencies 348 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME as well as in everything else. But unerring certainty, too, is another characteristic of this law ; and let no one flatter himself or herself that its penalties can be escaped. If nature is sinned against, nature is sure to take her revenge in some form or other. The health and vigour of the body may be compared to a man's capital ; it is a trust fund given to him by the Creator, of which he may expend the interest in the natural enjoyments of life, but he cannot encroach in the least on the principal without suffering loss. Moderation is the secret of health and happiness it is the twenty shillings in the pound ; but every excess is a dip into the principal, which will in the end, if the excess and debauch be continued, ruin him as irretrievably as if he had been dealing in s. d. Whether he feels the effect at the time or not, every over-stimulant to the nerves, every overload to the stomach, deprives him of some of his capital, and leaves him a poorer man, with a poorer inheritance to bequeath to his children. God has given him sufficient interest to enable him to enjoy life to the full, but, unlike the capital which he accumulates for himself, the principal once entrusted to his care cannot be increased ; and what a man has lost in health as a result of exceeding the limits of moderation can never be replaced, and if he continues in his spendthrift career of folly and vice, his secret indulgences will soon be written in his face for every one to read. Were it not for the action of TRAGEDY OF HEREDITY 349 certain principles, which give to the race re- cuperative powers, in spite of the depravity and sinfulness of its individual members, there would be a danger of the utter deterioration of mankind. I have dealt at length with lunacy, drink, and crime as being hereditary. I would briefly men- tion that dreadful disease consumption, which is handed down from generation to genera- tion, through the effects of heredity. The same may be said about most organic diseases. I am also of opinion that so strong is the power of heredity that many diseases are mutually con- vertible and interchangeable. In other words, the family in which lunacy exists may inherit consumption, cancer, or vice versa. In expressing this opinion, I do not do so haphazardly, but from what I have myself observed and carefully noted, not only in England, but in many other countries in which I have visited and made investigations. Of one thing there is no doubt, namely, that there is no more certain or obstinate factor in producing insanity, crime, and disease with which we have to cope than heredity. With such a dreadful opponent in the field, hourly adding to its many victims, with a con- sciousness of the power of its sword, it is most lamentable and heartrending that there are no means within the human reach of man to eradi- cate its influence and to conquer its progress and advance. Our experience has shown us that 350 INSANITY OF PASSION AND CRIME though we have a means to check, for the time being, its progress, provided we take the proper precautions, unfortunately it is a difficult thing to convince others of the importance of helping us in this battle and using their earnest endeavours to assist us. Until education advances, civilisation improves, and the importance of great social ques- tions of the day becomes recognised, our efforts will be in vain. Until the world becomes more temperate and at last admits that much of the hereditary nature of disease is due to drink, and endeavours to impress this important truism on others, and not only to preach but to practise what it says, so long will heredity continue to exercise its pernicious influence on humanity. When the world wakens up to a sense of its responsibility, not only to itself, but to nations still unborn, then and then only can we hope to arrest its progress, and say to the hideous phan- tom of the " curse of heredity," " Stop ; thus far shalt thou go, and no further ! ' APPENDIX THE following table will show distinctly and briefly the various mental diseases to which the sexes are liable, and the age at which each may be expected. I have divided the whole of in- sanity into three headings : 1. Mania. In this is included every form of mania, whether puerperal, acute, or intermittent. 2. Partial insanity. In this category I include all forms of monomania, moral insanity, melan- cholia, and delusional insanity without violence and delirium tremens. 3. Dementia. I include in this division general paralysis of the insane, its last stage, imbecility, and general varieties of what is known as dementia, a chronic form of insanity, and senile fatuity. 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O rt ifl rt -3 B rt ^-B M C _. i G a al insanity entia . fit- laijaiJaijaiJaiJlfjai 898 w rt o , I T t ' V J3 H . 2 Lxi ro^ ^ ON tOOO vo * l^ n T-r. pj, O*> O O^ O *" O*^ ^ |s2S 1 x: O V _. vO ft Q ** O ** Q *^ O * O "^ H O-- OOO Ot^ OvO ON O DO* r 1 ^ O r* 1 * 00 ** OO -^ OO .^ ro .^ * robct M- N mm m* mi* boo I PRINTED BY NBILL AND CO., LTD., EDINBURGH. University of California SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1388 Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed. LD-UW QL JAN 1 6 1996 APR 9 19$ JAN 30 2006 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY A 000 751 996 o