Clark, thus expresses himself: "The true criterion is, where there is delusion of mind there is insanity that is, when persons believe things to exist, which exist only, or at least, in that degree exist only in their own imagimation, and of the non-existence of which neither argment nor proof can convince them they are of unsound mind or as one of the counsel accurately expressed it, it is only the belief of facts, which no rational person could have believed, that is insane delusion." ( Report by Haggard, p.
Haslam, whose opportunities of observation have surpassed most other persons, has proposed nearly the same, by saying that " false belief is the essence of insanity." (Haslam on Insanity.) Sir John Nicholl, in his admirable judgment in the case of Dew v.
Lord Erskine, who, in his practice at the bar, had his attention drawn this way, from being engaged in some of the most remarkable trials of his time involving questions of lunacy, has given as his test, "a delusive image, the inseparable companion of real insanity," (Ersk. Being hopeless of a definition, they would willingly have contented themselves with a test, but even this the obscurity and difficulty of the subject seem to forbid.ĥ. Such being the fact, it is not surprising that many scientific and philosophical men have vainly exhausted their observation and ingenuity to find out some special quality, some peculiar mark or characteristic common to all cases of lunacy, which might serve at least as a guide in deciding on its absence or presence in individual instances. It may be the fancy of an hour, or the distraction of a whole life. It may lurk so deeply as to elude the keenest search, or obtrude so openly as to attract the most careless notice. It may find satisfaction in the most innocent folly, or draw delight from the most atrocious crime. It may surround its victim with unreal persons and events, or merely cause him to regard real persons and events with an irrational favor or dislike, admiration or contempt. It may confine itself to any trifling feeling or opinion, or overcast the whole moral and mental conformation. It may exhibit every mood from the most serious to the most gay, and take every tone from the most sublime to the most ridiculous. The varieties of lunacy are as numerous as the varieties of human nature, its excesses commensurate with the force of human passion, its phantasies coextensive with the range of human intellect. There are not in lunacy, as in fatuity, external signs not to be mistaken, neither is there that similarity of manner and conduct which enables any one, who has observed instances of idiocy or imbecility, to detect their presence in all subsequent cases, by the feebleness of perception and dullness of sensibility common to them all. "If it be difficult to find an appropriate definition or comprehensive name for the various species of lunacy," says this author, page 9, "it is quite as difficult to find anything approximating to a positive evidence of its presence. The following extract from a late work, Stock on the Law of Non Compotes Mentis, will show the difficulties of discovering what is and what is not lunacy. In a more restricted sense, lunacy is the state of one who has bad understanding, but by discase, grief, or other accident, has lost the use of reason.
Lunacy is adopted as a general term, on account of its general use as such in various legislative acts and legal proceedings, as commissions of lunacy, and in this sense it seems to be synonymous with non compos mentis, or of unsound mind.ģ. As a general term it includes all the varieties of mental, disorders, not fatuous.Ģ. A disease of the mind, which is differently defined as it applies to a class of disorders, or only to one species of them.
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