Letter to the Right Honourable Sir Robert Peel, bart. on the responsibility of monomaniacs for the crime of murder / by James Stark.

Date:
1843
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Letter to the Right Honourable Sir Robert Peel, bart. on the responsibility of monomaniacs for the crime of murder / by James Stark. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    But say they who hold that even partial insanity takes away re- Bponsibility for crimes, though the person undoubtedly talks ration- ally on all matters foreign to his pecuhar delusion, the existence of that delusion is sufficient to obscure and pervert his notions of right and wrong, and cause him to view his own social position through a medium which gives a false colouring- to its whole aspect.' , Grant for a moment the premises of these writers—would the ex- istence of every form of monomania necessarily lead the person to the commission of murder ? for that is the question here, and unless this were the case their arguments fall to the ground. Because a man laboured under the belief that he was the Saviour, would he, in that character, be necessarily led to the commission of murder, and not be aware that it was a crime ? Would a woman, crossed in love, and who, in consequence, became deranged on that point, be neces- sarily led to commit murder, and not recognize it as a crime ? Would a person who believed that he had committed some unpardonable sin , 1 against God, and, in consequence of this belief, became a monomaniac, be necessarily led to the commission of murder, and not know it. was a I crime? Do all who labour under these very delusions commit murder? . All of these queries may at once be answered in the negative. They ■ would, in the first place, not be necessarily led to the commission of I murder, in consequence of the peculiar delusion under which they '. laboured, as has been shown above; and, in the next place, they • would ail recognize murder to be a crime against the laws of God I and of man, as shall be shown immediately. • Every one will at once admie, that, if a person be labouring- under 1 a false delusion or impression, the objects which have reference to I that delusion will not be seen in their true lights; but that it does I not in general affect them to anything like the extent which late ' writers would have us to suppose, the records of the civil courts, as ' well as the numerous interesting cases narrated by various authors < on insanity, fully demonstrate. What is meant by this statement is, tthat, if the individual wishes, he can not only foil the most acute ( examiners to prove himself insane, but can so command himself that « even the prevalent delusion of his mind may not be brought out by t the strictest cross-examination. This is au ascertained fact which seems not to have been sufficiently I. attended to by any writer on insanity, yet it is one which very closely ' bears on the responsibility of the insane, and their capability of dis- ' tinguishing right from wrong. The fact, however, is one which is. * well ascertained; and many cases are related in almost every work ion the jurisprudence of insanity, and the records of the civil courts «are full of such cases. But even allowing that this was not proved, there is another and still t more satisfactory mode of showing that monomaniacs are capable of c distinguishing between right and wrong, and possess in general a suf- f ficient amount of reason to make them aware of the nature of mur- uder, and of suicide, and of their amenability to the laws for fhe crime 0 of murder.
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