LUNACY (ante). Courts of justice concern themselves with the subject of insanity only so far as they find it necessary in determining the competency or the responsibility of persons upon whose acts they are required to pass judgment. To the speculations of the psychologist or bis labored attempts to find a scientific solution of all the difficulties in which the subject is involved they pay little heed, but carefully limit themselves tn the one practical issue with which they have to deal. If an attempt be made to invali date a contract or a will on the ground of insanity, the question to be decided is whether the maker was in the possession of his faculties to such B. degree as to enable him clearly to understand his obligations and duties, and to protect his own interests; and, even if it be proved that he was in some respects insane, his acts will not, therefore, be regarded as void ab initio, but only as voidable if they are shown to be irrational and wrong. If a lunatic buy for himself or his family the necessaries of life, the act being proper and rational in itself and injurious to no one, his estate will be liable for the debt thus' incurred; and if he make a will just in itself and injurious to none, it will be respected and enforced. In the case of a criminal in whose behalf the plea of insanity is set up, the question is whether he was in a condition to understand the nature of his act, and. had the power of doing or abstaining from doing it. Neither drunkenness nor heat of blood will be accepted as an excuse, for the law assumes that a man is bound to keep. his appetites and passions under control. Nor can mental weakness exempt from responsibility for crime, unless it be proved that it was the offspring of disease, and that the disease overpowered the reason and the will. Congenital imbecility, though similar in some of its effects to insanity, is yet not to be confounded therewith, but to be treated upon its own ground. The law knows nothing of any form of insanity that does not spring from bodily disease. No crime, however atrocious, is regarded in law as evidence in itself of insanity, responsibility being assumed until mental unsoundness, the fruit of disease, is proved. No other department of human evidence has led to such interminable
debate in courts of law as this. However the common mind may judge as to the appli cation of these principles, and though in their application courts may soruetimes have been confused, for the most part our jurisprudence has in this respect proceeded upon the safe ground of common sense. Scientific experts have been allowed great latitude in expounding their theories, but judges have generally been careful, in considering the subject, to keep their feet upon the solid earth, not wandering readily or far from estab lished precedents. The subject is regarded in law under three aspects--insanity, partial insanity, and mental unsoundness. When the reasoning faculties are under constant duress and mental incompetency seems to be a permanent condition of the mind, the law deals with the person as insane, and holds his acts to be voidable, though not necessarily void, as they may sometimes be rational and right. Partial insanity is said to exist when a man is insane in some particulars while perfectly rational in others. In such cases the law has simply to decide how far his acts are rational; and in whatever degree they are so, it will treat them as it would those of a sane person. If a partially insane person make a will or enter into a contract, it will be sustained if no evidence of mental disorder appears upon the face or in the substance of the instrument. Those who deal with a person known to be partially insane do it, however, at their peril. Mental unsoundness is not necessarily the result of any appreciable disease, but may arise from the natural decay of the mental powers in consequence of inherited weakness,. or from drunkenness or some other vice. Persons in this condition are not necessarily dangerous to themselves or others, but in some spheres of labor may even be useful. What degree of mental unsoundness in any particular case will justify and require guardianship is a question for the courts to decide. See IMBECILITY, LUNACY.