Excerpt from Responsibility in Mental Disease Were the observer, whether casual or Skilled, to reside for some length of time in an asylum, and thus to make himself practically acquainted with the ways, thoughts, and feelings of its inmates, he would certam discover how great a mistake it is to suppose, as is often done, that they are always so alienated from themselves and from their kind as not to be influenced by the same motives as sane persons in what they do or forbear to do. When an insane person is on his trial for some criminal offence, it is commonly taken for granted by the lawyers that if an ordinary motive for the act, such as anger, revenge, jealousy, or any other passion, can be dis covered, there is no ground to allege insanity, or, at any rate, no ground to allege exemption from re sponsibility by reason of insanity. The ideal mad man whom the law creates is supposed to act with out motives, or from such motives as it enters not4 responsibility IN mental disease. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.