duce
affirmative proof of the sanity; but that, if the jury have a reasonable
doubt of the sanity, they are just as much bound to acquit as if they
entertain a reasonable doubt of the commission of the homicide by the
accused."

But the jury, enlightened by the lucid instructions of the court, were
convinced that Guiteau had not been led to commit the murder by an
insane delusion, but by his own reasoning and his own free will, and
that, therefore, he was to bear the consequences of his own deliberate
choice. Their verdict was "guilty," and the political crank was hanged.

II. We have now done with the study of mental or delusional insanity; it
remains for us to speak of moral insanity. Of late years, the legal and
medical professions have been much divided upon the question whether
there exists a disease which may properly be called moral, emotional, or
affective insanity, and which can justly be pleaded as an excuse from
legal responsibility.

Dr. Pritchard, and later on, Dr. Maudsley, with very many followers,
have maintained the existence of such a disease, and have claimed that,
even when it is not accompanied by any delusion, it ought, nevertheless,
to free a man from all punishment for crimes committed under its
influence. Moral insanity consists, they say, in a perversion of the
will, which by this disease is deprived of its liberty, so that the
morally insane man does what he knows to be wrong, but cannot help
doing it. And they claim that therefore he cannot be blamed nor punished
for the crime he thus commits, although he commits it knowingly and
willingly.

But I absolutely deny that such a state of insanity is possible. It is
against those clear principles of psychology and ethics which are not
only speculatively evident, but practically necessary to maintain the
fabric of human society. I do not deny that there exists an emotional
insanity of another kind, which I will explain further on, but not an
insanity of the will, as they understand it, which would excuse a man
from the consequences of his wilful acts. Upon this subject Dr. Chipley
justly remarks: "If one is born with all the emotional endowments of our
nature, but destitute of understanding, his irresponsibility is
unquestionable. The same is true when the faculties of the understanding
are perverted, impaired, or destroyed by disease.

"In every aspect in which man's accountability is viewed, we arrive at
the same point that its sole basis i