s the existence and soundness of the
intellectual powers. Those wonderful endowments which so eminently
distinguish man from other animals, which enable him to discriminate
between good and evil, right and wrong, and to choose the one and avoid
the other; or in the language of Judge Robertson, he is accountable
because he has the light of reason 'to guide him in the pathway of duty,
and a _free_ and _rational_ presiding will to enable him to keep that
way in defiance of all passion and temptation.'

"If then accountability is a structure erected solely on the
intellectual power, must it not remain unshaken so long as its
foundation is sound and unbroken? Is it not illogical to set out with
the fundamental proposition, that man is made responsible for his acts
only because he is gifted with an understanding and then arrive at the
conclusion that he may become irresponsible without the impairment or
disease of any of its powers?" (Wharton and Stille, "Mental
Unsoundness," p. 170.)

Gentlemen, let me give you a specimen of the false reasoning used in
support of their theory by those who believe in the insanity of the
will. "It would be as rational," says one of their leading writers in
this country, "to punish a schoolboy whose antics and grimaces, the
result of chorea [St. Vitus' dance], are a source of laughter and
distraction to his schoolmates, as to inflict punishment upon the insane
criminal who, knowing the difference between right and wrong, has it not
in his power to execute that which his judgment dictates. One is under
the dominant influence of insanity of the _muscles_, the other is under
the influence of insanity of the _will_. To punish one would be as cruel
as to punish the other." This is indeed a very illogical argument. The
reason why we do not blame the boy is because his will is not in it; he
moves against his will. The reason why we blame the other is because his
will is in it; he does what he wills to do.

The will being a spiritual power can no more be diseased than can the
intellect. But as the imagination, an organic power, can be disorganized
by an affection of the brain, and by delusion deceive the intellect,
thus producing mental insanity, similarly I fully admit that a man's
passions, which are also organic powers, common to us and to brute
animals, can become disordered by bodily disease; and the passions, when
excited, will strive to drag along the consent of the will, as we all
experience