ip, the
highest authority, is intitled to the utmost deference:--but it is not
an inference from any acknowledged premises, nor established by the
intervention of any corroborating argument. The very existence of this
intrinsic unsoundness, is "down to the present moment" unproved, and all
that can be inferred in this state of the question, is the accredited
maxim that

"Nil agit exemplum litem quod lite resolvit."

By the common consent of philosophers and physicians, mental imbecility
in the extreme degree is termed idiotcy; and this state may exist "ex
nativitate," or supervene at various periods of human life. When a child
proceeds from infancy to adolescence, and from that state advances to
maturity, with a capacity of acquiring progressively the knowledge which
will enable him to conduct himself in society and to manage his
affairs,--so that he is viewed as a responsible agent and considered
"inter homines homo," such a being is regarded of _sound_ capacity or
intellect:--but if in his career from infancy to manhood it is clearly
ascertained that education is hopeless,--that the seeds of instruction
take "no root, and wither away,"--that he is deficient in the capacity
to attain the information requisite to pilot himself through the world
and manage his concerns, such a person would be deemed an idiot, and it
might be safely concluded that his intellect was _unsound_, by wanting
those capacities that constitute the sound mind. According to your
Lordship's exposition he could not be pronounced _unsound_, because this
word implies "_some such state_, as is to be _contra-distinguished_ from
idiotcy." In order that a definite signification may be affixed to the
expression "_some such state_," it will not, I trust, be deemed
indecorous to ask, what particular condition of morbid intellect is to
be understood by this "some such state?" The solution of this difficulty
would be most acceptable to the practitioners of medicine, and in my own
humble opinion of great relief to the jury, who are called upon to
"proceed to infer" this state of unsoundness without any other premises
than the words "_some such state_." Although we are distinctly told by
your Lordship, that the extreme degree of imbecility or incapacity will
not constitute this "_some such state_" that may be denominated
unsoundness; yet I feel highly satisfied with the force and precision by
which it is expressed in the words "_whatever degree_," which if