UND
MIND, importing by those words, the notion, that the party was in _some
such state_, as was to be contra-distinguished from idiotcy, and as he
was to be contra-distinguished from lunacy, and yet such as made him a
proper object of a commission, in the nature of a commission to inquire
of idiotcy, or a commission to inquire of lunacy. From the moment that
that had been established, down to this moment, it appears to me to have
been at the same time established, that _whatever_ may be the degree of
weakness or imbecility of the party to manage his own affairs, if the
finding of the jury is only that he was of an extreme imbecility of
mind, that he has an inability to manage his own affairs: if they will
not proceed to _infer_ from _that_, in their finding, upon oath, that he
is of UNSOUND MIND, they have not established, by the result of the
inquiry, a case upon which the Chancellor can make a grant, constituting
a committee, either of the person or estate. All the cases decide that
mere imbecility will not do; that an inability to manage a man's affairs
will not do, unless that inability, and that incapacity to manage his
affairs _amount_ to evidence that he is of unsound mind; and he must be
found to be so. Now there is a great difference between inability to
manage a man's affairs, and imbecility of mind taken as _evidence_ of
unsoundness of mind. The case of Charlton Palmer, in which this was very
much discussed, was the case of a man stricken in years, and whose mind
was the mind of a child;--it was, _therefore_, _in that sense_,
imbecility, and inability to manage his affairs, which _constituted_
unsoundness of mind."

The introduction of the term _unsoundness_, to denote a particular state
of disordered mind, which is supposed to differ from idiotcy and lunacy,
has been the source of considerable perplexity to medical
practitioners; and, in my own opinion, opens an avenue for ignorance and
injustice. The application of figurative terms, especially when imposed
under a loose analogy, and where they might be supplied by words of
direct meaning, always tends to error and confusion.

When medical persons depose that the mind of an individual is unsound,
(which character of intellect, if accredited by the jury, would induce
them to find the commission,) they ought, at the same time, to define
precisely what they mean by such term:--and the jury, when they "proceed
to infer" this unsoundness, ought to be in possessi