Notes of the United States of North America, During a Phrenological Visit in 1898-9-40: Volume 1 Page: 145 of 444
xxxii, [3], 371, 32 p. : illustrations, map ; 21 cm.View a full description of this book.
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MORAL INSANITY. 105
and generally received views. If, a quarter of a century
ago, one of the highest law-officers of Great
Britain pronounced the manifestation of 'systematic
correctness' of an action, a proof of sanity sufficient
to render all others unnecessary, it is not surprising,
that the idea of moral insanity has been considered
by the legal profession, as having sprung from the
teeming brains of medical theorists. In the fulness
of this spirit, Mr Chitty declares, that ' unless a jury
should be satisfied that the mentalfaculties have been
perverted, or at least the faculties of reason and judgment,
it is believed that the party subject to such a
moral insanity, as it is termed, would not be protected
from criminal punishment ;" and, in the trial of
Howison for the murder of the Widow Geddes, at
King's Cramond, Scotland, two or three years since,
moral insanity, which was pleaded in his defence,
was declared by the Court to be a groundless theory.'t
Such opinions, from quarters where a modest teachableness
would have been more becoming than an arrogant
contempt for the results of other men's inquiries,
involuntarily suggest to the mind a comparison
of their authors with the saintly persecutors of
Galileo, who resolved, by solemn statutes, that nature
always had operated, and always should operate,
in accordance with their views of propriety and truth."
P. 50.
Dr Ray adverts to the indecent haste with which
the trial, sentence, and execution of John Belling*
Chitty, Med. Jurisp. 352.
t Simpson on Homicidal Insanity, reprinted in Boston, 1834.
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Combe, George, 1788-1858. Notes of the United States of North America, During a Phrenological Visit in 1898-9-40: Volume 1, book, 1841; Edinburgh, Scotland. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc1028/m1/145/: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.