A Treatise On the Medical Jurisprudence of Insanity

Excerpt from A Treatise on the Medical Jurisprudence of Insanity. Mental disease, or disease Of the brain. Powerfully affects, or may affect, the knowledge by which our actions are guided, the feelings by which our actions are prompted, the will by which our actions are performed, whether the word will is taken to mean volition or a settled judgment Of the reason acting as a standing con trol on such actions as relate to it. The means by which these effects are produced are unnatural feelings; delu sions or false opinions as to facts; hallucinations or deceptions Of the senses; impulses to particular acts or classes of acts; and in some cases, it is asserted, a specific physical inability to recognize the difference between moral good and evil as a motive for doing good and avoiding evil.