On Criminal Responsibility

\ The records of our criminal jurisprudence are fertile in instances in which the most atrocious crimes are perpetrated 1^ persons who are absolved from responsibility on the ground of insanity. The mind is horrified at the tale of a mother cutting the throats of her helpless infants as they lie slumbering in their beds, or of another parent hurrying away her progeny in the darkness of the night, and drowning them in the river. These persons are acquitted, and no doubt properly, because they are irresponsible for their actions. But in another case, a man of apparent respectability and good education entertains a groundless suspicion that a clergyman, with whom he had be$n formerly acquainted, had formed an improper connexion with his wife ; and acting upon this delusion, he procures a pistol, balls, and other ammunition, travels down to the village where the clergyman is accustomed to preach, and enters the church with the obvious intention of murdering the preacher; but by a fortunate accident he leaves at the