With precisely the same degree of insanity and the same power to control their actions two murderers may be sentenced, one to death for an act where the motive and method were those of the criminal, and the other to an insane asylum for killing a person under circumstances which are not explainable by sane reasons. The Pocasset Adventist who sacrificed his loved child, as he thought, by the Lord's command, would probably have been hanged if he had committed a crime similar to John Brown's, Wilkes Booth's, Orsini's, or Guiteau's. Sometimes the accused gets the benefit of the doubt, and sometimes society, according to the view of the merits of the case taken by the judge in his charge or by the jury in their verdict. To the lawyer insanity means only a condition of mind with reference to certain conduct. An insane man is simply non compos mentis. Insanity is irresponsibility. The whole question to the lawyer is with regard to a certain act or series of acts. The lawyer's definition is narrower than that of the physician. In wills and contracts the course is usually clearer than when there is a question of serious crime, and even an insane person in an asylum may be a party to a valid contract or make a will that will hold in law. It is not necessary that a will or contract be such as would be made by a just man or a reasonable man, but simply that it fairly represent the wishes and character of the man making it, uninfluenced by any insane delusion or prejudice caused by mental impairment; that the will or contract in itself bear evidence of a correct appreciation of the circumstances and conditions of the case; and that the mind be able to act independently enough, with a reasonable knowledge of the duties of the individual and the just rights of others. An unsound mind, as defined by the physician, would cover a large portion of the convicts in our workhouses and prisons to-day if they could be critically examined, but the lawyers and courts would not find many of them insane. A man is not insane in law unless his act is traceable to, or its nature has been determined by, mental disease affecting his free agency; in other words, unless insanity caused his act either wholly or in great part.