“Power to cheat the eye with blear illusion,” “_And give it false presentments_,”—— still he was persuaded that his perception was beguiled. Had he believed in their existence and acted from a conviction of their reality he ought to have been deemed insane. But under Nicolai’s own relation of his capability to discriminate illusion from reality, the conclusion is fully warranted, that he was a being responsible for his actions. It may here be proper to direct the attention of the reader to the motives which have frequently impelled those of unsound mind to the injury or destruction of their fellow creatures:—and from my own experience many have been prompted by a dream or vision, which has been so distinctly revealed and forcibly impressed, that it has carried the conviction of reality and divine command. Some hear voices and obey the mandates which are thus whispered from a BELIEF in the superior authority which has issued them; and after an outrage has been perpetrated by one of these maniacs, it is astonishing with what coolness and satisfaction he will attempt to justify its necessity, and even undismayed advance to the scaffold. If therefore, there be the same BELIEF in delusion as in reality—if the maniac be persuaded that his vision has brought him into the presence of the Almighty, or that the fancied voice is the divine command, he becomes the subject of pity and protection, but not of punishment. If he be acknowledged insane upon many subjects, and kills another, should he be supposed of sound mind on account of having committed such outrage? Is he to be judged from the state of his intellect, or by the atrocity of the action? However the maniac may direct the sallies of his violence and resentment against the lives of others, frequently of those to whom he is nearest allied, or bound by obligation and friendship: yet there is another feature which his disorder assumes, and which always secures the commiseration of mankind. It more frequently occurs in the deranged state of these pitiable persons that they seek to revenge on themselves the supposed crimes they have committed. In our own country, there are more lunatics who destroy themselves, than attempt the lives of others; and in these cases the Coroner’s jury has always agreed on a merciful interpretation. Indeed there are but few instances of the impotent folly of degrading the carcass, excepting where self-destruction has anticipated the rigour of the law.