The legal procedure of the present day is based very largely on the decisions made at the time of the McNaughton trial in 1843. In this case the Chief Justice, as quoted by Lord Lyndhurst, addressed the following words to the jury: "The point which at last will be submitted to you will be whether or not on the whole of the evidence you have heard you are satisfied that at the time the act was committed, for the commission of which the prisoner stands charged, he had not that competent use of his understanding as not to know what he was doing with respect to the act itself—a wicked and wrong thing—whether he knew it was a wicked and a wrong thing he had done, or that he was not sensible at the time he committed this act that it was contrary to the laws of God and man." This case led to a very serious consideration of the subject in the House of Lords. As the result of an official request for an opinion, the majority of the judges of the court, all concurring but one, expressed the view that "to establish a defense on the ground of insanity, it must be clearly proved that at the time of the committing of the act the accused party was labouring under such a defect of reason, from disease of the mind, as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing; or if he did know it (sic) that he did not know he was doing what was wrong."[80] The importance and significance of these decisions, which one might very readily assume to be obsolete and too ancient to be worthy of consideration, will be made clear by a quotation from the penal code in effect in New York today. "Sec. 1120 (Penal Law). Incompetency of idiot or lunatic. An act done by a person who is an idiot, imbecile, lunatic or insane is not a crime. A person cannot be tried, sentenced to any punishment or punished for a crime while he is in a state of idiocy, imbecility, lunacy or insanity so as to be incapable of understanding the proceeding or making his defense. A person is not excused from criminal liability as an idiot, imbecile, lunatic or insane person except upon proof that, at the time of committing the alleged insane act, he was laboring under such a defect of reason as 1, not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing; or 2, not to know that the act was wrong." It will, I think, be conceded that we have, at least, not lost ground in any way since 1843. No less interesting is the legal definition of insanity in Massachusetts: "The words 'insane person' and 'lunatic' shall include every idiot, non compos, lunatic and insane and distracted person." (Chapter 4, Sec. 7, General Laws of Massachusetts.) In New York the terms lunatic and lunacy include every kind of unsoundness of mind except idiocy. (Chapter 22, Sec. 28, Consolidated Laws.) This would presumably include psychopathic personality and imbecility.