The physical origin of insanity “became gradually accepted. Its mental phenomena were more carefully observed, and its relation was established to other mental conditions which had not hitherto been regarded as insane in the proper sense of the word.... Hitherto the criteria of insanity had been very rude, and the evidence was generally of a loose and popular character; but whenever it was fully recognised that insanity was a disease with which physicians who had studied the subject were peculiarly conversant, expert evidence obtained increased importance, and from that time became prominent in every case. The new medical views of insanity were thus brought into contact with the old narrow conceptions of the law courts, and a controversy arose in the field of criminal law, which, in England at least, is not yet settled.”[759] The instinct of retaliation was not readily restrained by reasoning or proofs of irresponsibility. In postulating freedom of choice under all physical conditions; in assuming plenary responsibility in men and women under all circumstances; in refusing to recognise any abnormal state unless it were so extreme and obvious as to render the person before the court unconscious of his actions and surroundings, the judges were defending their own position. Thus the new theories[760] were disputed and sneered at, and arbitrary standards as to sanity were set up at variance with all facts and expert evidence.[761] Some contended that the more subtle and amazing forms of madness or abnormality perceived by the specialists were but new names for old perversities.[762] Others averred that nothing physical ought to exculpate. Smollett wished that all lunatics guilty of grave offences might be subjected “to the common penalties of the law.” Upon this Mr. Tuke observes in comment that “The entire inability to distinguish between voluntary and involuntary acts, ... between motives and consequences, is singularly well shown. Unfortunately it was not peculiar to Smollett.”[763]