The legal relations of insanity are very imperfectly understood, even by those who are concerned in the administration of justice. The lawyer at the bar, and the judge on the bench, often exhibit great ignorance on this subject. The history of the legal definitions of insanity, given by learned judges, is almost from beginning to end a history of profound blunders. And yet these definitions have been the guide in trials in which insanity has been alleged, except when they have been set aside by the plain common sense of the jury, as has sometimes very fortunately been the case. In speaking of the inconsistencies and absurdities of the English law in relation to insanity, Dr. Bell, in his valuable report to which I have before had occasion to refer, remarks, that “from the test of Judge Tracey, that to exempt from criminal responsibility, the patient should know absolutely nothing, to that of a later tribunal, where ability to repeat the multiplication table was gravely considered as the exact point in a civil case, the doctrines and decisions have been amusingly strange and inconsistent. Even cunning, foresight, calculation, all possessed occasionally in a wonderful degree by the most insane patients of every hospital, have been regularly decided by the highest English tribunals, to contraindicate the existence of that degree of alienation which implies criminal irresponsibility!” The course which is adopted by our courts, to decide whether a man accused of any crime is insane and therefore irresponsible, is a very objectionable one. In France they are far in advance of us on this subject. The course there is to place the accused, if suspected of insanity, under the examination of a commission composed of men who are practically qualified to decide such a question. “Upon them,” says Dr. Bell, “rests the awful responsibility of determining the state of the mind of the accused, as to the one fact of insanity; they approach him at all times, they watch his actions in his presence and without his knowledge; his habits, his sleeping and waking hours, his physical condition, everything in fact which can throw light upon the momentous question, passes under slow, persevering, scientific investigation. Under the responsibility of reputations as precious to them as those of the highest court, and under the sanction of an oath, they arrive at conclusions, and present their reasons for such conclusions, which form one, not the exclusive, element for a court and jury to arrive at a just judgment.