Is the act of suicide an evidence of mental derangement? Before this question can be satisfactorily answered, it would be necessary for us to consider that _vexata questio_—what is insanity? Have we an unfailing standard to which to appeal; an infallible _test_ by which we can ascertain, with anything like a proximity to truth, the sanity of any mind? Perhaps, if we were to assert that we considered it impossible to point out the line of demarcation which separates the confines of a sane and insane condition of the mind, we might lay ourselves open to an attack. Again, were we bold enough to proclaim our non-adherence to what is considered as the orthodox faith in this matter, and assert that we viewed every departure from a healthy tone of mind, whether in its intellectual or moral manifestations, as an evidence of insanity, we might still more expose ourselves to the merciless lash of the critic; yet these are the opinions to which we should feel most disposed to give our assent. We must make a marked distinction between insanity considered as a _legal_ and as a _medical_ question; and it is greatly owing to our not keeping this essential difference in mind that so much useless reasoning and vituperation has arisen. The man who is daily exposed to the kind and cheering influence of friendship, and who fancies himself alone in the world, without one human being to sympathize with him in his afflictions, is as essentially mad as he is who imagines himself to be made of glass, and is fearful of sitting down lest he should injure his brittle glutei muscles. A poet of antiquity wrote a book describing the miseries of the world, and destroyed himself at the conclusion of the task. “No man who is oppressed with grief,” Crichton justly observes, “and who is constantly preyed on by mental and bodily pain, can be supposed capable of exercising his judgment at all times correctly; a fresh misfortune, imaginary or real, excites an irresistible desire of relief. Tired out, hopeless, dismayed by the threatening aspect of many a bursting cloud; discerning nothing, whichever way he looks, but a dreary and comfortless life, how can he be supposed capable of taking a clear, calm, and comprehensive view of the obligations he owes to his Creator or society, or of reflecting on the sudden vicissitudes which daily occur in human life, and on which every man may safely form some hope, even in the most distressed situation? The wretchedness of life is the only picture present to the mind of one in whom grief has terminated in such a state of deep melancholy; the only objects of comparison are the misery of existence on the one hand, and the relief he can obtain by withdrawing himself from it on the other.”