Unsoundness of mind considered in relation to the question of responsibility for criminal acts / by Samuel Knaggs.

  • Knaggs, Samuel, 1829-1911.
Date:
1854
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Unsoundness of mind considered in relation to the question of responsibility for criminal acts / by Samuel Knaggs. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    UNSOUNDNESS OF MIND CONSIDEEED IN RELATION TO RESPONSIBILITY FOR CRIMINAL ACTS- CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION. We remember to have read of the celebrated magician, wishful to discover the successor to a great and mighty empire, whose reigning monarch was far advanced in years, tracing in sand the letters of the alphabet, into each of which he placed a few barley grains, and muttering some mysterious incantation, turned loose a cock, who picked out the seed from four places, 0, e, o, S; the despot, as the story tells, on being informed of the circum- stance, and the result of the experiment, caused many individuals to be put to death, for no other reason than that their names began with these letters. Fortunately for us, however, we live in a different era ; and thanks in part to our age of pro- gress and civilization, and to our country with its free constitution and glorious laws, it is improbable we shall ever be called upon to sustain so gross and B