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EDWARD D. WORRELL. 159

not to know the nature and quality of the act, or, if knowing
it, was unconscious that it waa wrong, then the law adjudges
him to be an improper subject of punishment, and acquita
him of any accountability. But the jury should be careful
not to confound a depravation of the moral sense arising
from mental disorder with that which results from a lack of
proper culture, or from the long and habitual indulgence of
the baser propensities and passions. The principle which
exempts from responsibility extends only to that class in whom
the depravation of the moral sense is traceable to mental dis-
order alone,

2d Class. Cases of partial insanity may and do exist, in
which the person affected, although otherwise capable of rea-
son and judgment, yet labors under insane delusions as to the
existence of facts and circumstances, which, had they in real-
ity existed, would seem to justify any degree of violence pro-
portionate to their nature and character, and to relieve the
person of any guilty consciousness in consequence of such
act. Aa where, under the influence of his delusion, he erro-
neously supposes another to be in the act of attempting to
take his life, and he kills him to prevent it; or where he in-
sanely believes himself to have sustained, or be about to gus-
tain, some other grievous injury in hia person, or otherwise,
and that taking the life of his supposed wrongdoer is in law
and morals the proper and legitimate remedy to redress the
wrong. Or where there is any other insane delusion which
prevents the party from perceiving the guilty quality of the
act done by him under its influence. In all these and like
eases the principle of irresponsibility applies. But the jury
should again bear in mind that in all the cases referred to in
the second class, in which the law exempts a person from ac-
eountability for an act under its influence, it must appear
that the insane delusion is of a character which naturally
excites to the committing of the particular act done, or acta
of the same or similar class, If the act done is a homicide, the
insane delusion which excuses it must be of a nature and
character the usual and natural tendency of which is is to
steal or break out into acts of violence and of blood. If the

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