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MONOMANIA
AS AFFECTING
Testamentary Capacity.
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        MONOMANIA

AS  AFFECTING  TESTAMENTARY  CAPACITY.

              --------------»*-«--------------.

  Read hefore the Medico-Legal Society of New- York,
               January 28th, 1875,

     By  EDWARD  PATTERSON,

               OF THE NEW YORK BAR.
PRINTING HOUSE OF WM. C. MARTIN,
111 John Street.
1875. 
 
              MONOMANIA

As  Affecting  Testamentary  Capacity.
   The conservatism of the law necessarily prevents its keep-
ing pace with the progress of general  science.   It rejects
everything that  is merely speculative or tentative, and re-
fuses to recognize, as a rule of action, aught that lies merely
in the domain of theory  or supposition.   It rests upon au-
thority for its highest sanction  and support; and thus the
results of the experiences and knowledge of one period have
become formulated into rules  and laws for the guidance  and
direction of succeeding generations.  These rules continue to
be operative long after the occasions which gave them origin,
or the circumstances out  of which they arose (or their paral-
lels) have  ceased to  influence the  conduct of men or  the
affairs of life.  The jurisprudence of to-day is weighted with
a multitude of practical anachronisms (if that expression may
be permitted), many of them so closely and intimately inter
woven with the  texture  of the system  itself, that rashly to
attempt their severance or extirpation would bring about the
disaster of increased  confusion and  perplexity.   The great
desideratum of our  municipal law is certainty of decision;
and the necessity for the maintenance of this element induces
the tribunals charged with the administration of this law, to
adhere to ancient principles even although they are out of
place, rather than to announce with precipitancy the inutility
or unfitness of those  principles as  criteria of rights, obliga-
tions or  responsibilities.   The liberation of a principle of 
4
law from the entanglements of antique  limitations;  the ex-
tension of that principle or of some engraftment upon it to
cases which could not have arisen when it was promulgated;
the modification of rigid rules to meet new emergencies; the
proclamation by judicial utterance that a rule has ceased to
apply because the reason of the rule has ceased, are matters
so difficult, requiring so much knowledge, intelligence  and
courage, that in  the absence of legislation few Judges would
assume the responsibility of attempting  to accomplish them.
" It is  better to cling to old land-marks," it is said, " than to
map out new boundaries ; " and this undoubtedly describes
the disposition of the average of the Judiciary.  The radical
changes in our laws during the last two centuries, which have
been effected by  causes other than direct and definite legisla-
tion, are not  numerous, except as they may  have  arisen
from the development and  extension of the jurisdiction of
Courts of Chancery, and the adoption of equitable remedies.
Indeed it  may be  rightfully claimed that the whole of our
Equity jurisprudence, historically considered, is nothing but
the record of the triumphs of reformers over this tendency of
the law to stagnate;  these victories being wrought into a
system of practical devices to correct the  inflexibility of
common law dictates.  The insufficiency of these devices to
answer any purpose of permanent improvement was, how-
ever, soon made manifest, for they in their turn, acted upon
by  the habit of  the  Courts, soon passed  into authority
and became obdurate  and unyielding rules.  The words of
Sir Thomas Browne are as appropriate now as  they were
two hundred years ago:  "The  mortalest enemy unto knowl-
edge, and  that which has done the greatest execution upon
truth, hath been a peremptory adhesion unto authority, and
more especially the establishing of our  beliefs upon the dic-
tates of antiquity.  For (as every capacity  may observe)
most men of  ages present so superstitiously do look  on  ages
past, that the authorities of the one exceed the reasons of the
other/' [Essay  on Vulgar Errors.] 
5
  The incongruities and ineptitudes in the relations between
authority and the demands of society for appropriate laws to
regulate the affairs of men as they actually exist and require
government; furnish at once the impulse to and the difficul-
ties in the way of intelligent and efficient law reform.  The
question  is, how can certainty and uniformity of decision be
secured and yet the system  of jurisprudence be so moulded
as to render it  feasible to conform it to the changes which
the rapidly advancing and varying civilization of modern
times imperatively demands.  The difficulties in the way of
the solution of this  question are, in the  judgment of most
thinkers, only to be obviated by the enactment of all neces-
sary rules in the shape of a consolidated code, like the Code
of France,  or  the unadopted Civil Code of the   State  of
New York;  which shall supersede all the  sources of  the
law as they are now  resorted to, and which by reason of its
compactness may present, in an accessible shape, the whole
body of the law, and may also, because of its structure, from
time to time, and without violence to or impairment of its
other parts, be  amended in any given  particular as the exi-
gencies of the times or the  new experiences of the commu-
nity may require.
  The value of these observations will be apparent to  the
general lawyer, to whom many illustrations will at once
occur. Their force will be  appreciated by the gentlemen of
the medical profession, if they will reflect upon the history
of the efforts that have been made to establish  proper views
in the decisions of the Courts, upon the various departments
of the subject which we designate  by the generic  term In-
sanity.   What has already been said applies as well to  the
condition and history of our jurisprudence upon this subject
as to  any other topic of the law.  It is  true that the evil
was substantially inevitable, and  that it is  idle to quarrel
now with conditions which it is only our duty to endeavor to
rectify.   Palpable and gross errors are committed every day
in the Courts of law on the subject of Insanity, which Courts 
6
are constantly clinging to exploded notions, or discussing, as
open questions, matters relating to mental phenomena which
have long since been settled by the medical faculty.   It were
of course sheer  folly to advocate  the inconsiderate  or  rash
departure by any Court, from the principles of decision which
have guided it in the past, or even to urge an alteration un-
til it  can be shown that an adherence to  those principles
really operates an injustice; but that being susceptible of
proof, it  does seem something worse than absurd to go on
groping with rush lights in darkened chambers of thought,
when  by simply opening the windows we  may see by all the
illuminating power of the sun.  I fully appreciate the  deli-
cacy of applying the test in the first instance to determine
what is and what is not genuine advance, and also the mag-
nitude of the task of evolving general rules from a mass of
individual cases, the details of each of which must necessarily
differ from  those  of all  others.   It must be conceded  like-
wise, that no one man is entirely equal to the work of rearing
an acceptable and just system of jurisprudence on this subject
of Insanity, although many understand it  clearly in its phys-
ical and mental aspects and relations.  What is to be accom-
plished in this  way can  best be done by some agency of
skilled, patient, learned and experienced minds of the medical
and legal professions, organised as  this society is, or on some
other  plan of conjoint effort and  labor; and  whatever is
done it will require the utmost circumspection to prevent too
great  a recoil in the wrong  direction.  It is a mere truism,
but an important  one, that  anything  that diminishes the
prospect of punishment increases  the inducements to crime;
and whatever may be undertaken  in the interests of human-
ity and in the progress of science, to correct the errors  and
mitigate the  severities of the criminal law on the subject of
insane malefactors, there will constantly be presented  this
difficult  problem,  viz. :  How to  strengthen  the  cause of
public justice and  morality, and at the same  time  preserve
the rights and privileges of  these unfortunates, 
7
  I do not purpose dwelling upon this particular topic longer,
but who has not been  impressed by the glaring wrongs that
have been perpetrated in the name of the law upon the mis-
erable and unfortunate ?   It is not very many years ago that
the penal laws of christian and enlightened nations demand-
ed the blood of  victims whose real offences were no graver
than the possession of understandings wrecked and intellects
disordered.   These were  not the  objects only of popular
delusions and superstitions, against whom the malevolence
of whole communities  found fierce delight in wreaking " the
injustice of revenge ;" but they were people solemnly arraign-
ed for ordinary felonies, carefully and temperately tried, and
condemned upon well-grounded and time-honored  and rev-
erend dogmas  of  the  law.  They stood  in the  gloom  of a
general presumption that every man intends the consequences
of his acts  (which is but a half truth at best), and of what
seems to have been accepted as a postulate that consequences
are conclusive evidence of intention.  It cannot be doubted
that effects  of acts alone,  without regard to the office of the
will in inducing those acts, have settled the adverse destinies
of many persons, who, judged by our standards to-day, would
be regarded as  guiltless of intended crime.  It is true that
these occurrences transpired  during periods  of comparative
ignorance;  but it is likewise true that the condition of the
law has  been such  as  to  render these things possible, long
after  the disclosures of science  have made known  that  im-
pulses to crime are sometimes  uncontrollable, and may be
the effect of obscure mental disease as well as the product of
depravity.  How unsatisfactory  is the present condition of
the law  on  the  subject of Insanity as excusing crime, and
how great are the needs of careful and well-devised methods
for its amelioration, the objects and the efforts of this Society
attest.
  But it is not only with reference to crime that the imper-
fect condition of the law as to Insanity is  displayed.  There
is current in the decisions of the Courts, and in the general 
8
literature of the law, much of serious error respecting mental
disease as influencing the testamentary capacity of the person
affected  by it.   What  is most  noticable is that the state of
legal  knowledge and the  result of judicial  decision on  this
subject  seem to fluctuate  between opinions  of  a hundred
years ago, and those of recent times ; the former reappearing
and  being reasserted when least anticipated, and receiving
application and enforcement in most unexpected quarters ;
and more especially is this  to be observed in those litigations
the facts of which indicate that the person whose testamentary
act is assailed upon the ground of incapacity to make a will
was, or was supposed to be, the subject of that mental mal-
ady  which  is  now known  to be a distinct and  peculiar
condition, and to which we assign the  designation  kt mono-
mania."  By some  it is claimed that any delusion—and in
many cases it is believed  that illusions and hallucinations
where they are persistent, disqualify a person from making
a valid  will; while others  assert that the old dogmas as to
absolute alienation  of mind are the true rules of decision on
questions of testamentary capacity.  Neither of  these views
is  correct, and  it is my purpose this evening to trace in a
very general way the growth of the doctrines of law properly
applicable  to wills contested by a testator's  relatives upon
the allegation of monomania, and  to refer, although desul-
torily to the origin  of those doctrines as exhibited in several
of the principal litigations in which they have been  enunci-
ated ; and  to show  that  there is  one  just, reasonable and
sufficient rule to cover all such  cases—a rule however  which,
although it has received  the  approbation of the  cultured
minds of the two professions most  interested  in its mainten-
ance, is  nevertheless very often entirely ignored by Judges
in  cases as to  which no  other rule can in consonance with
justice be applied.
  The general  inquiry in  all investigations concerning the
mental  condition of a testator should be, Was or was not the
individual compos mentis,  at the time of the  performance of 
                            9

the testamentary act?  This is substantially the test as adopt-
ed by the Court of Appeals of the State of New York.   That
Court in the Parrish Will Case (Delafield-y. Parrish, 25. N. Y.
97), a majority of the  Judges concurring, held that " in law
the only standard as to mental capacity in  all who are not
idiots or lunatics, is found in the fact whether the testator
was compos mentis, or non compos mentis, as those terms are
used in their fixed legal meaning."  A lunatic, or  one who
is the  subject of general mental derangement, is  absolutely
non compos  mentis and cannot  make a valid will, except
during the supervention of a lucid interval.  He is a one who
is subject to a continued impetuosity of thought  which, for
the time being, totally unfits him for judging and acting in
relation to the affairs of life, with the composure  and  delib-
eration  necessary to their maintenance and proper discharge."
The law disqualifies such a person from performing a testa-
mentary act (just as it would, but upon less stringent evidence,
exonorate him from responsibility for an action which  under
other circumstances of commission would be criminal), unless
it be shown that at  the time of making the will there was a
remission of  the  disease.  It may not  be inappropriate to
remark in this place, that there is  a sceptical disposition
abroad  on this  subject of lucid  intervals.  The question is
mooted as to whether they really occur—whether there is any
other condition than that  of the presence or absence of the
mental disturbing cause.   If mental maladies are attributable
to structural changes in the brain, it seems strange that there
should be a suspension or cessation of the  processes, or the
effects of processes operating such  a change, and which
suspension or cessation  is merely temporary and intermittent.
but the doctrines  of the law on this matter are deeply laid,
and now seem to be of general acceptance in the Courts.
  That unsoundness of mind which is involved in all judicial
inquiries as to a testator's  ability to  make a valid will may
be either of two descriptions,  viz. : general insanity or par-
tial insanity.  The recognition by the law of these divisions, 
10
which shortly necessitated the adoption of a rule specially
adapted  to  each, marks a great and  important era in the
judicial history of Insanity.  Prior to the days of the Amer-
ican Revolution, the distinction, if taken by writers, or ad-
vanced by the  more progressive and better-informed of the
medical profession, had  no favor in  the Courts of law.   In-
deed, from the  time of Sir Edward Coke through to Lord
Ilardwicke's time, the severest and most  inclusive rule of
testamentary privilege  was enforced.   The English Courts
formerly entertained j urisdiction to avoid  instruments upon
allegations of mental incapacity  only in  cases  of " a total
loss of understanding," where " one by grief, sickness or other
accident, wholly loseth  his understanding," is the  language
of one of the oldest cases.  In the Criminal Courts, some
attempt had been made to establish the doctrine  that limited
insanity excused crime,  but the effort was not successful; for
it was held about the year 1725, in the case of Arnold, that
insanity as a defense to an indictment must amount  to a total
deprivation  of  understanding and memory, so that  a  man
could be no  more conscious of the probable effects of his
acts than an infant or a brute.  The ruling in this case has
furnished Dr. Maudsley with his very expressive phrase,  the
" wild beast " theory of responsibility for crime.   In investi-
gations under writs de lunatico inquirendo, partial  insanity
had been adjudged sufficient to authorize the sequestration of
property and its transference to the charge of a committee ;
but I am  considering the  history  of the subject in strictly
testamentary cases, and  in such cases only.
  The extended and enlarged jurisdiction  in which the par-
tial insanity of  a testator was recognized as sufficient cause
for  the avoidance of  his will, seems to have originated after
the retirement  of  Lord  Hardwicke  from  the Chancery in
1756.  In ex parte Bar-why (3 Atk.), that illustrious Chan-
cellor held, that a insaace mentis "  (a term then used to de-
signate what we now call a lunatic), " non compos mentis,"
and " unsound mind" are synonymous expressions.  Hence 
11
 a man, to be incompetent to devise or bequeath his property,
 must have been substantially a lunatic.  The distinctions are
 not apprehended between partial and total insanity, and it is
 not until the case of Mr. Greenwood, in the earlier years  of
 the reign of George Third,  that we have a distinct foreshad-
 owing of the doctrine which has become so vital and neces-
 sary in these days.
   Before proceeding further, let me refer to the classification
 and separation into groups  of the various forms of unsound-
 ness of mind, as they are  distributed in the terminology  of
 the medical profession.
   Esquirol  (des Malades Mentales) distributes these morbid
 mental phenomena into five classes, viz. :
             1.   Melancholia.
             2.   Monomania.
             3.   Mania.
             4.   Dementia.
             5.   Idiocy or Imbecility.

   This distribution or classification is accepted and adopted
 by the most eminent writers upon these subjects.  Dr. Ham-
 mond quotes Esquirol with approbation in his most lucid
 and admirable monograph on " Insanity in  its medico-legal
 relations," a production  which, in connection with the facts
 and circumstances of the contested Will  Case  of James C.
 Johnston of North Carolina, furnishes one  of the most in-
 structive and satisfactory contributions that have been made
 to the literature of the subject of Monomania.  I regret that
 for want of time further reference  to this case of Johnston
 (which would well illustrate some  of  the views I shall here-
 inafter present) must  be  omitted.
  The first and second of the classes falling  under the distri-
 bution of Esquirol, viz.: Melancholia (which is defined by  a
 quaint writer as "sadness without a reasonable cause,") and
 Monomania, belong to the  division of partial insanity, and
Monomania  often borders upon Mania. 
12
   To define with  some attempt  at  clearness the respective
 conditions of general and partial insanity may be  of service.
 If l might venture a definition of my own, I would describe
 general insanity to be that aberration of mind, the result of
 grief, disease or accident, which  prevents the subject of it
 from using his reason, or which substitutes for the clear ope-
 rations of the  mind a  morbid  fancy,  a perverted  under-
 standing, a delusive apprehension of the affairs and business
 of life, whence arise an unstable judgment, an infirm, feeble,
 vacillating will; a diseased and fantastic imagination, wholly
 irrational and abnormal.
   Partial insanity  is that condition  of mind in  which the
 individual is rational and intelligent on  all  subjects except
 the particular topic or class or system of topics as to which
 he labors under delusion.
  The form in which partial insanity is  presented to the no-
 tice of Probate Courts, and generally in testamentary cases,
 is almost always in connection with monomania alone.
  Esquirol defines Monomania to be, " perversity of under-
 standing limited to a single  object, or  small number of ob-
jects, with predominance of mental excitement."
  Each of the two chief divisions of mental incapacity, has
 applicable to it its peculiar and distinct rule of law:
   1st.  Where the evidence shows the testator to  have been
totally insane shortly before the time of  the execution of the
will, testamentary incapacity  is presumed to have existed at
the time of its execution, and the onus probandi is thrown
upon those claiming the validity  of the instrument to coun-
tervail this presumption by evidence of a lucid interval dur-
ing which the testamentary act was performed.
  2d.  In the case of partial insanity, or partial unsoundness
of mind,  generally evinced in the  form  of monomania, it
devolves upon the  contestants to show, that the  will is the
direct offspring of that Insanity,  or in other words, the bur-
then of proof is upon the contestants'to show that the par-
tial insanity existed at the time of the execution of the will, 
13
and that to its existence and its operation in and influence
upon the mind  of the  testator their disherison is  to be at-
tributed.
  As before stated, the earlier adjudications are silent upon
the distinction between general  and partial  insanity.   As
clearly defined and as generally accepted as these distinctions
seem to be now, to those who have studiously considered the
subject, nevertheless, the same relation back  to the conceits
of the past—entirely inappropriate and out of accord with
modern discovery, and the real requirements of the present—
appears on this subject in very recent cases.  As an example,
I select from among several lately examined,  that of Stack-
house v. Ilorton, 15. N. J., Oh. R. 202.  By this case it would
seem that there are but few if  any restrictions upon the
testamentary acts of those partially insane.  The  case seems
to have been well decided as to the immediate facts involved,
but the learned  Chancellor  in the course of his opinion sees
fit to lay down as  a broad  principle that  " a person may be
the subject  of a partial derangement  toward a particular
person, and  this derangement may be the cause of depriving
such individual of the bounty of the testator, which he other-
wise would  have enjoyed, and  yet the will made by such a
person  be valid."   I  refer to this declaration of the law,
merely as an illustration of how fixed  is  the  disposition of
even the most competent magistrates to seek shelter under the
shades of antiquated rulings, and  to impress the fact as per-
tinent to the present subject, that this tendency to revert to
the rules of the past is one of the causes of so much of practi-
cal error in  our present modes  of administering  justice.
The  doctrine  of  the  Chancellor in the  case referred to,
unlimited and unrestrained, would sweep away all the expe-
rience and progress  of quite fifty  years, upon the subject of
which he was treating, and could only find its justification in
the assumption that there is no verity in any other rule than
that  ancient and exploded one, that total insanity is  alone a
cause of testamentary incapacity. 
14
   It is quite incompatible with the  design of this paper, to
 refer to any great number of adjudicated cases, for time and
 space will not allow it.  For the same reasons, I must inter-
 mit any use of the text writers for a  similar purpose.   I will
 therefore consider but a few of the decisions of Courts, and
 only such as will  serve and are necessary to the purpose of
 sufficient presentation of the subject under discussion.
   The first,  and for that  reason the most conspicuous litiga-
 tion relating to the distinction between the  two classes of
 insanity, is not fully reported  in any book, and so far as its
 details are  concerned, it  may be  called merely traditional.
 Nevertheless, because of  its definition of principle, and clear
 enunciation  of a new rule, it  is more frequently cited by
 Judges and counsel than any other case.  Erskine in his
 argument to the jury in the trial of  James Hadfield, speaks
 as follows:  " The  deceased  Mr. Greenwood,  whilst insane,
 took up an idea that his brother had administered poison to
 him, and this became the prominent feature of his insanity.
 In a few months however, he recovered his senses, and return-
 ed to his profession, which was that of a barrister, but could
 never divest his mind of the morbid delusion that his brother
 had attempted to  poison  him, under  the influence of which
 (so said) he  disinherited  him.  On a trial in the  Court of
 Kings  Bench upon an issue devisavlt vel non, a jury found
 against the will; but a contrary verdict was had in the Com-
 mon Pleas, and the case ended in a compromise."
  The  mental  trouble with  which  Mr.  Greenwood  was
 afflicted,  was  clearly  monomania—to  his brother  was his
 hostility limited; and  it seems that  it was an ever-present
delusion that this brother was attempting to murder him.
Lord Kenyon, in charging the-jury is reported to have  said,
" Jf you think that whenever  that topic occurred  to him it
totally deranged his mind, and prevented him from judging
of who the objects of his  bounty should be,  according to his
own will, then  the will  cannot stand; but if you think he
was of competent mind to make his  will, to exercise his 
15
judgment, however that might be disturbed by passions which
ought not to be encouraged, then the will ought to stand."
  This case is probably entitled to be regarded  as the  pio-
neer of  the correct  rule  of law on  the subject of partial
insanity.  There  was proof in the  case of a restoration to
health, sufficient  to enable Mr.  Greenwood to  resume the
practice  of  his arduous profession.  Under the old rule his
will would have been valid, and even under  Lord Kenyon's
charge the condition of total derangement of mind, superin-
duced  by the one subject of delusion, was required as the
belief which the  jury  must  entertain before pronouncing
against the will.   This phrase, " totally deranged his  mind,"
in the connection in which Lord Kenyon used it, is  very
significant.  The learned  Judge was not willing to proceed
to a radical change in his definitions.  He did not  care to
pronounce that Mr.  Greenwood may have been entirely sane
on  every other subject  of mental contemplation, except  his
relations to  his brother, and  yet, if,  as to  those relations, he
entertained delusions which were so inveterate in their char-
acter  as  to induce him  to exclude that brother from  a share
in his bounty, he  could not make a valid will; but he approx-
imates it by holding that if as the disturbing cause operating
a dethronement of reason, he  entertained this aversion to his
brother,  then that delusion disqualified him from making a
will.  The  consequence and  effects of the  diseased  intellect,
astray only as to one subject  or  class  or system of subjects,
were, in  the estimation of Lord Kenyon, to  be of so serious
and all-pervading a character  as actually to unsettle all the
mental   processes during the  period  of the presence  and
operation of the one cause of disturbance.   Here are displayed
errors  very natural to the incipiency  of the subject.  Lord
Kenyon  evidently contemplated  two things as associated
with monomania, which have since been ascertained to be
not characteristic of it:  first, that it affects the mind always
as if it influenced all mental operations  during the times of
its manifestations, utterly preventing the use of reason during 
lfi
those times ; and second, that  there are periods of remission
analogous to or really constituting lucid intervals.
  Before the new ideas thus introduced on the precedent of
Greenwood's  case,  could be  utilised  and  commended for
general adoption in similar cases, it  became necessary to
relieve the rule of  what was yet  cumbersome and unphilo-
sophical in it.   This was done, and the law further fashioned
in another celebrated case in England, constantly referred to
in the books, and cited as Dew v.  Clark.   This is very justly
considered the leading case on the subject, and will, therefore,
permit a few moments  consideration of its history.
  It was twice at bar in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury,
before  Sir John Nichol.  It came up originally  in Trinity
Term,  1822, on an  application made  by the contestant for
leave to set up a plea of partial insanity as invalidating the
will of a Mr. Ely Stott, who had conceived a monomaniacal
dislike to, amounting to extreme hatred of his daughter, Mrs.
Dew.  The motion  was opposed  on  the ground that partial
insanity did not by the law of England incapacitate a person
from making a will.   The plea was admitted however by
the Court, on  the authority of Greenwood's case;  neverthe-
less the intimation  was quite direct,  that it would be almost
a hopeless effort to  undertake  to  establish by proof all that
would  be  required  to  support such a  plea.  The reluctance
to depart from  the  theories of the past, although they were
confessedly untenable,  is here distinctly exhibited.  Proofs
were taken, and afterwards the cause  came up for hearing
upon them.  It appeared that  Mr. Stott made a will in 1818.
A commission  de lunatlco inquirendo was sued out against
him in July, 1N21.  He was  pronounced  a lunatic and to
have been such since (but not prior to) 1st January, 1821.
  It was proven that  the  testator regarded his daughter as
" invested with singular depravity, a peculiar victim of vice
and evil, the special property of Satan from her birth, etc."
and that he had very peculiar religious views.   The essential
facts of the case, however, as illustrating the rule evolved 
17
 from them and enunciated by the Court, are those connected
 with the insane abhorence and  detestation  in which he held
 his daughter, and which undoubtedly were the causes of her
 exclusion from a share of his estate.  In other words he was
 a monomaniac.
   The decision of the Court on these facts is reported in 3.
 Addams.  The syllabus of the case gives such an excellent
 epitome of the decision that  it will suffice to quote it:
   " Partial insanity is good in defeasance of a will  founded
 immediately (so to be presumed) in or upon such partial in-
 sanity.   If A. then makes a will plainly inofficious in respect
 to B., and is proved at the  time of making it to have been
 under morbid delusion as to the character and conduct of B.,
 the Court of Probate will relieve by pronouncing this will to
 be invalid, and holding A. to have died intestate."
   From this case of Dew v. Clark we have received the only
 clear, just and  practical doctrine of the effect of monomania
 upon testamentary  dispositions of property.   It establishes
 the rule recognized and enforced in the best considered sub-
 sequent cases both in England and America—not in  the way
 of merely following the precedent, but upon careful and
 exact reasoning and argument.   From  these  cases  we as-
 certain  that  two elements must co-exist to afford sufficient
 ground for nullifying at the  instigation of his  relatives the
 will of a person afflicted with monomaniacal delusions.
  First. There must be a plainly inofficious will; or a will
 lacking in natural affection and duty.
  Second. There must be morbid  delusion actually existing
 at the time of making, and undoubtedly prompting the pro-
 visions of the inofficious instrument.
  As this rule  has been accepted and applied under the spe-
 cial circumstances of almost all the English cases which have
been decided since Dew v. Chirk, and in which the  subject
 was involved, it will  be unnecessary to make further citations.
I would mention, however, that where there may seem to be
departures from it, in such  cases as Waring v.  Waring, and 
18
Smith v. Tibbetts, it will be found that those are strictly cases
of general insanity.  In the first  of these cases the opinion
of Lord Brougham has met with very severe animadversion.
  The rule  laid down in Dew  v.  Clark  has  found ready
adoption and application in the American cases.  I will refer
only to two  of three  of them in which the doctrine has been
very forcibly and satisfactorily set forth.  The first is only a
Nisi Prius  case, but the views are advanced by a  Judge of
eminent learning and sagacity who so lucidly pronounces the
rule, that it is evident he bestowed much time and thought
upon it.   In Leach v. Leach, 11.  Penn. Law J., King,  Jus-
tice, in charging the  Jury said :
  "i monomaniacal delusion inveterately  entertained by a
testator, against  one  who would otherwise have been the  nat-
ural object of his bounty, and shown to  be  the reason which
has excluded him from it, and to have had no other existence,,
except in the distempered imagination of the testator, would
invalidate a will  made under such influence, and for the very
plain  reason that a will made under such an insane delusion
is not what the law requires a will to be, viz:  the product of
a mind capable of reasoning  rightly.  For  although the law
recognizes the difference between general and partial insan-
ity, yet if the will has been  made under the influence of such
partial insanity, and  as the  product of it, it  is as invalid  as if
made under the effects of an insanity never  so general/'
 . In Stanton v. Weatherwax, 16. Barb., 259, Gridley, Justice,
delivering the opinion of the New  York  Supreme Court,
says:  "A monomaniac may  make  a valid will,  when  the
provisions of the  will  are  entirely unconnected  with  and
uninfluenced by the  particular delusion.  But when there is
good reason to believe that the will is the offspring of  that
particular delusion, which has seized his mind  and controlled
its operations, the result is otherwise.  A will thus  made
under the influence  of a powerful delusion, which has  not
only impaired, but perverted his judgment and understand-
ing in connection with the  provisions of the will, so as to 
19
exercise a controlling influence on the disposition of his prop-
erty, is not the will of a person of sound mind.   His mind is
unsound quoad the very subject on which he is  called to
exercise his powers in making the will."
  In  Seamans Friend Society  v.  ILopper,  33. N Y., 019,
Denio, Chief  Justice for the New York Court of Appeals,
says: "If a person persistently believes supposed facts, which
have  no real  existence except in his perverted imagination,
and against all evidence and  probability, and conducts him-
self however  logically upon  the assumption of their  exist-
ence, he is, so far as  they are  concerned, under  a morbid
delusion,  and  delusion  in  that sense is insanity.  If  the
deceased  in the present case  was  unconsciously laboring
under a delusion as thus defined, in respect to his wife and
family connections, who  would naturally  have  been  the
objects of his testamentary bounty when he  executed  his
will, or when  he dictated it  (if he did dictate it), and  the
Court can see that its dispository provisions were or might
have been caused or affected by the delusions, the instrument
is not his  will and cannot be supported as such in a Court of
Justice."
  These  cases and  the reasoning applicable  to  the facts
appearing in them, establish that in cases of partial insanity
or monomania, unless  the contestants can clearly trace their
disherison to the delusion of the testator existing at the time
of making the will, the legal presumption of testamentary
capacity which always attaches  until it is countervailed by
express proof, is not overcome.
  The rule with relation to disqualification from  testatory
power in  cases  of monomania  as  stated,  finds as valuable
illustration  in causes in which  delusions of a more or less
insane character have been proven  as isolated conditions, not
directly affecting the wills or dispository provisions of those
subject to them (and  in which  causes, therefore,  the testa-
mentary acts  have been  sustained), as it does in those in
which  from their circumstances  the inference was inevitable 
20
that the existence and operation of the delusions caused the
testator to withhold his bounty from those who should have
received its benefits.  In the class  of causes to which I now
advert the delusions were generally  of such a  character as
referred either to religious vagaries, or inordinate credulities
as to supernatural phenomena, or other erratic ideas and
convictions upon topics which we  rightly  term superstitions.
In dealing with such subjects the Courts should decline to
regard as satisfactory  evidence of altogether  perverted in-
telligence, the exhibition  sporadically of those peculiarities
of belief which formerly were incorporated in the  creeds of
devout men of various religions and nationalities.  There can
be no legal standard of normal religious faith—the world is
too far advanced  for that; but even  in Christianity, ortho-
doxy and heterodoxy have more than once changed places in
the course of time, and the  saint of to-day would probably
have graduated in martyrdom a few  centuries ago.   Heca-
tombs have  been  offered  up  to appease the demand of the
intellect of the world for the extinction of witchcraft.  What
more horrible impeachment  of human wisdom than that
defaces the  history of  our race ?   But yet occasional eviden-
ces of a pure and  sincere  belief in that fatal fantasy are pre-
sented to our observation among our own contemporaries.
Although the tales, believed  with  all the earnestness of reli-
gious faith  two or three hundred years ago,  are scarcely
enough  to evoke  more than  a contemptuous  smile from a
strong-minded child; yet some weak minded men, entirely
competent, however, to perform all the ordinary duties and
make all the ordinary discriminations of life,  give these or
similar fables entire  credence.  These peculiar  and  infre-
quent cases,  running counter to  the sceptical, more enlight-
ened and better instructed opinions of the times, are nothing
more than isolated instances of what were earnest,  deliberate
and intensely believed articles of faith of such men as Popes
Innocent sth, Julian 2d,  Adrian Gtli; Sir Edward Coke, Sir
Matthew Hale, Lord Bacon probably, Erasmus, Martin Luth- 
21
er, Calvin, Baxter, Sir Thomas Browne, Cotton Mather, John
Wesley.   The belief in modern  spiritism,  with its puzzles
and mysteries of mechanical or mesmeric effects, or whatever
they may be, is entertained by many of the  most subtle,
acute and accurate  minds—and yet, should the mere holding
of these  convictions and kindred  infatuations, of the  very
essence of delusions to the accredited standard of rational-
ity—no matter how fervent they may be and with whatso-
ever tenacity they  may be held—be received as satisfactory
evidence of that insanity which would vitiate a testamentary
act—how repugnant would it be to our sense  of  justice?
Every one of us would revolt against such a doctrine.   But
if such convictions,  proven to have existed in the imagination,
lead to the repudiation  of the claims of  nature and the ties
of kinship, and to the establishment of professorships for the
spread of spiritualistic knowledge, or to  the foundation of a
fund for the detection and punishment of witches, or to the
diversion  of property from those believed by a  testator to  be
witches,  or under satanic  influences; or for the  benefit  of
such  very mortal immortals as Miss Katie King and her
materialized spiritual comrades, recently first  certified and
then denounced by well known gentlemen in the literary and
scientific world ; then the delusion—shaping itself into a force,
dominating  the will, dictating the  testamentary act, and
turning away the current of feeling from those who should
be the recipients of posthumous bounty—becomes a disqual-
ifying cause, and avoids the will made under its influence.
  The importance of these cases  of delusions which are not
connected with personal enmities and do not directly affect
testamentary  acts, as aiding in the elucidation of the subject
of testamentary  capacity cannot be over-estimated.  It is  in
them that the tendency of Courts to err is most apparent.
Finding that the aberration is given a wider range than such
as would merely indicate a  groundless personal hostility  or
some peculiarity eventuating in an inofficious will, the Courts
are sometimes led to seek  in these cases proofs of a gen%al 
22
insanity;  whereas  they  are  merely religious or superstitious
humors, or highly iudividualized peculiarities of disposition
or character.  It is obvious that features analogous to mono-
mania are manifested, and perhaps speaking with pathologi-
cal exactness, they constitute monomania; but as they  fall
short of the legal requirements of that condition, as a cause of
avoiding a will they must either be regarded as constituting
a larger disqualification, or as being what they actually are
in contemplation of law, altogether innocuous.
   We all  know of numerous cases in which
            * #  #  *  u gome one peculiar quality
            " Doth so possess a man, that it doth  draw
            " All his effects, his spirits and his powers,
            " In their confluxions all to run one way."
As a great English critic says, quoting the passage from Ben
Jonson,  "there are  undoubtedly  persons  in whom such
humors as Ben describes,  have attained a complete  ascend-
ency.  The avarice of  Elwes;  the  insane desire  of  Sir
Edgerton  Brydges for a barony to which he had no more
right than to the crown of  Spain  ; the malevolence which
long  meditation  on  imaginary wrongs  generated  in  the
gloomy mind  of Bellingham,  are instances.  The feeling
which animated  Clarkson, and  other  virtuous men  against
the slave trade and slavery, is an instance of a more honor-
able kind."  It is  safer to regard  these,  and  cognate cases
 and indeed it would be gross injustice to do otherwise), as
eccentricities, oddities,  idiosyncracies—when  they are  not
merely religious or superstitious conceits and humors.
  Passing over even such very valuable  cases as Banks v.
Coodfellow, (in which  Lord  Oockburn has with his  great
ability and acumen  fully considered the whole subject, and
critically examined the  English  and some American adjudi-
cations), and  many others in England  which  would well
illustrate the proposition now under discussion,  I will refer
with  some little  particularity to two causes originating in
our own Snrrogate's Court, each of which  is very'instructive,
and  in which we can perceive the  application of  the correct
rule. 
23
  The case of Thompson v. Quimby is reported in the second
volume of  Bradford's  Surrogate's  Reports.   There  were
several  reasons assigned by the  contestants in this case, for
their  attack upon  Mr. Thompson's will.   Among them was
the allegation " that the decedent was laboring  under delu-
sions  amounting to insanity, and had  not a disposing mind
during the preparation or at the time of the execution of the
will."   The instrument was drawn and executed during his
last illness, and but a short time before his death.  It was a
voluminous document, and  in it some provision was made
for many of his descendants and kinsfolk, mentioned therein ;
but  the bulk of his large estate was  left for charitable or
religious purposes.  The instrument was prepared by eminent
counsel, and bears the evidence of very intelligent construc-
tion, it  being simple in its scheme, although multifarious in
its details.   The testimony established that the testator was
a  believer in many superstitions of a  vulgar character, and
had held them with great pertinacity for many years. Among
other delusions, it was claimed that he believed in the black
art; that he read and experimented upon the teachings of
books of magic; was familiar with disembodied  spirits, that
he could evoke them " from the vasty deep," or at least, like
Owen Glendower, said  he could, and  that he declared  they
came when he  did call them ;  that  he could work spells
by formula or incantation;  that he could cure  diseases by
amulets or by papers bearing certain cabalistic inscriptions,
which were to be worn about the person of the sufferer.   He
professed  to know where  Captain Kidd's treasures were
secreted at Montauk  Point, and actually in company  with
another, undertook by the aid of a divining rod to locate the
exact spot, at which these riches were buried.   The experi-
ment was  a failure, because as he declared the charm under
which he worked was broken by inopportune remarks of his
attendant.   On one of these occasions, he beheld  the appari-
tion  of the Devil (he had  as much orthodoxy  at least as
consisted in a devout faith in that personage) in the shape of 
24
 a large black bull—he recognized the father of evil in  his
 taurine manifestation.  It was also  alleged that he claimed
 to be able to see ghosts ; that he believed in the supernatural
 character and significance of dreams; also in the Philosopher's
 stone, which was to be constructed of materials all of which
 he possessed except one ; that he also believed in clairvoyance,
 spiritualism, mesmerism, magic glasses; that every person had
 three eyes, one spiritual and two physical, and that he owned
 a whistle with which he could get everything he wanted.
   This  and much more to  the same effect was  invoked  as
 testimony to prove the insanity of the testator.  While the
 Surrogate  did not accredit all that was deposed to in this
 connection, he did arrive at  this conclusion, viz.: " after
 making every reasonable  allowance however, I have no doubt
 but that Mr. Thompson's mind was impressed with a sincere
 belief in many absurd notions.  There seems sufficient evi.
 dence to show that he believed in mesmerism, clairvoyance
 divining and mineral rods, dreams and  spiritual influences.
 He searched for the supposed deposits  of money by Kidd,
 and ascribed his failure in  two instances to the utterance of
 certain  words  by  the  operator.  That he  said he saw the
 Devil in the  shape  of a bull  seems to be well established.
 He believed likewise in the efficacy of cures for rheumatism
 and fever and  ague as above stated."
   On the other side, it was shown  that the  testator was a
very shrewd and intelligent man of business, clear  of vision
and firm and decided in his judgments.  He was largely en-
gaged in affairs; was connected with moneyed institutions; had
succeeded in accumulating wealth by his  own  efforts; was
associated  in large and legitimate enterprises of commerce.
His general health was good for a man of his advanced age—
seventy-five years—although he had  suffered injuries from a
fall, and had  had epilepsy ; but these occurrences  were not
proven  to  have  affected  his  general capacity  to transact
business, nor did his delusions  appear only after these events
occurred—on  the  contrary the fact was  that he  entertained
them quite as stubbornly before, as after such events happened. 
25
  Now there was nothing whatever to  connect auy of these
aberrations or infatuations of the testator with the provisions
of his will, or with any one of them.  Hence, although his
mental peculiarities were  confined to one class or correlated
system of  delusions,  they  did  not  affect his testamentary
disposition of his property, and there could  not therefore
have been a successful impeachment  of his will on the gound
of monomania or partial insanity.  The very able and astute
counsel of the contestants,  therefore sought to make  these
facts the bases of a contention of general insanity.   Here
were  phases  of  an  extravagant  and  exaggerated  belief,
widely variant from the ordinary standards, so much so that
in their  ramifications and  details  they seemed to include
many subjects, allied, it is true in one sense, but  in another
they were wild fancies, delusions and incoherences, betokening
a frenzied condition of mind.   Should such a man, who even
in his last illness confided to his physician his conviction of
many of his notions, be regarded as possessing that calm and
sober judgment which would  enable him, after taking a de-
liberate survey of his situation, to make a rational disposition
of his estate?  His beliefs, his acts, his follies, his diseases,
all  threw about  him the suspicion  of lunacy, a suspicion
which it was claimed, was ripened almost to a  certainty that
he was  not conscious that  in  leaving his great property to
charitable and religious uses and purposes, he was committing
an  injustice to his  posterity, which were  he sane he would
never have contemplated doing.
  A careful consideration of the proof in this case will show,
that the testator's  condition of mind was either that of a
monomaniac, or merely of  a  person of enormous credulity
upon theoretical  and abstract subjects,  of the value of some
of which  he attempted to  judge by practical experiment.
All his delusions were  connected with  such matters, which
did not and could not have  any effect or influence whatever
on the dispository act of a man constituted as he was in other
respects.   Mesmerism,  clairvoyance,  divining  and  mineral 
26
 rods, and the  whole  arsenal  of  Dousterswivelian  tools;
 dreams, and spiritual contacts and influences, were not in his
 case original  creations of his  perverted  fancy.   They were
 the results of reading, association, education, and possibly of
 hereditary and family influences extending through genera-
 tions.  And  so  the learned  Surrogate (Bradford)  regarded
 them.  He wisely applied to the circumstances of  the case
 the inferences to be drawn from the  history of such  phenom-
 ena as constituted the testator's stock of ascribed delusions—
 referred to the difficulty of the ascertainment of precise con-
 ditions of mind, and after adverting casually to the doubtful
 frontier which separates madness in its  various  forms and
 shades from  sanity (a topic  which Dr. Maudesley has lately
 elaborated in his  comments  upon cases lying in  the border
 land, between soundness and unsoundness of mind), he pro-
 ceeds to consider the reasoning which induces a reliance upon
 such circumstances  as those  involved in this case,  as estab-
 lishing a  general insanity,  and brands  that reasoning as
 fallacious.  The conclusion he arrives  at is well worthy of
 citation.   He says, " the danger of this kind of reasoning
 lies in regarding, as indications of radical disease, mental
 phenomena existing in all ages and among all classes, and
 dependant upon  natural faculties and propensities, or arising
 from  adventitious  circumstances  of early  impression and
 education."  " Being of impression  that mere  speculative
 belief does not of itself afford  a clear test  of insanity, I do
 not esteem the peculiar opinions entertained-by the decedent,
 sufficient to establish mental  derangement."
  The Surrogate decreed in favor of the will, and the Supreme
 Court sustained his decree.
  I must leave this case and  many very useful and pertinent
 suggestions arising from  it, to consider before closing some
of the illustrations furnished of the views I have been en-
 deavoring to expound, by the  recent case of the Bonard will.
This case is of the very greatest value, for in addition to the
facts which transpired in  it  being such  as  to present very 
27
distinctly  the  question of the testamentary capacity of one
who entertained singular tenets of a so-called faith, it was a
cause  tried and  argued with  great skill and unusual ability
and one  in which the testimony of the medical  experts was
sifted  with  a thoroughness  and minuteness which elicted
much instruction upon the more  obscure phenomena of men-
tal disease.
  Louis Bonard, a native of France, died at the City of New
York, in  the  Eoman Catholic Hospital of St. Yincent, on
the 20th day of February, 1871.   His life had evidently been
an  eventful one, for while  the  testimony leaves  in  doubt
much, and fails altogether to  account for more of his antece-
dent history, it was known that he had been a traveler, and a
trader in South and Central America, and that he had been a
dealer in sham jewelry ;  that he came to this country some
time prior to the year 1*55, and had brought with him money;
that he had  had losses, but at length became successful, and
made investments in real estate, which enabled him to accu-
mulate a fortune amounting at the time of his death to about
one hundred and fifty thousand dollars.  During the period
of his residence in New York he lived as  a miser; he pre-
ferred the society and companionship of artisans and mechan-
ics. He had no relations in America—nor in Europe so far as
was ascertained at the time of the trial—although it has since
transpired that he had kindred in France.  He was a man of
erratic habits,  and singular beliefs, the latter of which seemed
to intensify as his age advanced.  He was  a  misanthrope,
but was possessed of an unbounded affection  for the brute
creation.  The evidence  shows that he was a  believer in
metempsychosis; that he expressed  the opinion that there
might be an Emperor in any animal he beheld ; that he re-
monstrated with a person who suggested it would be humane
to kill an injured kitten, because he  averred there was  a
human soul in the animal's body.  But he was  a  man dex-
terous and  cunning in  mechanical arts.  He  constructed
machines  for  various purposes;  he had mental  resources 
28
likewise, and was a reader of books.  I think the testimony
fairly viewed, established  that  he  railed at religion and
priests—that he denounced the Church in which he was born,
but notwithstanding his invectives  against it, he died in the
peace of the Roman  Catholic Church and  iu its full com-
munion.
  There appeared also the fact that Mr. Bonard combined
with his ardent love of animals an unbounded admiration for
the benevolence  of Mr. Henry  Bergh.  Memoranda were
found among his papers, which plainly showed he had some
ulterior  purpose  concerning that gentleman.  On the 11th
February, 1871,  and while he was very ill,  he  made a will
bequeathing a portion  of his property to two of his friends.
On the 13th he  made another, revoking the  former, and left
all his estate, real and personal, to the  Society  for the Pre-
vention  of Cruelty to Animals, of  which Mr.  Bergh was
then as he is now the honored President.
  Here  was a case bold in its outlines and presenting the
salient feature  of a  dogma of a heathen creed, constituting
the avowed belief of a man who was born and who died in
the Catholic faith.   The contestants of his will, who sought
to avoid it on the ground  of want of mental ability, relied
upon the proof of this belief, so unusual among Europeans
and Americans, and on  that evidence which was offered to
show the peculiarities of his character and  conduct, as estab-
lishing unsoundness of mind in the form of monomania.
  The medical experts did not regard the entertainment of
the belief in metempsychosis by Mr. Bonard, as  evidence of
an insane delusion.  One of the very learned physicians who
testified in the case  did  not find  evidence  of upositive irra-
tionality " in the circumstance that  a man  of  wealth  who
lived in one of the  poorest districts  of the  city, in a cheap
boarding house, on being taken ill and believing that his soul
was about  to  pass  into the body  of an animal, left all his
possessions to  a  Society, the only  object of which was  to
protect  animals,  Another physician of very  eminent au- 
29
thority in this class of cases, declared  that under such cir-
cumstances the belief mentioned should  not  be regarded as
insane delusion—and for the reason that if  the  conviction
had the dominion over  him  which a  delusion would have
had, it would have  in  some  manner  betrayed itself in the
language or in the provisions  of the instrument; that if Bo-
nard held as  real matter of  religious  conviction  the belief
that his soul would migrate to a habitation in the body of an
inferior animal, that that would have  been expressed or in
some way manifested in  the will.  The  same gentleman says,
that " no religious belief, no matter how absurd it may be, is
of itself sufficient evidence  of a man's insanity ; " but what
is exactly religious belief and what is not, was of  course not
attempted to be explained.
  The opinion of the Surrogate in this case is very able and
interesting.   He declares that the  belief which Mr. Bonard
held did not constitute  insanity ;  that  u if a Court is to as-
cribe insanity to a man or a class of men constituting a sect,
according to his or their opinion or  belief  as to a  future
state, and a particular  sect had in fact attained to a real
knowledge of that future, the logical deduction would neces-
sarily be, that a major portion of all mankind comprised in
all other and different sects were of unsound mind, or mono-
maniacs on  that subject."  The learned Surrogate then pro-
ceeds to consider the facts of this case  not as presenting one
of general insanity,  but  as one in which the only appearance
of unsoundness of mind consisted in the alleged monomania
concerning  the transmigration of souls.  But he gives effect
to the fact that there was  no connection necessarily of this
belief with the terms of the will—that there was nothing in
the will to show that he held the opinions alleged any more
than that he was impressed with a belief in utter annihilation
after death;  nor was there any testimony  to associate any
provision of the will with a belief respecting  the future con-
dition of the human  soul. These considerations, coupled with
the further fact that " the testator had neither wife nor child 
30
father  or  mother,  or any known, near or remote relatives
living, or  others on whom he was or felt himself under obli-
gation  to bestow his  property," induced the Court to sustain
the will and overrule the allegation of mental incapacity.
  Such was, in  brief (in  the medico-legal aspect of it), the
celebrated Bonard will case, and such  was the  wise  and
proper disposition made of it.  But one step further however,
and  the will could  not have been properly sustained, had
Bonard's relatives appeared to contest it.  Introduce one little
circumstance into the narration, an additional factor into the
computation, and  the harmless humor  or conceit  of  Mr.
Bonard would have  become  aggravated into an insane delu-
sion, such  as the law  would have regarded fatal to testament-
ary power.  For instance (and  it  points the rule with great
clearness), suppose Mr. Bonard, holding the opinion that the
souls of men after  death infuse themselves into the bodies of
brutes, had learned before he made his will that Mr. Bergh
had announced (as he did after Bonard's death), that it was
his intention to dispose of a part of that which should be left
to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals by
Bonard, in the application of carbonic acid gas to the suffo-
cation  of  vagrant dogs who  should be  captured  in the mid-
summer raids and carried to the public pound for execution.
Suppose that Bonard, apprehending that after his decease his
soul might pass into  the body of such an animal (the vicissi-
tudes of whose uncertain city life might lead him finally to
such a  doom), should have provided in his will  against the
possibility of the abridgement  of his translated life by his
own money, at the instigation of his own friend, his chosen
posthumous almoner. To consider so is  not to consider too
curiously—for many wills have contained even stranger pro-
visions than such an  one would have been.  This would have
indicated  that the dispository provisions were  intended by
the testator for  his  own  physical comfort and  benefit in
another sphere of  physical  existence, and  would  have fur-
nished  one and the principal element  of  that quality of un- 
31
soundness of mind which the law recognizes as such in cases
of disputed wills.  Where the  grotesque idea is  the basis of
a belief so sincere  as  to  lead to its incorporation in the will,
and to be indubitably the producing cause of its provisions,
it affects the testamentary act and is evidence of the diseased
condition of mind.
  I must resist the temptation  to pursue the subject further.
  To summarize by way of conclusion the views  I have en-
deavored to  present in the foregoing observations:—the
law as it now stands  and  should  be administered upon the
subject of partial insanity (and almost all the cases of partial
insanity are cases of monomania purely), is  of compara-v
tively  recent  origin; it is the product of improved  knowl-
edge respecting the diseases of the mind, and of more lib-
eral as well as accurate views respecting the freedom of the
will, and the restraints proper  to be  put upon testamentary
powers.  It consists of a rule  susceptible  of application to
all cases of the character under consideration ; but one which
is affected by the general tendency of  Courts  to revert to
antiquated ideas upon topics resting purely  in authority ; a
rule which is liable to be lost sight of in the attempt to find in
cases  of monomania, evidences of  a  general insanity.  It
does not require that to prevent the  making of  a valid will,
a man shall be bias and thwart in all his mental processes ;
but it is a rule which discriminates in favor of those who are
the natural objects of his bounty and affection; and it pre-
vents injury and  injustice being done to such, because of a
testator's delusions, fancies and irrational prejudices, in  cases
where they have evidently affected his acts ; but it does not
deny the testamentary privilege to the man whose eccentrici-
ties, beliefs,  follies or  infatuations may be as  absurd and
fantastic as the incoherences of a half-remembered  dream,
provided in all other affairs  of life he is of  competent judg-
ment, and his  vagaries have not led him to do injustice to his
kindred, or  to harden his heart against those who are the
proper objects of his testamentary bounty.