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    have been many other instances of the same kind . "We remember the case of a man who believed himself to be beset by personages of Scripture , not in any metaphorical or nonnatural sense , but positively m the body and the very letter . The cases , however , were entirely different . Nicholai knew that the figures which he saw were imaginary , and he was in no respects affected by the apparition ; the other person believed the delusion , and was of course open to be misled by any

    phenomena arising from it . To him a definitive instruction from Moses or Paul would have been of course a sufficient warrant for any act counter to the inferior law of Queen , Lords , and Commons . His judgment was therefore liable to be overridden on every point besides the particular delusion , and he could not distinguish between the legality or illegality of an acb , still less between the necessity or the absence

    of necessity . But ifc is the illusory belief m the necessity which as often impels the insane to crime as any corrupt or passionate motive . "I must kill you ! " said a young lady to her sister , who , on waking , found a knife at her throat . The girl who proclaimed this painful necessity was as amiable as any of her sex could be ; she was quite incapable of explaining the nature of the necessity ; yet from subsequent acts on her part , and the well-known constitutional tendencies of

    her family , there could be no doubt that the impromptu proposal to cut her sister ' s throat was the first symptom of insanity . JYom that period , however , and for some time after , her judgment "in other respects" was quite sound . The whole of these considerations tend to

    show that it is impossible to draw a clear line between those who are morally insane on account of physical insanity , and those who are nothing but brutal , reckless , and dangerous persons . In fact , the two conditions so closely resemble each other in their symptoms , that they cannot be divided . Dove was a dangerous brute , whether he was sane or insane . He took a

    pleasure in cruelty to defenceless creatures , he treated the most serious subjects with levity : to separate from his wife , to abandon the separation , to procure her medicines , to poison her , appear to have been purposes equally powerful with him . Whether or not he could estimate consequences , in the legal sense , it is evident that , intellectually and morally , he had a very feeble sense of them . The distinctions between stupidity and madr ness , brutality and idiotcy , the delirium tremens of intoxication and the delirium of

    mania , will , perhaps , never bo exactly laid down . It does not at all follow , howover , that practical science needs bo at fault pi'Oportionately with theoretical science . Although we cannot tell whether Dove is brute or madman , it is more than probable that the same kind of treatment would be the beat for

    him in either case ; and if the best for him , the best for an example to his like . If he is a brutally disposed lunatic , the proper course of treatment would be strict regimen and dicipline : he should bo watched , rogulutod in diet , broken in as a wild beast is broken in ; and that probably is exactly the style of treatment that would havo more terrors for the snne brute—if any brute ia sano—than the momentary paroxysm of hanging .

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    PARTIES AT LEISURE . The liberty of the recess will bo turned to account by oxpecfant parties . The- Tories have already resolved to raiso new political capital with which to trade in 1857 . Their first necessity , however , is a Restoration . It is perceived and confessed that tho old union exists no longer . Tho acknowledged

    principles of the party have become so diversified that no predominating colour remains . Leaders have lost their followers , and followers their leaders . The Carlton Club is split into factions , and has avowedly ceased to represent the doctrines of pure Toryism alone . Its opinions are indistinct , its action is irregular , the outline of its influence is faintly marked ; ' its chiefs are themselves subalterns without a recognized commander . There is a cry of anarchy in the camp , certain stragglers having returned from service under the Coalition , others having talcen counsel with the leading liberal minds , others having ceased to support or oppose , systematically , any particular set of ideas . It is easy to impute this result to the disruption of political ties , and the contempt of political compacts attributed to Sir Robert Peel , whose sons are now the understrappers of a Whig administration . It is easy to accuse Lox * d Aberdeen , who was a minister with a conscience , of abandoning the ancient

    standards of consistency ; and it 13 still easier to find in Lord Palmeeston's ductile policy the reason why the discipline of parties is not so powerful as formerly ; but the truth is , that Toryism , like monarchy , has no longer a real meaning in England . It meant something when the Whigs introduced new principles , and the Tories resisted them ;

    when the faith of some men was fixed to tradition , and the faith of others to progress ; when Whiggery was supposed to imply a faint toleration , and Toryism a deep reverence of the fundamental institutions of the country It meant something in 1841 , when a compact phalanx of more than three hundred Members of Parliament stood behind a Conservative minister , fighting for privileges which have since been thrown into the air . But it began to decay when , iustead of standing upon its antique basis of territorial influence , it was compelled to make use of the Reform Bill which it had resisted , to cry " Register " when others cried " Agitate , " to contend for Toryism with the weapons of Liberality . Toryism has no meaning now . It is merely a false form of Whiggery . Its only chance of gaining political momentum consists in the appeal it lias made to the Liberal party . What ai * e its promises ? A sincere and prompt amendment of tho official system , a plan of national education , military reform , the purification of political influences , a thorough revision of finance . Why , this is the liberal programme- stolen by the Tory party , which is so simple as to believe that Liberals will empower Tories to carry out their ideas , that reformers will trust to men who have never

    laboured in the spirit of reform . In tho meantime , Toryism is as cold , vain , and factious as ever . Without commanding the services of a single brilliant writer , its regular literature ,, is only on a par with the squib and cracker doggrel of an election . One of its organs whoezos daily for tho edification of the old-fashioned country members ; while a minute sect , to which serious politics are " a bore , " is satisfied with tho lampoons of a tenth-rate Charivari . The party was once able

    to pi'oducc opigrams ; it c-tm now be no more than indecently dull . There- is another party which might be effective in Parliament if it could forgot Convocation . Though little heard of now , oxcept in connexion with ecclesiastic hairsplitting , ' it has occupied an historical position , derived from tho name of their founder . But of what value to tin ; commonwealth are these chiaroscuro politicians ? Allying themselvcH with 11 Neonlntonie sect , composed of clerical gentlemen devoted to the reconciliation of irreconcilable convictions , they stand apart from state affairs , and , crowded in 11 cloistered by-way of letters , havo

    scarcely voice or influence . There is a mor bid pallor in their opinions , and this sickli ness pervades their oratory , their journalism and their literature , disconnecting it from al that is healthy , vigorous , and hopeful ii England . It is the sentimentalism of a sect and produces nothing but scholastic casuistry scepticism , and langour . As in the Tory party we see a great political

    combination parting into fragments , ruined in character , without efficient or respectable leaders , losing its hold upon the classes which once gave it life and power , so iu the Oxford party we see a set of men , in whom many hopes were laid up , degenerating into querulous sentimentality , and gradually becoming of as little practical import in the discussions of the day , as the stained glass and iron-work of the sixteenth century .

    " v \ e have never concealed the confused condition of the Liberal party . The Manchester leaders have , for a time , ceased to act upon any defined policy . The war precluded them from action . Other bodies of Liberals have been broken up . Yet , unless an aristocracy succeeds in bewildering the nation by distracting the Continent , we expect to see this party rising amid the fluctuations of its political rivals during the next session of Parliament . More than two hundred political committees have recentlj been

    organized in London and the provinces . Then operations cannot fail to influence the constituencies , especially as they have resolved upon a new s } r stem of tactics , totally in contrast with the paltry , violent , chimerical agitation of past years . W ^ ien we indicate , in detail , the progress of this organization , ifc will be evident that whatever the Tories and Whigs may effect , and whatever the Oxford party may dreamily and mediaevally desire , the Liberals are at length disposed to be active , and to concentrate their activity .

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    THE COMING BISHOP . The see of London is to be vacated . The new bishop would probably accept it , on tho condition that it may be divided . There are many questions at present agitating and dividing the Anglican Church . One question is made the subject of a police case , 13 r . LusiiiNGTON sitting as magistrate iu lieu of the Bishop of Exeter , and Archdeacon Denison being the accused . It ia not indeed easy to know what he ia accused of . Ho has some

    peculiar views respecting the elements used in the communion : now , it is rather remarkable that ill a Church which has such a large diversity of opinions—repecting the period , for example , at which grace may come , whether before or after , and the atnouut of mutation which ia undergone bj ' the elements—that in such a Church a mere singularity of view should be made the subject of a penal charge which may result in serious loss to tho accused . It is wonderful to us

    that while all the energy of the mombcrs of the Church is devoted to splitting hairs on questions which cannot be fully grasped by tho human mind , in order to increase tho divisions among it , no man appears to have raised tho question which rnn restore union to tho Church , and perhaps unite to it other persuasions that havo lapsed . It is also rather curioua to us that in this

    very question of the oiiclmrist tho disputants do not look for their interpretation to tho very conduct , to tho human life of the groat Founder of Christianity . They will discover him taking' his human shape among the working classes : ia that no lesson that they should seek for tho great commentary upon tho obscurities of tho subject in tho common humanity , and in tho influence of tho rites of Christianity upon the largest number P Is

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    Attotst 2 , 1856 J T HE LEADER . 733

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 2, 1856, page 733, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2152/page/13/