For example,
when a man is suffering from morbid suspicion, and, fixing his distrust
on some individual, purposes to murder him, the intellectual processes
by which he lays his plans and fulfills his morbidly conceived
intention, are performed with perfect sanity, as by a sane will. It is
important to recognize this. There is no difference in _nature_ between
the mental operation by which a "sane" man contrives and executes a
crime, and that by which a known "lunatic" will commit the like offense.
There may be as much _method_ in the one instance as in the other, and
the faculties which exhibit this method may be as sound and effective,
but in the one case the idea behind the act is sane, while in the other
it is insane. The brain is not one large homogeneous organ to be
healthy or diseased, orderly or deranged, throughout at any one period.
Inflammations, and diseases generally, which affect the brain as a whole
do not commonly cause insanity properly so called. The organ of the
mind is a composite, or aggregate of cells, or molecules, any number
or series of which may be affected with disease while the rest remain
healthy. At present we are only on the threshold of investigation
concerning the physical causes of insanity, and have scarcely done more
than recognize the possibility of _molecular_ disease of the brain.
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