410   _MATURITY OF THE POLICY

claimed by him that if his act of self-destruction was involuntary and unintentional, or caused by an irresistible impulse, then the death was not, within the meaning of the policy, "by his own hand or act."

It is natter of common observation that some insane persons can be influenced by motives; that they can form intentions and act upon them, and that they can devise schemes and carry them out with great cunning and skill, and yet such persons may not be able to distinguish between right and wrong, may not be competent to bind themselves by contracts, or be legally responsible for crime. There are other insane persons who cannot form intentions, are unconscious of the physical consequences of their acts, cannot control their actions, and who act from irresistible impulse; such per-sons can no more be said to act than an automaton. If such a person should commit self-destruction. the event might, with some propriety, be called an accident. It is no more the act of the insane person than if he had been compelled to do it by some irresistible external force.

The clause inserted in policies, that they should be void in case the assured died by his own hand or act, has been in common use for many years. It is supposed to have been inserted to deprive the assured of any motive to take his own life for the pecuniary benefit of his friends. It presupposes that the assured could be acted upon by motives, and was not intended for a case where motives could not operate where intentions could not be formed, and where the acts of the assured were not under the control of his will. Such a clause would not invalidate a policy in case a pistol held in the hands of the assured should explode, or in case the should with his own hand take a poison in the belief that it was medicine, because in such cases he does not, within the meaning and intent of the parties, die by his own hand. In such cases, it is more proper to say that the assured died by accident, rather than to say that he died by his own hand or act. But the act is no more within this clause of the policy, if the assured is insane, and labors under the insane delusion that a poison which the sees before him is a cordial, and under such delusion drinks it and dies; or if he is under the delusion that the water of the ocean is a bed of flowers, and throws himself into it and drowned; or if he. without knowing the nature of a pistol, unconsciously or involuntarily discharges its contents into his head and thus produces death. In all these cases the assured has no design or intention, and has been operated on by no motives. His death may fairly be attributed to disease: and the event has happened upon which the insurer has agreed to become liable and to pay. * * *

But we have here two words superadded, "sane or insane," to the other words which were under consideration in the cases to which we have thus far referred, and it is claimed, on the part of