The Law Library - Softcover

John D. Mayne

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0461403463 ISBN 13: 9780461403466

Publisher: HardPress, 2019

Synopsis

"The Law Library" by John D. Mayne surveys two intersecting strands of legal thought. The first, a rigorous early- to mid-20th-century examination of insanity and criminal responsibility, weighs how to define insanity, measure responsibility, and align legal aims with medical science. It contrasts three theoretical frameworks for insanity management—somatic, psychic, and somato-psychic—and critiques the dominant knowledge-of-right-and-wrong standard, arguing that responsibility must reflect the patient’s moral sense alongside the extent of mental disease. Delusion tests are analyzed as more reliable indicators than blanket insanity diagnoses, though not infallible, and the author advocates a middle ground in which cerebro-mental disease diminishes but does not erase moral freedom, promoting just punishment tempered by medical insight. The work grounds its arguments in landmark trials (McNaughten, Hale, Erskine, and others) and notes the shift toward expert medical input and institutional reform, including centralized asylums and tribunals with medical witnesses. The second strand, drawn from Mayne’s Law of Damages, offers a comprehensive colonial-English survey of contract and tort damages, pleading, and assessment, including actions against executors, assignees, and principals; remoteness; mitigation; and procedures for judgments and new trials. Overall, the text situates law at the crossroads of medicine, philosophy, and policy across Victorian and early-20th-century contexts.

Edition details

• Publisher: HardPress
• Publication date: 2019
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0461403463
• ISBN 13: 9780461403466
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 428