The author considers that the present time is favourable for bringing the provisions of the criminal and civil law into better accord with modern views of insanity. He touches on most of the aspects of lunacy legislation, and suggests various reforms in principle and procedure. He particularly emphasises the need of fuller recognition by the law of the pathological element in the criminal nature; the practical corollary of this admission should be the establishment of asylums for criminal lunatics, and of other special institutions intermediate between the prison and the asylum for degenerates and weak-minded criminals.