re Shaw, 2 Redf. Sur. (N. Y.) 107; In re White, 121 N. Y. 406, 24 N. E. 935.

In setting out these various definitions, we do not do so with the purpose of giving our approval to each of them, but merely to show the different forms of expression that courts have used to express the legal conception of an insane delusion. Whatever form of words is chosen to express the legal meaning of an insane delusion, it is clear, under all of the authorities, that it must be such an aberration as indicates an unsound or deranged condition of the mental faculties, as distinguished from a mere belief in the existence or nonexistence of certain supposed facts or phenomena based upon some sort of evidence. A belief which results from a process of reasoning from evidence, however imperfect the process may be or illogical the conclusion, is not an insane delusion. An insane delusion is not established when the court is able to understand how a person situated as the testator was might have believed all that the evidence shows that he did believe and still have been in full possession of his senses. Thus, where the testator has actual grounds for the suspicion of the existence of something in which he believes, though in fact not well founded and disbelieved by others, the misapprehension of the fact is not a matter of delusion which will invalidate his will. Stackhouse v. Horton, 15 N. J. Eq. 202; Potter v. Jones, supra; Martin v. Thayer, 37 W. Va. 38, 16 S. E. 489; Mullins v. Cottrell, supra.

The case of Wait v. Westfall, 161 Ind. 648, 68 N. E. 271, is an instructive case on this phase of the doctrine of insane delusions. There the testator believed that he could locate hidden treasure by means of a small metallic ball suspended on a thread. He spent a great deal of his time in going over the fields trying to locate the hidden metallic treasure, and holes were dug in so many places that they became a nuisance and had to be stopped. It was shown that a silver dollar hid under the carpet in a room could be located by the peculiar vibrations of the metallic ball when it was suspended over the silver dollar, and this circumstance offered some basis for the testator's belief that he could locate money buried in the ground by the same means, and the fact that there was this basis for the testator's belief, however erroneous or mistaken the conclusion drawn therefrom, distinguished the belief from an insane delusion. It is true that the bare fact that the metallic ball would indicate, by certain vibratory motions, where a silver dollar was, might be by most persons regarded as a very trifling circumstance upon which to predicate a belief that one could find treasure hidden in the earth in the same way; but it serves to show that the belief was not a spontaneous creation of a deranged mind.

The following excerpt of the opinion of Mr. Justice Hadley in this case is pertinent to the question now under consideration: "What tribunal occupied by finite beings is qualified to adjudge false asserted forces of attraction and magnetism or the phenomena of mind, because incapable of demonstration, or that certain supernatural powers and in

fluences do not exist, because not in accord with an assumed standard of mental action? In all the ages of the world instruments and devices have been employed in locating minerals in the earth. The fact is notorious that there are many intelligent, conservative persons who claim the power of locating water in the earth by means of a forked stick, and thousands of wells located by them have been dug and are still being dug. It is equally a matter of common report that such a stick will point downward at particular places in the hands of some men, and not in the hands of others. Many scholars and successful business men sincerely believe in Spiritualism, and of being abie, not by all, but through the instrumentality of a few naturally qualified persons called 'mediums,' to converse with and be advised by the spirits of departed friends, and believe they recognize the voices and handwriting of the dead. Mental phenomena are as various as the hues of the autumnal forest. In Chafin's Will, 32 Wis. 564, it is said: 'Dr. Carver, a very intelligent medical witness, who had been in the Western mines, testified: "I have seen hundreds of men in the mountains, who came there on dreams, including lawyers, doctors, and priests.

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men here in Monroe have been and searched for minerals under the direction of clairvoyants." Others believe in Christian Science, others in clairvoyance, others in the transmigration of souls, and others in witchcraft. To affirm or deny the truth of these things proves nothing, and demonstrates the individual to be neither a sage nor a fool. Who shall be the judge whether the mind that accepts or reflects them is the truly sane mind? If we affirm that witches do not ride broomsticks and practice their evil arts upon us, and that there are no witches, then we have Blackstone, the father of our common law, Chief Justice Mathew Hale, Coke, Sir Francis Bacon, Richard Baxter, John Wesley, Martin Luther, Cotton Mather, and a host of other eminent jurists and savants, against us; encyclopedias; Nevin's Witchcraft in Salem Village; Upham's Salem Witchcraft; Campbell's Lives of the Chief Justices, vol. 2. Early in the history of our jurisprudence much difficulty, for the reason above suggested, was experienced by the courts in fixing a standard of intellect by which testamentary capacity could be determined, and legislative bodies were not inclined to relieve the courts of their embarrassment. For instance, our statute for more than a half century has provided that all persons, except infants and persons of unsound mind, may make a will. Similar statutes have long prevailed in other states of the Union and in England. In construing these statutes the courts of both this country and England were at first disposed to hold that any mind possessed of an eccentricity, aberration, or erratic trend, such as amounted to an insane delusion, was not a sound mind within the meaning of the statute, and hence incapable. This doctrine has long since been repudiated by the courts of England, and for the most part, at least, by the courts of this country-certainly by this state since Teegarden v. Lewis, 145 Ind. 98, 40 N. E. 1047, 44 N. E 9. Under the law as now settled, capacity is not determined by what one

believes, nor by the character of the horrid tales he can tell. The test is, does there remain in the subject an untrammeled intellect, sufficiently strong and rational to know the value and extent of his property, the nuinber and names of those who are the natural objects of his bounty, their deserts with reference to their conduct and treatment toward him, and memory sufficient to carry these things in mind long enough to have his will prepared and executed. See cases collected in Teegarden v. Lewis, 145 Ind. 98, 103, 40 N. E. 1047, 1048, 44 N. E. 9."

In the late case of Scott v. Scott, 212 Ill. 597, 72 N. E. 708, we held that a belief in Swedenborgianism and an enthusiasm manifested in propagating that faith furnish no evidence of monomania, insane delusion, or insanity. There the testator devised the greater portion of his property to a corporation which was organized for the sole object of printing, publishing, and circulating the theological works and writings of Emanuel Swedenborg, and the only evidence of delusion was the belief of the testator in the teachings of the so-called Swedenborgian Church. In disposing of that contention this court said (page 603 of 212 Ill., page 710 of 72 N. E.): "The great majority of civilized human beings believe in the existence of a life beyond the grave. Based upon that belief, many religious creeds, differing widely, have been established. The fact that an individual holds any particular belief in regard to a future state of existence cannot, of itself, be evidence of an insane delusion or monomania. An insane delusion is a belief in something impossible in the nature of things, or impossible under the circumstances surrounding the afflicted individual, and which refuses to yield either to evidence or reason. Riggs v. A. H. M. Society, 35 Hun, 656; State v. Lewis, 20 Nev. 333, 22 Pac. 241; Rush v. Megee, 36 Ind. 80. We have heretofore said that 'insane delusion consists in the belief of facts which no rationai person would have believed.' Nicewander v. Nicewander, 151 Ill. 156, 37 N. E. 698; Schneider v. Manning, 121 Ill. 376, 12 N. E. 267. Such a delusion does not exist unless it is one whose fallacy can be certainly demonstrated; for, except such demonstration can be made, it cannot be said that no rational person would entertain the belief. Consequently no creed or religious belief, in so far as it pertains to an existence after death, can be regarded as a delusion, because there is no test by which it can be tried and its truth or falsity demonstrated. Gass v. Gass, 3 Humph. (Tenn.) 278; Buchanan v. Pierie, 205 Pa. 123, 54 Atl. 583, 97 Am. St. Rep. 725; Orchardson v. Cofield, 171 Ill. 14, 49 N. E. 197, 40 L. R. A. 256, 63 Am. St. Rep. 211."

Tested by the rules laid down in the foregoing authorities, it is clear that the testator in the case at bar was not the victim of an insane delusion, within the meaning of the law. In the light of these authorities let us examine the occurrences which contestants rely on as showing that the testator was controlled by an insane delusion. Take, for example, the fact that the testator said that his brother and sister-in-law caused the death of his only child. The evidence explained what the

testator meant. The child was being fed from the milk of a cow belonging to the testator's brother. It is not denied that the owner of the cow took it away from the testator's home without his consent, thereby making it necessary to feed the child upon the milk of another cow. It is not denied that the child sickened and died after the change in its food. Who would say that there was no evidence whatever for the charge that the taking away of the cow was the cause of the baby's death? It is a matter of common knowledge that physicians and careful mothers exercise great care in changing the food for infants, and the fact that the testator may have believed that the change from the milk of one cow to that of another was the cause of the sickness and death of his child has some reason in it. If there had been no such circumstance as the child being fed upon the milk of this particular cow, and the whole matter were a figment of pure imagination, then there might be some reason for saying that it originated in a disordered brain. But such is not the proof. It makes no difference, with this view, that the testator believed that the facts in relation to the death of his child had been revealed to him by spiritual communication. There is nothing connected with this circumstance showing that the testator's belief in regard to spiritual communication was any different from the belief of Spiritualists in general. The preservation of the testator from threatened harm in connection with the blowing of the stump, the burning of the brush, and his falling near a step are other occurrences which illustrate how, in the mind of the testator, he connected events in his experience with his belief in Spiritualism. His belief in Spiritualism led him to account for his preservation from harm by means of spiritual guidance, while another person no more rational than Crumbaugh, but who did not believe in Spiritualism, would account for the same phenomena in some other way. The testator did not imagine that he was in a field, and that there was a person there blowing out stumps with dynamite, and that a piece of the stump was thrown in such a way that it would have struck him if he had not shifted his position; but there was, in fact, such a field, and in it were stumps which were being blown out, and the testator was there when an explosion of dynamite occurred, and it is testified to by the witness that a piece would have struck the deceased if he had not shifted his position just before the explosion. Now, all that is left of the transaction which is not susceptible of proof is the fact that the testator believed that he was led to shift his position by his guiding spirit. To hold that this is evidence of an insane delusion, when reduced to its last analysis, is to hold that a belief in Spiritualism is, in and of itself, an evidence of insanity, and that no one who believes in the articles of faith as promulgated by that organization is competent to make a valid testamentary disposition of his property. There is not in this record a scintilla of evidence of insane delusions in the testator outside of the bare fact that he believed in the genera)

doctrine of the Spiritualist organization. This is not insanity, and it is no evidence of a want of testamentary capacity.

In Whipple v. Eddy, 161 Ill. 114, 43 N. E. 789, this court passed on the question whether a mere belief in Spiritualism was evidence of insanity. It was there said (page 122 of 161 Ill., page 792 of 43 N. E.): "The fact that a person is affected with insanity or labors under some delusion, believes in witchcraft, clairvoyance, spiritual influences, presentiments of the occurrence of future events, dreams, mind reading, etc., will not affect the validity of his will on the ground of insanity. 1 Redfield on Wills 79, note 9; Chafin Will Case, 32 Wis. 557; In re Smith, 52 Wis. 543, 8 N. W. 616, 9 N. W. 665, 38 Am. Rep. 756; Brown v. Ward, 53 Md. 376, 36 Am. Rep. 422. Manifestly, a man's belief can never be made a test of sanity. When we leave the domain of knowledge and enter upon the field of belief, the range is limitless, extending from the highest degree of rationality to the wildest dream of superstition, and no standard of mental soundness can be based on one belief rather than another. What to one man is a reasonable bclief is to another wholly unreasonable, and while it is true that belief in what we generally understand to be supernatural things may tend to prove insanity under certain circumstances, it is a well known fact that many of the clearest and brightest intellects have sincerely and honestly believed in Spiritualism, mind reading," etc.

If it be said that the testator believed that Bright Eyes and the spirits of other deceased friends appeared and held communication with him, in and out of the seance room, that the testator believed in spiritual photography, and that he had pictures of deceased persons made in this way, it may be replied that there is in this no departure from the usually accepted faith of the Spiritualistic organization, as shown by the articles of faith testified to by Dr. Warne, whose testimony is wholly uncontradicted. It may be said that the testator believed that his son, who died in infancy, had grown to manhood in the spirit land, and that there is no evidence that Spiritualists believe in progression or growth after death. This point is not available to contestants, since proponents asked Dr. Warne to state the belief of his association on this point, and the contestants objected and the objection was sustained. Contestants will not be permitted to profit by the absence of evidence which was excluded on their objection. *

Proponents requested the court to direct a verdict in their favor, which was refused. If there was evidence requiring the court to submit the case to the jury, the refusal of the request was not error. If, upon the whole case, there was evidence fairly tending to support contestants' bill, the motion was properly denied. After giving this case the careful examination which its importance requires, we are firmly convinced that there is no evidence here even raising a suspicion in our minds that the testator was not entirely sane and as competent to make a will or transact any other kind of business as the average business man. We have examined the evidence with great care, and when it