the alert against themselves.

While increased temperature undoubtedly decreases personal
responsibility, it is a most difficult matter to decide whether this
factor ought to be taken into consideration when passing sentence on
criminal offenders. It is much more truly an extenuating circumstance
than the majority of pleas which receive the name. In a variety of
cases, such, for instance, as threats, assaults, manslaughter, murder,
a high temperature unquestionably sometimes enters as a determining
factor into the complex set of influences which produce these crimes.
But the first difficulty confronting a judge, who endeavours to take
such a factor into account, will he the difficulty of discovering
whether it was present or not in the individual case he has before
him. In reply to this objection it may be urged, and urged too with
considerable truth, that this hindrance is not insuperable. It is
possible to overcome it by noting whether the case in question stands
alone, or whether it is only one among a group of others taking place
about the same period. Should it turn out to be a case that stands
alone, it would be fair to assume that temperature is not a cause
requiring to be taken into consideration in dealing with the offender.
Should it, on the contrary, turn out to be one in a group of cases, it
would be equally fair to assume that temperature was not without its
effect in determining the action of the offender.

Having got thus far, having isolated temperature from among the other
causes, and having fixed upon it as the most potent of them all, what
would immediately and imperatively follow? As a matter of course it
would ensue that a person whose deeds are powerfully influenced by
the action of temperature is to that extent irresponsible for them.
To arrive at such a conclusion is equivalent to saying that such a