Horace Gray

“ The prefix of 'bodily' hardly affects the meaning of 'infirmities,' and it is difficult to conjecture any purpose in inserting it in this proviso other than to exclude mental disease from the enumeration of the causes of death or disability to which the insurance does not extend. ”

“ In this state of the law there can be no doubt that the assured did not die 'by suicide,' within the meaning of this policy; and the same reasons are conclusive against holding that he died by 'self-inflicted injuries.' If self-killing, 'suicide,' 'dying by his own hand,' cannot be predicated of an insane person, no more can 'self-inflicted injuries;' for in either case it is not his act. ”

“ As it affects the body from without, it is external, just as suffocation by drowning was held to be in the Cases of Trew, Reynolds, and Winspear, above cited. And, according to the decisions as to suicide under policies of life insurance, before referred to, it cannot, when done by an insane person, be held to be other than accidental. ”

“ This court, on full consideration of the conflicting authorities upon that subject, has repeatedly and uniformly held that such a provision, not containing the words 'sane or insane,' does not include a self-killing by an insane person, whether his unsoundness of mind is such as to prevent him from understanding the physical nature and consequences of his act, or only such as to prevent him, while foreseeing and premeditating its physical consequences, from understanding its moral nature and aspect. ”