Page:Andreyev - A Dilemma (Brown, 1910).djvu/14

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FOREWORD.

Dr. Kerzhentseff's forceful logic confounds not only himself, but the experts, who inevitably are bound to disagree as to the prisoner's mental status, and the big question to the end remains unanswered. As it is, the experts themselves are on trial, and who will judge the experts? Aside from the fact that they are not immune from mind's direful malady and from the pitfalls of heredity, they must face a severe indictment, drawn up by the Russian author, involving the validity of their expertness. Those who have watched the battle of alienists in a recent interesting case in the New York courts can only too willingly concur in the unreliability of so-called expert judgment, which is divided against itself. How are we to believe a Janus-faced expertness?

Incidentally, from a New Jersey town comes an amazing story about a condemned murderer whose execution has been ordered delayed until he recover from mental ills from which he is suffering. Here is an