ILLITERATE¹. This term is applied² to one unacquainted with letters.

2. When an ignorant man, unable to read, signs a deed or agreement, or makes his mark instead of a signature, and he alleges³, and can provide that it was falsely read to him, he is not bound by it, in consequence of the fraud. And the same effect would result, if the deed or agreement were falsely read to a blind man, who could have read before he lost his sight, or to a foreigner who did not understand the language. For a plea of "laymen⁴ and unlettered," see Bauer v. Roth, 4 Rawle, Rep. 85 and pp. 94, 95.

3. To induce an illiterate man, by false representations and false reading, to sign a note for a greater amount than that agreed on, is indictable as a cheat. 1 Yerg. 76. Vide, generally, 2 Nels. Ab. 946; 2 Co. 3; 11 Co. 28; Moor⁵, 148.

ILLUSION. A species of mania⁶ in which the sensibility of the nervous system is altered, excited, weakened or perverted⁷. The patient is deceived by the false appearance of things, and his reason is not sufficiently⁸ active and powerful to correct the error, and this last particular is what distinguishes the sane⁹ from the insane. Illusions are not unfrequent in a state of health, but reason corrects the errors and dissipates them. A square tower seen from a distance may appear round, but on approaching it, the error is corrected. A distant mountain may be taken for a cloud, but as we approach, we discover the truth. To a person in the cabin of a vessel¹⁰ under sail, the shore appears to move; but reflection and a closer examination soon destroy this illusion. An insane individual is mistaken on the qualities, connexions, and causes of the impressions he actually receives, and he forms wrong judgments¹² as to his internal and external sensations; and his reason does not correct the error. 1 Beck's Med. Jur. 538; Esquirol, Maladies Mentales, pr«m. partie, III., tome 1, p. 202. Dict. des Sciences M«dicales, Hallucination, tome 20, p. 64. See Hallucination.

ILLUSORY APPOINTMENT, chancery practice. Such an appointment or disposition¹³ of property under a power as is merely nominal¹⁴ and not substantial.

2. Illusory appointments are void in equity¹⁵. Sugd. Pow. 489; 1 Vern. 67; 1 T. R. 438, note; 4 Ves. 785; 16 Ves. 26; 1 Taunt¹⁶. 289; and the article Appointment.

TO IMAGINE, Eng. law. In cases of treason the law makes it a crime to imagine the death of the king. In order to complete the offence there must, however, be an overt¹⁷ act the terms compassing and imagining being synonymous. It. has been justly remarked that the words to compass and imagine are too vague for a statute¹⁸ whose penalty affects the life of a subject. Barr. on the Stat. 243, 4. Vide Fiction.

IMBECILITY, med. jur. A weakness of the mind, caused by the absence or obliteration¹⁹ of natural or acquired ideas; or it is described to be an abnormal deficiency either in those faculties²⁰ which acquaint us with the qualities and ordinary relations of things, or in those which furnish us with the moral motives²¹ that regulate our relations and conduct towards our fellow men. It is frequently attended with excessive activity. of one or more of the animal propensities²².

2. Imbecility differs from idiocy²³ in this, that the subjects of the former possess some intellectual capacity, though inferior in degree to that possessed²⁴ by the great mass of mankind; while those of the latter are utterly²⁵ destitute²⁶ of reason. Imbecility differs also from stupidity. (q. v.) The former consists in a defect of the mind, which renders it unable to examine the data presented to it by the senses, and therefrom to deduce the correct judgment¹¹; that is, a defect of intensity²⁷, or reflective power. The latter is occasioned by a want of intensity, or perceptive²⁸ power.

3. There are various degrees of this disease. It has been attempted to classify the degrees of imbecility, but the careful observer of nature will perhaps be soon satisfied that the shades of difference between one species and another, are almost imperceptible. Ray, Med. Jur. ch. 3; 2 Beck, Med. Jur. 550, 542; 1 Hagg. Ecc. R. 384; 2 Philm. R. 449; 1 Litt. R. 252, 5 John. Ch. R. 161; 1 Litt. R. 101; Des Maladies mentales, consider«es dans leurs rapports²⁹ avec la legislation civille et criminelle, 8; Georget, Discussion medico-l«gale sur la folie, 140.