Was Harry Tracey [sic] Insane? [excerpt]

     Tracy was an egotist. Some insane are egotistical, although the proportion of those thus affected is small. Many types never show egotism. The melancholics are not thus affected. The dementias are, of all forms of insanity, most often subject to this condition, notably so the paretics, but Tracy possessed no symptoms of paresis nor of any other forms of dementia.
     Egotism is, in fact, more often a symptom of the successful sane. The successful man, whether he shows it or not, generally possesses the knowledge of his own strong points, sufficiently to employ them to a successful issue, while his neighbor, perhaps more gifted, standing in dread of his own weakness, loses the opportunities about him which his more confident neighbor dares to risk and win. The egotism of the paranoiac, as shown by Czolgosz or Guiteau, a blind, stupid belief in self and its ability to work out, what is thought to be a great reform, but along lines fallacious and senseless to every sound-minded man, are not in evidence in the case of Tracy. He had that belief in himself, which, possessed by a man of moral integrity and legitimately pursued would have brought success out of honorable undertakings. This egotism, barred of its selfishness, was the highest element in the make-up of the mind of this criminal.