CHAPTER III

OPPOSITION TO LOMBROSO’S VIEWS—WOMAN AS CRIMINAL—THE POLITICAL CRIMINAL—CRIMINAL PSYCHOLOGY

In the first fierce campaign against criminal anthropology two objections are repeatedly encountered. One of these points out the absence of distinctive anthropological characters in female criminals; the other contests the conceivability of the anthropological unity of a social group whose sole link of union consists of a concept so variable in time and place as is the concept of crime.

The latter of these two objections was, of course, controverted by Lombroso in part on purely conceptual grounds; but in addition to this he has shown that the criminal group in which the idea of crime is so relative that the criminal of yesterday may be the judge to-day, whilst the judge of yesterday may to-day be the criminal—to wit, the category of political criminals—he has shown that this criminal group may, with a little criticism, readily be resolved into geniuses, enthusiasts, fools, rogues (and, finally, the crowd these carry along with and after them); and that in every revolution—even the most desirable one—old-established professional rascality and newly-awakened cruelty find a most suitable field for the display of their dangerous attributes. By means of the study of a large number of regicides, and also that of the most notable personalities of the French Revolution at the end of the eighteenth century, of the fight for Italian unity, the uprising of the Paris Commune, and the Russian terrorism of our own day, he demonstrates this truth beyond dispute.

The other objection, regarding the lack of distinctive anthropological characters in female offenders, demanded for its answer very comprehensive studies in a previously neglected field; these researches were undertaken in co-operation with G. Ferrero, and resulted in the publication in 1893 of the widely read work on “Woman as Criminal and Prostitute.”[16]

The Introduction to this book, 180 pages in length, appears to me to be the most interesting and remarkable piece of work Lombroso ever issued. Even his opponents never denied his all-embracing culture and extraordinarily wide reading, nor his brilliant intuitive powers and bold faculty for combination; on the other hand, his most zealous advocates and adherents have always complained of his obvious neglect of critical examination of his sources of information, of analytical treatment and systematic arrangement of his material, and of comprehensive presentation and definitive architectonic. But nowhere else are his merits so strikingly manifest, and nowhere else are his defects less conspicuous, than they are in this brilliant description of the biological and physiological characteristics of woman and accurate survey of the differences between the sexes. In part, indeed, the work under consideration may owe its conspicuous merits in point of style and arrangement to the fact that Lombroso’s own deficiencies in these respects were supplemented by the assistance of his collaborator and subsequent son-in-law, G. Ferrero, the author of the celebrated “History of the Roman Empire.” However this may be, Lombroso in this work penetrates deeply into the science of general biology, and endeavours, having regard to the characters found by him to differentiate woman from man, to formulate a comprehensive law of sexual differentiation in general.

He refers this differentiation to the fact that the whole organization of woman is predestined to motherhood, and to the fact that any other professional activity of whatever kind is hardly possible to her, or, if possible, only on account of an abnormal and degenerative predisposition.

With this dominant position of motherhood in woman he correlates also two facts of great importance in the anthropology of the female offender. The first of these is the much lesser variability of women,[17] owing to which women in general exhibit less marked special differentiation than men; consequently such deviations from type as do occur in women are far more significant than similar deviations occurring in men, and therefore in women very great importance must be attached even to isolated theromorphs. The second fundamental fact is the lesser general sensibility and lesser sensibility to pain of women as compared with men.

Both these phenomena of sexual differentiation are more strongly marked among civilized races than they are among savages. Thus, according to Lombroso’s investigations, the female skull, especially in the civilized races, resembles rather the skull of the child than that of the adult male, and this is especially the case as regards its frontal and facial portions.

Lombroso made an exhaustive study of the problem of the origin of the greater development of sympathy in the female sex, and discussed how, notwithstanding this fact, the frequent tendency to cruelty in women can be explained: he sees in this one of those contrasts which are common in the sphere of the emotional life, but which, with progress in civilization, tend to disappear, owing to the development of sympathetic feelings. The rest of the emotional life of woman is also adapted to her profession of motherhood; and this is true, above all, of the sexual feelings, which thus seem to be constructed almost entirely upon a “masochistic” basis. Strong erotic feelings, when they do occur in women, are, according to Lombroso, an approximation to the masculine type; they are, that is to say, abnormal in women. In respect to moral development, he regards woman as inferior to man. “We cannot, indeed, say that woman displays to the same degree as the child the lineaments of moral idiocy, for she is saved from this by her endowment with maternal love and with sympathy. Fundamentally, however, woman remains non-moral, and this often precisely in consequence of her sympathy. She exhibits numerous traits of character ... which prevent her from approaching to the same degree as man that balance between rights and duties, between egoism and altruism, which is the ultimate goal of moral development.”

By means of historical and ethnological data, the importance of which, notwithstanding the criticism of Westermarck, has not been shaken, Lombroso endeavours to prove that during the long ages of the life of prehistoric humanity certain conditions were generally dominant in the sexual life which are now regarded as constituting prostitution—that is to say, he considers that prostitution and prostitutes at the present day are reversionary or atavistic phenomena. The intimate description given by Lombroso of the psychical life of the prostitute has notably contributed to our interpretation of prostitution in the atavistic sense. This explains why it is that among prostitutes the criminal type is found more frequently and more markedly than it is even among female criminals.

Thus, for Lombroso, the prostitute, even more than the homicidal robber, is the genuine typical representative, the prototype, of criminality—the counterpart of the male major criminal; and in social co-operation with the latter, the prostitute gives rise to the institution of soutenage.[18]

The world of feminine crime, in so far as it is not allied to prostitution, is regarded by Lombroso as constituted only to a very slight extent of true criminal natures: “A small group of women, marked with very severe stigmata of degeneration, almost more numerous than such stigmata are in male criminal types, is sharply distinguished from the great majority of women criminals, who exhibit few and uncertain stigmata of degeneration; similarly, from the psychological standpoint, we have to distinguish from the great mass of female criminals a small group of women in whom we recognize more severe and more unnatural moral anomalies than are met with in male criminals. The ordinary woman criminal has usually been lured to crime, either by hetero-suggestion or by very powerful temptation, and her moral sense will often be found to be unimpaired, or, at any rate, not entirely destroyed.”

In other words, women criminals—who in civilized countries are only from one-fifth to one-tenth as numerous as men criminals[19]—are, as a rule, criminals by passion or occasional criminals. A woman of the genuinely criminal type is either at the same time a prostitute as well as a criminal, or else—if her social position has saved her from becoming a professional prostitute—she exhibits a marked anthropological and psychological similarity to a prostitute.

By reference to a large number of cases personally examined by himself, and with the aid of extensive statistical material, Lombroso endeavours to establish the thesis that, as a general rule, female delinquents come under the ban of the penal law, either from affective causes (criminals by passion) or else from the pressure of unfavourable economic circumstances or other external conditions (occasional criminals); that their offences are for the most part the outcome of a normal feminine psychical life, and are in no respect the product of emotional or moral abnormality; that alike in the general conduct of their life and in the particular offences for which they have been condemned we can trace the characteristic lineaments of the womanly nature; that above all, in the majority of them, the mother-sense is in no way diminished, or if diminished, only to a very trifling degree, and that an increase of the sexual impulse is in them hardly ever demonstrable.

He then goes on to prove, by the examination of an extensive material, which he has subjected to a most careful analysis, that prostitutes and genuinely criminal feminine types (“rea nata”) are characterized by an utter lack of the mother-sense; that in women condemned for major crimes an increased sexual impulse is almost invariably present, and that this fact notably contributes to their criminal development; whereas prostitutes are, as a rule, conspicuous for sexual frigidity, and from childhood onwards are characterized by a lack of the sense of shame.

The case-histories, of which the book contains an abundance, show, indeed, that genuine women criminals are endowed with the same fundamental peculiarities which Lombroso has so fully described in male criminals, and the prostitute is exhibited no more than as a slightly divergent variety of the woman criminal; but the peculiar part which the female sexual life and the endowment of the woman criminal with the attributes of motherhood play in her psychology, give to the general picture of the female criminal certain peculiarities which justify a separate treatment of feminine criminal psychology.

This thesis of Lombroso’s, that among women criminals the number of genuinely criminal types is small, whilst the number of occasional criminals is very large, is supported by the following considerations (quoted by him in the book we are now studying). Some years before the publication of “La donna delinquente,” an anthropological investigation undertaken in prisons for women by other authors showed that in women the various characters commonly found in male criminals were less frequently present. Varieties of the skull and of the external ear, abnormalities of dentition, of the growth of the hair, etc., were found only in from 10 to 20 per cent. of female prisoners, as compared with 40 to 60 per cent. of male prisoners, whereas the well-marked “criminal characteristics” are actually more frequently present in prostitutes than they are in male criminals.

Another important objection to Lombroso’s views on the nature of the criminal is answered in his work on political crime and revolutions.

The very title of this book, “Il delitto politico e le rivoluzioni” (Bocca, Turin), shows that Lombroso, whose investigations had hitherto been concerned with the criminal only, not with crime itself, was now working in a wider field. Although in this book the sections dealing with the individual factors of political crime, and the descriptions of the criminaloid, degenerate, and mentally-disordered protagonists of political disturbance, are the fullest and at the same time the most successful; none the less, Lombroso’s investigations into the historical nature of revolutions and revolts, and his explanation of their etiology, deserve our consideration, and in many cases our admiration.

Unquestionably, this is a field of ideas to which a positive mode of treatment is especially applicable; and in this portion of his work Lombroso has utilized with profit and ability, and not seldom with true genius, the method of Buckle and the conceptions of the doctrine of evolution.

Occasionally, indeed, we cannot fail to notice the lack of adequate criticism of his sources of information, and that too often he has failed to refer on his own account to the ultimate sources. We can excuse him for accepting the authority of Mommsen, Grote, and Curtius, when he is compiling a statistical survey of the political disturbances of the ancient world; but when he came to study the great French Revolution, it was certainly unwise to accept Taine as an authority. He has no lack of sources of information regarding more recent history; above all, as regards the Paris Commune, the still enduring epidemic of assassinations and attempted assassinations of Kings and Presidents, as regards Russian nihilism, anarchism, and the revolts and revolutions in the Central and South American Republics—all these provide him with a veritable superfluity of material for the study of the etiology and psychical anthropology of revolutions and revolts. In the chapters based upon such information as this the treatment often assumes a merely anecdotal form, which will induce in many readers a critical frame of mind, although the majority will find this portion also of the book alike stimulating and interesting; and, indeed, we must not forget that a thorough study and elucidation of the peculiar individual factors of political disturbances is hardly possible in default of the description of an abundance of individual traits. Thus, we read that Most exhibits the following “stigmata of degeneration”: “repulsive ugliness, an asymmetrical and enormous upper jaw, the eyes of a toad, flaccid skin.” Or we are told of the misdeeds of the Communard, Allix, and are then informed that “he had invented a telegraph, based upon the reciprocal sympathy of twenty-four pairs of snails, each pair representing a single letter of the alphabet.”

Lombroso begins his demonstration with a purely psychological study; he describes the origin and effect of an impulsive tendency, deeply rooted in human nature, to which he gives the name of “misoneism” (hatred of novelty).[20] In the wounding of this misoneism he sees the essence of political crime, in the glorious defeat of this sentiment, which opposes itself to the most necessary progress, to the very being of social evolution. Thus the political criminal appears on the one hand as a transgressor against the most legitimate, and organically the most deeply rooted, social tendency of human nature, and, on the other hand (and simultaneously), as the prime advocate of every advance in civilization.[21]

Misoneism has its roots deep in the organic life, and is merely the expression in the social sphere of _vis inertiæ_ in the physical. For this reason it is most powerful, not where it has made its appearance in consciousness, or has been erected into a system of conservative principles, but where it is dominant without those guided by this sentiment being aware of the fact; indeed, it is most effective precisely where, in theory and in all good faith, people aim at progress. Thus Lombroso finds the most intensive misoneism among the French, “who prefer the novelty of innovation, who have always loved rather the stormy movement of revolution than its useful results ... for everything novel that the French take to their bosoms must be of such a kind that it does not disturb them in their habitudes. They gladly change their fashions, their ministers of state, and their external forms of government, but continue to cling all the while to Druidism and Cæsarism.”

Inasmuch, therefore, as any and every advance in the condition of humanity can be effected only very slowly, and in the face of opposition both from within and from without, and in view of the fact that human society instinctively clings to what is old-established, Lombroso draws the conclusion that efforts towards progress, characterized by rapid and violent means, are in their very nature abnormal. Even if for an oppressed minority such methods are inevitable, they are still anti-social in their nature—that is to say, they are criminal in character, and often uselessly criminal, because they incite misoneism to bring about a reaction, which will carry things back past the original starting-point. If any innovation is to be adopted, even if in its nature it is unquestionably progressive, it must come quite slowly, and after long preparation. We see this fact quite as clearly in science and in the practical arts as we do in public life. Every step out of the beaten path, every innovation which does not correspond to a generally felt need, and which has not had the way prepared for it by the establishment of a new tradition, is an assault upon the power of misoneism; and in the eyes of those—and they form the great majority—who cling to all that is old-established, such an assault demands the application of the penal law.

But there have been successful revolutions. How shall we, at the outset, distinguish from these, mere frivolous attacks upon the inevitable inertia of social life? Lombroso’s book endeavours to find an answer to this question by means of the anthropological (physical and psychical) study of revolutionaries, and by means of a special statistical examination of the historical material, in search of certain factors independent of the individual human being. The answer is expressed in the terms of “cosmic determinism.”

We cannot fully understand the matter and the manner of this investigation unless we are acquainted with certain earlier writings of Lombroso’s, and more especially with his researches concerning the nature of genius; it is necessary also to give an anticipatory account of his ideas concerning the nature of revolution.

“Revolution is the historical expression of evolution; it is the chicken which has outgrown the embryonic stage, and is ready for life in the open, breaking through the shell.” This is a metaphor to which Lombroso returns again and again. If the new development is one with whose idea the generality have become familiar, if the old forms have become rotten, the evolutionary impulse spontaneously breaks into fresh channels. It is true that even then in some cases some force has to be applied to overcome the resistance of the adherents of the old ways; for, owing to the universality of misoneism, and to the law of inertia, such adherents will always be found, however cogent the need for innovation. Now, the characteristic of genius is its freedom from that which furnishes obstacles to progress, its freedom from misoneism—at least, in respect of progress in that particular direction towards which the particular type of genius is directed. In genius, therefore, Lombroso recognizes at once the source of all those tendencies which gradually swell to form the irresistible flood of revolution, and the helper through whose instrumentality the ultimately mature embryo is assisted to its birth. And just as, on the one hand, the genius accompanies a genuine revolutionary movement, one capable of development, from its first small beginnings down to its victorious close; so, on the other hand, the pseudo-genius, the “mattoid” criminal or the lunatic, excites revolts which oppose themselves in vain to the _vis inertiæ_ of society, and whose sole result is to hinder the general course of evolution.

In this section of this remarkable book we find a notable stimulus, and the brilliant exposition leads us to formulate all kinds of speculation. We are induced to attempt also to draw up a prognosis. We ask ourselves what will be the outcome of such a movement as that which was initiated in Germany by Lassalle—half genius, half-moral eccentric—a movement which has found its fool and its half-fool in Neve and Most respectively, and among whose adherents even now the question is being discussed whether the old Prussian suffrage system shall be and can be destroyed and rebuilt by means of street-demonstrations and the general strike.

Lombroso utilized the relations between genius and revolution in a most remarkable manner for the purpose of studying the nature of revolution. A notable portion of his material, and unquestionably the most trustworthy portion, is constituted by the official statistics of the French elections to the Chamber of Deputies in the years 1877, 1881, and 1885. In a nation whose disposition and development have been of so monarchical a character, Lombroso proceeds, a republican vote signifies adhesion to a revolution. “In these elections we have the numerical expression of revolution in its legitimate form—a form entirely free from any criminal or insurgent features.”

In a very detailed manner he then proceeds to demonstrate the complete parallelism in France between genius and revolution—that is to say, republican sentiment—which, if not easy to display numerically, nevertheless is and has been universally dominant. Reference is also made to a kind of statistical statement of genius, which was given by Lombroso in another work, “L’uomo di genio,” 1888.[22] From these statistics he derives an “index of genius” for every department in France, and according to the size of this index the departments are arranged in groups. These will be seen to correspond in a most striking manner with the groups we obtain by classifying the departments according to their republican or monarchical proclivities.

This analogy is pursued yet further. In a number of interesting tables, diagrams, and charts, the French departments are grouped according to their configuration (mountains, hills, and plains), the geological character of their soil (granitic and other primary formations—jurassic, cretaceous, alluvial, etc.), according to the racial origin of their inhabitants (Ligurian, Iberian, Cymric, Ruthenian, Gaelic, Belgic, etc.), and for each group the predominant political tendency and the index of genius are determined. In this way also he deduces an analogy bordering on identity between republicanism and genius.

Apart from such analogies as these, his analysis of the electoral results in France, and his grouping of the republican and the monarchical departments according to the configuration of the surface, the geological character of the soil, and the origin of the population, are of the greatest interest; and the interest is further increased by the accompanying commentary dealing with a mass of facts relating to other countries. Thus, of thirty-six departments of a mountainous character, twenty-five are republican; whereas of ten departments in the plains, four only are republican. Lombroso gives numerous examples to show that the inhabitants of mountainous districts are inclined to more rapid evolutionary changes than the inhabitants of the plains, who are more averse to novelty. On the other hand, at very lofty altitudes indeed, an apathetic temperament and political indolence are dominant. Thus, in Mexico, the inhabitants of districts at an altitude of over 2,000 metres (6,560 feet) above the sea-level are characterized by passivity. The inhabitants of the capital city, which is situated at about this altitude, are politically indifferent, and take hardly any part in the revolutions of the country. It is the troops only, recruited from other parts of the country, which issue the _pronunciamentos_.

The monotonous scenery of the plains induces an equable internal state in the inhabitants, and thus strengthens in them the sentiment of misoneism. Only the proximity of large rivers, on which great industrial towns grow up, encourages a political vitality in the plains. Factors of another order may intervene, and may counteract this monotonizing influence of the plains. Here, above all, we note the effect of the crossing of races, in consequence of which the Poles, through contact and intermixture with the Germans, have undergone a notable development in civilization and political life in advance of so many other Slavonic races. In this connection, Lombroso lays especial stress upon the first effects, the nascent state, of such intercrossing of races, and refers the rapid decline in Polish evolution to disappearance of this _status nascendi_. (This notion of Lombroso’s is supported by the fact that the partition of Poland was followed by a renewed crossing of the Polish with the German stock, and there ensued upon this, in the middle third of the nineteenth century, and again to-day, in addition to the blossoming of a quite unexpected industrial, scientific, and literary quickening of the race, a recrudescence of the Polish revolutionary spirit. For a long time the force produced by the nascent state seemed exhausted, and the revolutionary spirit of the Poles appeared to have become metamorphosed into clericalism.)

In addition to the permanent factors of soil and race, by means of which a nation is rendered capable of pursuing a successful course of development through a series of fortunate revolutions, there are other and variable influences which give rise to a continuous rebellious unrest. Pre-eminent among these influences is a climate characterized by periods of rapidly rising temperature, whereas a tropical climate induces absolute indolence in the inhabitants, so that in tropical countries history has nothing to record regarding class-struggles, conspiracies, and serious insurrections.

The hot season in the southern regions of the temperate climes is a cardinal factor in the production of political disturbances. Lombroso has proved this by the utilization of material whose official origin appears to him to render it entirely trustworthy—namely, the data recorded in the Calendar of Gotha for the years 1791 to 1880. In this period we find an account of 836 revolts, rebellions, insurrections, etc., of which 495 took place in Europe. The maximum of the European disturbances took place in the month of July, whilst of the South American revolts, the maximum occurred in the corresponding month of the southern hemisphere—viz., January. The more recent records, relating to outbreaks in Argentina and Chile, confirm this conclusion. The smallest number of revolts occurred—in Europe, in November and December, and in South America, in May and June. If we examine the records of the individual European nations, we find that among all the nations of Southern Europe the summer is the principal time of disturbance. In the case of five nationalities (the Norwegians, Swedes, Danes, Poles, and Irish) the spring predominates. In one case only was there a maximum of revolts in winter; this was Switzerland, in which ten out of twenty-four recorded outbreaks occurred during the winter season.

Another tabulation of the figures displays the predominance of the nationalities of Southern Europe in the statistics of insurrection. In Greece there were 95 revolts per 10,000,000 inhabitants, this being the maximum; in Russia, down to the year 1900, there were 0·8 per 10,000,000 inhabitants, this being the minimum. Dividing Europe into three zones, we find that in Northern Europe there were 12 revolts, in Central Europe 25, and in Southern Europe 56, per 10,000,000 inhabitants.

Even richer in facts, and more engrossing in consequence of vivid description and apt characterization, is the analysis, in chapters vii. to xii., of the individual factors of political crime. The significance of age and sex are studied, and we find a detailed description of the female protagonists of Russian nihilism, who are depicted as the noblest examples of the “revolutionist by passion.” A description is then given of the born criminals and the morally diseased among rebels and insurgents, with a full account of their individual peculiarities. Proof is submitted of the great part played in all important insurrectionary movements by the insane and the partially insane (“mattoids”). An elaborate account is given of the characteristics and influence of the “political occasional criminals and political criminals by passion,” who are closely allied to the revolutionary genius, and commonly exhibit a noble type of character. Whereas among the French revolutionaries of 1793, among the revolters in South America, the rioters of the Paris Commune, and the modern anarchists, Lombroso finds the most bestial criminal natures and the most horrible moral insanity predominant, among the heroes of the prolonged Italian struggle for freedom and among the so-called nihilists he describes a number of anthropologically normal and noble figures, from whom nothing is more remote than degeneration, criminality, or mental disorder. The chapter is illustrated by a large number of portraits, including those of Louise Michel, Ibarbar, Reinsdorf, and Hödel, as criminal physiognomies; and contrasted with these are the noble countenances of Mazzini, Bakunin, Scheljabow, Wjera, Sassulitsch, Perowskaja, etc.

At the end of this first part of his book, Lombroso sums up the whole of his material for a differential diagnosis between revolution and revolt. Then follows the second part, which was written in collaboration with a young jurist, the Veronese advocate Laschi. Here we have an historical account of the genesis of political crime, with a description of the earlier and more recent methods of dealing with it, both national and international; and an attempt is made, from the standpoint gained in the first part, to formulate juridically the principal elements of political criminology, and to reconstruct the foundations of its penal repression. The conclusion consists of a detailed account of the economic and political prophylaxis of “political crime,” in which from time to time—and more especially in the criticism of Italian parliamentary government and party politics—Lombroso’s original modes of thought are strikingly manifest. For the most part, however, these prophylactic prescriptions have reference merely to co-operative associations, insurance against unemployment, and a number of political measures of a more or less “State-Socialist” character of no particular originality, and derived, as it seems to me, in part from the ideas of Luigi Luzzati (the present Minister President), and in part from those of Achille Loria.

The chief merits of the book are not found here, but in its historico-philosophical ideas, which in this concluding portion are but slightly sketched, and in the masterly manner in which, with the aid of a vast material, the foundations are laid of our knowledge of the psychology of the rebel, whose lineaments are depicted with the truest perception of nature and of history.

Lombroso’s daily contact with prisoners awaiting trial, owing to his official position as medical officer to the prison at Turin, the criticisms passed from the legal side upon his doctrine of the “born criminal,” and the continued exchange of ideas with so distinguished an expert in the theory of jurisprudence as Enrico Ferri, led him in twenty years’ ensuing work, in which he accumulated an enormous mass of observations of his own, and utilized the entire international literature of the subject, to study the criminal by passion, the occasional criminal (economic etiology of crime), the habitual criminal, and other abnormal categories of criminals (in addition to the born criminal)—criminal alcoholics, criminal lunatics, and criminal epileptics. The results of all this work were incorporated in the third, fourth, and fifth editions of “L’uomo delinquente.” From the year 1880 onwards he was assisted in this gigantic undertaking by able personal assistants, and from this year dates the issue of his _Archivia di psichiatria_, in the production of which he enjoyed the collaboration of an international circle of colleagues. At the same time, the doors of all Italian prisons were open, not to him only, but also to his pupils and fellow-workers—an advantage which I myself occasionally enjoyed. Beltrani-Scalia,[23] the chief of the Italian prison administration, placed at Lombroso’s disposal the entire official material of his department; and Lombroso utilized this, not only to strengthen and develop his theories, but also for the foundation of a unique criminal museum, and for the preparation of carefully-thought-out plans of penal reform. From every quarter materials streamed in, by which hundreds of heads and hands were kept busy. Lombroso’s grown-up daughters, Paola and Gina, became readers, translators, actuaries, and sub-editors; and the house in the great square of Turin, from which in the evening can be seen the sunset glow on the peaks of the western Alps, became, not only the collecting centre of the materials pouring in from every direction (ultimately even from the slowly-moving Anglo-Saxon world), not only the source of an extensive journalistic propaganda (in Germany furthered by Maximilian Harden’s paper, _Zukunft_, which even then had a wide and increasing circulation), but, in addition, the meeting-place of numerous foreign investigators engaged in the study of the social and biological sciences. Here the heavy red wine of Piedmont, which was supplied with no sparing hand, loosened many tongues; but wine was assuredly not the sole enlivening element in the house, in which distinguished simplicity and a patriarchal atmosphere combined to melt the chill reserve no less of the Prussian Privy Councillor than of the English University Professor, so that the conversation of all was brilliant and unrestrained.

These years of propaganda and of practical efforts on behalf of reform—1885 to 1900—undoubtedly owed a part of their brilliancy and of their practical fruitfulness to Lombroso’s daughters, who first by means of their women friends (among whom I may give the leading place to the social reformer, Madame Kuliszew), and subsequently by means of their affianced husbands (G. Ferrero and M. Carrara), brought fresh worlds of ideas into contact with that of their father. To the elements already enumerated were added music and the plastic arts, and the friendship of such artists as Bistolfi—drawings and sketches by living artists, and casts of celebrated sculptures were dispersed among the skulls and the books with which almost every room in the house was filled. The glorious harmonies of Beethoven and Wagner were not only re-echoed in the hearts alike of young and old among the audience, but also resounded from the skulls of ancient Peruvians and from painted prison-utensils. This was the environment from which came the masterly sketch of the nature of woman; and thus it came to pass that the anthropology of calculus and measuring-rule receded into the background, and was replaced by a profound psychological insight. As a result of such stimuli, and of others too numerous to mention, there originated the intimate analysis of the criminal mentality, in consequence of which the criminal is no longer regarded merely as the savage and atavistic descendant of the prehistoric mammoth-hunter, but rather as one in whom the observer now perceives also, and depicts with the sure hand of a master, the lineaments of an unfortunate being impelled to crime by his passions, by the pressure of want, by exploitation and impoverishment. At the same time the psychological description of the born criminal nature gained additional clearness of detail and sharpness of outline. We must look for this description, not only in the last edition of the chief work, but also in the numerous monographs on individual criminals whose offences attracted public attention during these years of Lombroso’s ripest knowledge and fullest creative force. The last of these figures was the Parisian, Madame Steinheil.[24]

Lombroso’s criminal psychology deserves much more attention than it has hitherto received. In relation to the practical problems of criminal jurisprudence it is more important than were his purely anthropological investigations, although these latter have attracted far greater popular notice. Alike to the expert in forensic medicine and to the psychiatrist, criminal psychology possesses greater diagnostic importance; for it is often necessary to determine whether, in a certain individual, acquired mental infirmity, congenital mental infirmity, or some special and peculiar type of degeneracy, predominates. It is not permissible for the medical jurist to argue as follows: “This individual has remarkable physical characters and incomprehensible psychical peculiarities, and he is therefore ill and irresponsible.” The incomprehensible character of a crime or the enigmatical character of a personality is not rarely used as an argument for the belief that mental disorder, and consequent irresponsibility, exists. But this is not a valid inference. A knowledge of the psychology of the respectable bourgeois and of that of the ordinary philistine, or a limited acquaintance with the insane confined in institutions, does not provide any experience of the interweaving of complicated and peculiar motives and feelings in the psyche of the criminal nature. A thorough knowledge of criminal psychology, which is rare to-day,[25] and which, for obvious reasons, is difficult to obtain, is an essential preliminary for the distinction of criminal natures from the insane and from imbeciles.

Not infrequently it is maintained that the performer of a criminal act cannot be normal if we are unable to discover any profit which he could have derived from his act. The characteristic of a criminal, it is held, is to injure others to gain a personal advantage; but to injure others simply for the sake of doing injury is said to be characteristic of psychological anomaly.

This assumption is contradicted by two fundamental traits of the criminal nature—recklessness of consequences and cruelty. The recklessness of the criminal nature leads him rather to yield to momentary impulses than to pursue a deliberate purposive plan. The cruel individual, not only as criminal, but also as savage, as despot, as violent leader of a mob, takes a positive pleasure in others’ suffering. Nothing, for example, is commoner in the school and the barrack than such a phenomenon as this. To a certain degree, indeed, we find it in the average man, in the normal philistine and the pedant, perhaps, more than all, although only in a low degree of intensity. Many criminal natures undoubtedly possess this tendency to a very high degree, and take a positive delight in the thought of being able to inflict pain and fear on others. But herein they merely exhibit, after their _own_ fashion, a general tendency of human nature to find pleasure in the possession and exercise of power, and thus to feel superior to others, and to manifest this superiority by means of the infliction of pain.

In this sphere of cruelty there is certainly no more than a quantitative difference between the criminal nature and the normal philistine, and least of all will one who is really familiar with the erotic life of mankind, which is the principal sphere of the mutual infliction of suffering, maintain that in its association with cruelty there is anything that can be termed pathological.

Unquestionably, many crimes are committed because the injury inflicted upon another is in some way profitable to the criminal. This, indeed, is little more than a matter of business. But just as many crimes are committed because the injury of another is painful to that other, and because the criminal—the usurer, for example—actually experiences pleasure in having given rise to others’ pain.

The profound psychologist, Friedrich Nietzsche, has detected the roots of this phenomenon in average human nature. He speaks of the “horrible beautiful” of crime—of the happiness of one who has completely freed himself from the lower instincts of compassion and from the evil beast “conscience.”

Abundant as are the materials for a special psychology of certain specialities in crime, and extensive as was Lombroso’s acquaintance with individual criminals, none the less his account of the elementary qualities of the criminal nature is extremely simple. The differences between individual criminals, who at first sight appear extremely unlike, frequently depend merely upon the fact that the inclination to enrich their own personality at the expense of another is associated in the one case with a favourable, and in the other with an unfavourable, economic position. The thievish proletarian will steal anything he sees lying about or anything that he finds in someone else’s pocket. The millionaire similarly disposed will not steal single purses, but will find ways and means of emptying very numerous and very large purses. The criminal proletarian is a petty thief or a burglar; the criminal bourgeois founds fraudulent banks and limited liability companies, or transforms sound undertakings into swindles, or he systematically swindles his partners. Fraudulent bankruptcy is the leading field of typical bourgeois criminality. Thus we get an insight into the operation of many of the so-called “economic factors” of crime, which in essentials amount to this, that in times of economic depression a large number of unscrupulous persons seize opportunities for stealing bread that has risen in price or the money that is needed for the purchase of bread—a larger number than in more prosperous times; whereas in times of commercial expansion the talents of the swindler on the large scale and of the millionaire plunderer find their greatest opportunity. Moreover, it is clear that one who has no regard for his personal reputation will, if he is a poor man, more readily turn to the commission of offences against property; but if he is well-to-do, he is more likely to commit offences against the person. This is shown by the fact that those who are well off more often offend against the health, life, and sexual freedom of others; whilst those who are ill off more frequently commit offences against property. And it is further shown by the fact that when wages are rising, and the prices of the necessaries of life are falling, crimes against the person increase in number, whilst the number of thefts and embezzlements diminishes. This tendency is still more clearly manifested if the rise in wages and the fall in prices are simultaneous.

In addition to cruelty, which we encounter not only in offenders against the person, but also see frequently in the form of a lack of sympathy, in usurers and cheats, the comparative psychology of criminals enables us to recognize in them as permanent qualities a recklessness and remorselessness,[26] and, in most cases, also an entire lack of integrity—that is to say, merely negative qualities—due to deficiency in the development of sensibility. Among positive qualities, a characteristic one is the fatuous vanity of many habitual criminals. It is a phenomenon of worldwide familiarity that that which in the life of a human being was at first a means merely, ultimately becomes an independent end—indeed, the sole aim. This we find also in the career of the criminal, to whom crime becomes a field for vain display. The art of pocket-picking, of housebreaking, of poisoning, ultimately becomes one pursued for its own sake. Some have thought this almost demoniacal; but there is nothing very singular in the practice of an acquired facility from the pure pleasure of its clever performance—art for art’s sake. Moreover, we see the same thing also in criminals who secretly destroy property or secretly commit arson. Here the art of remaining undiscovered is cultivated for its own sake.

Lombroso gives a very elaborate description of several other psychical characters of criminals—of their religious life, and of their poetry and their literature, which latter, in bloodthirstiness and savage sensuality, closely resemble the tribal songs of the Australian blacks. In his subtle observation and description of the criminal psyche, in which he took note of the smallest details, and at the same time combined these details into a most effective general picture, making use alike of apparently trifling scrawls on prison walls and of comprehensive historical studies of crime, is certainly to be found his chief service. Here we find one of the finest examples known to modern psycho-pathology of the minute observation of details. Lombroso shows himself to be a true interpreter of nature, and a genius to whom, in the depth of his insight into human nature, we can, among the moderns, compare only Dostoieffsky, and, among those of an earlier day, only the brilliant criminal psychologist Shakespeare.

An important circumstance in the development of the individual criminal is the existence of a professional rascality with ancient traditions, representing a kind of syndicated organization of the criminal interests, associated with the equally old traditions of the receivers, vagabonds, prostitutes, and gipsies. This has introduced into the life of crime a conventional element, which would naturally not be able to maintain itself unless it corresponded to the innermost nature of the criminal. The old national capitals—Venice, Madrid, Paris, London—still possess ancient traditions of this character; but the colossal growth of the modern industrial towns has given rise, in addition, to the existence of a criminal world without traditions, one which knows little or nothing of the three leading features of the ancient tradition—thieves’ jargon, tattooing, and soutenage. Southern Italy and Sicily have preserved criminal organizations in the Camorra and the Maffia, out of which there has developed a systematic taxation of the propertied classes, and which even possess Parliamentary powers.

Side by side with the ancient thieves’ jargon, almost venerable in view of its genuine antiquity, as shown by numerous words and phrases derived from the Hebrew and Romany tongues, there has arisen the ever-changing speech of the canaille, to which contributions are continually furnished, first, by prostitutes, through whose intermediation is effected a contact between the most diverse classes of society; secondly, by submerged individuals originally belonging to the upper classes; and, thirdly, by the artist world. These jargons are naturally in a perpetual flux. They possess their classic writers, as does, for instance, the argot of contemporary Paris in the talented Bruant, to whom every new variation of the jargonization of speech streams down from the summit of Montmartre, and whose songs are diffused throughout France from thousands of small music-halls, just in the same way as François Villon, four and a half centuries ago, disseminated the jargon of his day in shameless but inspired songs.

Now, unquestionably, every argot possesses a criminal psychological interest. The canaille will take the new-coined word to its heart only when the thing or the relation described by this word expresses something of great or supreme importance to the blackguard or the cheat. To the burglar, the baby is important principally as a “screecher,” so he accepts this new-coined word. To the thief, in the same way, the fingers are “hooks,” or, in the argot of Poland, _grabka_—that which grips. To the naturalism of the vagabond, the cook from whom he begs may be most aptly described as _finkelmusch—finkel_ being the fireside, and _musch_, a Hebrew word for the vulva.

The humour of every jargon lies in this—that its words are formed by the naming of that part of the denominated whole which appears to the name-giver to be the most important element of that whole. The astonishing vividness and speech-forming power often recognizable in such jargon is really somewhat atavistic when compared with the wearisome newspaper jargon (“journalese”) of our modern books among all civilized peoples. By means of precisely such a word-formation, directed towards the vivid and important, did the colloquial speech of prehistoric man originate.[27]

In tattooing we recognize allied qualities of originality and force. Many criminals depict on their own skins their fate and their philosophy. Naturally, most of them adorn themselves with merely professional designs, devoid of all trace of originality; but the standard specimens of this decorative art naturally correspond to the taste of the customers, just as the standard specimens of any other decorative art correspond to the taste of the public that demands it. Æsthetically, in fact, a criminal who has his skin tattooed stands nearer to the savage Fiji Islander than he does to the European decorative taste of the common people, as displayed in the shops of the working-class quarters in which chimney “ornaments” are sold. It must be admitted that æsthetic sentiments are not very closely allied to ethical. Nevertheless, the former are emotional stirrings, and it is in this sphere that we must look for the fundamental traits of the criminal nature. It is in this that we find the significance of the tattooings so often met with in criminals, even in those who have never been convicted, who have never been in a barrack, a shop, or a factory. In Lombroso’s atlas we find reproductions of numerous fantastic tattooed designs.

Thus the most important element in the psychology of the criminal is a rudimentary development of the life of feeling in general.[28]

In an elaborate analysis of the mind of the criminal,[29] I have endeavoured to show that this mind is dominated by the sovereignty of the moment, a feature in which it resembles the mind of the child and the savage. Here we have an indication that in the criminal, as in the child and the savage, inhibition—the most important function of the brain—is not developed[30]; for inhibition operates under the influence of our previous experiences and of the continuous consideration of the future consequences of our present actions. Undoubtedly, it is also characteristic of the criminal by passion that, at the time of the deed, the momentary motives drive out or paralyze all past experiences and all considerations for the future. But that which, in the case of the criminal by passion, occurs but once or a few times only during life, is in the born criminal a continuous state, one which characterizes his non-criminal as well as his criminal activities.

It is obvious that alcoholism—from which almost all habitual criminals suffer—must favour the failure of inhibition. The psychology of the criminal is, as a rule, so interpermeated with the characteristics of alcoholism that it is often necessary to grope back into the childhood of the individual in order to ascertain the original lineaments of his character.[31]

The parasitism of the existence of the criminal is mainly an outcome of economic conditions, and not an elementary feature of crime. In this respect, criminality closely resembles prostitution, which, at least in the modern large town, is through and through a product of parasitic luxury.

Passing on now to consider the pressing question of the causal connection between the psychical and the physical fundamental characteristics of the criminal, we find that it is not possible from the physical characters to deduce with certainty a corresponding development of feeling. But it may well be that both series of phenomena result from a common cause—viz., the arrest of development at a not completely human stage of evolution. This conception of Lombroso’s—which I myself regard as correct—is readily comprehensible by every evolutionist, for the evolutionist must assume the inheritance of social feelings, and therewith also the inheritance of the organic substratum of these feelings.

In accordance with the modern standpoint of physiological psychology, we have every reason to regard the vasomotor nervous system as a part, at least, of the organic substratum in which, alike in the individual and in the race, the development of feeling runs its course. A very strong reason for believing that the predisposition to crime is based upon a definite congenital tendency is to be found in the fact that the inheritance of criminal tendencies is manifested also in cases in which neither environment, nor education, nor example, suffice to account for the phenomenon. A very large mass of materials has been collected bearing upon this thesis, a part of which will be found in Lombroso’s own writings, a part in Ribot’s celebrated work on “Heredity,” and a part in my own “Natural History of the Criminal.” The most frequent manifestations of criminal heredity take the form of a tendency to fraud, to arson, and to sexual crime. Cruelty, also, is very frequently inherited; and this tendency sometimes finds expression in the desire, as a hospital nurse, to see as many operations as possible, or, at least, to witness as many confinements as possible. The inheritance of criminal tendencies is also shown by the frequency of criminal acts in children; and at the present day, in the enormous increase of youthful criminality, the primitive and original character of criminal tendencies is most clearly manifested.

Finally, the incorrigibility of many criminals, and their innumerable relapses into crime, afford a proof, not merely of the uselessness of our penal systems, but also of the organic nature of the predisposition to crime. All the experience hitherto recorded shows that those individuals who, anthropologically speaking, exhibit the most severe stigmatization, are also the most hopeless recidivists.

It is a point much open to dispute whether the congenital tendency to crime is essentially a morbid predisposition; but the discussion is profitless. Unquestionably the professional criminal throughout his life exhibits a marked tendency to mental disorder. Many of Lombroso’s adherents are inclined to regard insanity as a professional disease of prisoners. It must not, however, be forgotten that debauchery, poverty, alcoholism, and close confinement—conditions inseparable from the criminal life—would suffice of themselves, and in the absence of any predisposition to insanity, to induce mental disorder.

This has nothing whatever to do with the problem of the responsibility of the born criminal. In the most exceptional case we can admit that the criminal is strongly predisposed to become insane.

This is a suitable place in which to draw attention to the fact that Lombroso himself emphasizes the relationships between epilepsy and the criminal nature; and, indeed, that he draws an analogy between the permanent psychical state of the born criminal and the conditions of brain giving rise to epilepsy. To some extent, indeed, he regards the two conditions as identical. His account of these relationships exhibits the characteristic features of his mode of thought. He possessed the impassioned tendency of the great investigator of Nature, as it was also embodied in Darwin; and he possessed at the same time the patience of the collector. He knew, also, how to demonstrate his results forcibly and vividly; but he was less richly endowed with the faculty of sifting his data, and of grouping them in accordance with a natural, and not merely superficial, criterion. Thus it happened often enough that, perceiving intuitive analogies, his lively imagination led him falsely to regard them as identities. He tells us that in the criminal, as in the epileptic, he discovered the following characteristics: “Tendency to lead a vagabond life, inclination to obscenity, uncleanness, pride in evil actions, a passion for scribbling, a tendency to neologism, tattooing, dissimulation, lack of definite character, easily aroused to wrath, megalomania, vacillations of thought and feeling, cowardice. In epileptic and criminal alike, we find a lengthening of the personal equation (reaction-time), when compared with the normal human being; the same vanity, the same tendency to self-contradiction and to universal exaggeration.” He considered that this identity was confirmed by the similarities which can be detected between criminals and epileptics in respect of certain forms of blunting of cutaneous sensibility and other sensory perceptions. It must also be remembered that Lombroso’s conception of epilepsy was a very wide one: “To-day, in fact, in accordance with the completely harmonious results of clinical and experimental pathological research, epilepsy has been resolved into a circumscribed stimulation of the cerebral cortex, resulting in paroxysms, sometimes momentary, sometimes of long duration, but always periodic, and always superposed upon a degenerate foundation, whether this foundation be inherited, or acquired through the abuse of alcohol, in consequence of injury to the skull, etc.”

As regards this theory that epilepsy is a basic element in the criminal nature, Lombroso finds a link between epilepsy and criminality in certain types of character which, long before his time, certain alienists—especially those of England—had described as quite specific, and as differing entirely from ordinary insanity. As the psychiatric name for these types, the English phrase “moral insanity” has been widely accepted. Such cases are regarded by Lombroso as developmental stages on the way to the formation of the criminal nature. Writing on this subject, he says (German edition, p. 521): “Just as moral insanity passes insensibly into its higher degree—born criminality—so also the epileptic criminal, when his liability to acute or to larval paroxysms has become chronic, exhibits the more advanced manifestation of moral insanity. In the less developed periods we cannot distinguish between these types; and just as two things which are equal to the same thing are equal to one another,[32] so also, undoubtedly, born criminality and moral insanity are both of them nothing more than variants of epilepsy (Griesinger terms them “epileptoid states”).”

In order to give us a more vivid idea of these epileptoid states, Lombroso groups them as follows:

First degree, larval epilepsy. Second degree, chronic epilepsy. Third degree, moral insanity. Fourth degree, congenital criminality. Fifth degree, criminality by passion.

This view has been opposed in various quarters on the ground that Lombroso, in other parts of his leading work, explains criminality as an atavistic reversion to primitive human types, and that, consequently, in accordance with the same principle of equivalent values, the type of the epileptic must also be identical with that of primitive man. This conclusion being an impossible one, it is held that Lombroso’s whole chain of reasoning is false. But Lombroso invokes the principle of equivalent values in relation, not to qualitative, but to quantitative, relations. His opponents have just as little right to use this principle for a _reductio ad absurdum_ as Lombroso himself had to speak of “identity” instead merely of “analogy.” It must be admitted that the criminal and the epileptic temperaments are very closely allied, that epileptics provide a disproportionately large contingent to the world of crime, and that it is quite possible that genetic relationships exist between the born criminal and the epileptic. It may well happen that when a mother suffering from nervous or mental disorder becomes pregnant, the brain and the whole organism of her child will be poorly nourished, and will, therefore, not develop normally. The child may have its development arrested at an earlier and more primitive stage, corresponding to the type of a remote ancestor, and, at the same time, these nutritive disturbances may lead to disturbances in the formation of the nerve elements, whereby the child is rendered epileptic throughout its life. The child is thus born an epileptic, and according to the nature of the arrest of development from which it suffers, it may happen that it is incapable of a normal development of the life of feeling, or it may be incapable of acquiring a normal power of resistance to anti-social impulses. It then becomes a criminal, and is, at the same time, an epileptic, with atavistic characteristics. These features may thus be united at the root, as we may see in every idiot asylum, and, unfortunately, also in numerous instances in every prison.

By this identification of the born criminal with the moral imbecile Lombroso has also given occasion to misunderstandings. It was not his intention to define the criminal with reference to the still insufficiently studied moral insanity; but, contrariwise, to say that we are only justified in speaking of moral insanity in cases in which his (Lombroso’s) “criminal type” is seen to exist. Thus moral “insanity” is defined by means of criminality, and thus an entirely new and very vivid conception of moral insanity is rendered possible; for Lombroso’s “moral insanity” is not an acquired disease suddenly attacking the brain and suddenly introducing psychical disturbances, but it is the psychological expression of criminal degeneration. Thus, also, he always contrasts the moral lunatic with the ordinary lunatic, and a large proportion of his material is grouped in such a way that this contrast is clearly exhibited with the aid of all the methods of anthropological and psychological study. If he goes on to describe moral insanity as a mere variant of epilepsy, the principal difficulty he has to face is the contradiction this involves with his atavistic explanation of the criminal nature. But if, in the appearances of atavistic traits, we see nothing more than a coordinated element of criminality, this contradiction disappears, while the marked similarity remains, which harmonizes, above all, with Samt’s description of epileptoid states; and the theory is further supported by the fact that the stigmata of degeneration are commonly present in both types. The extraordinary frequency of epileptoid types in prisons has also been pointed out by Sommer, Knecht, Sander, Moeli, and Kirn.

This view of Lombroso’s is, above all, supported by the fact that criminality and epilepsy are hereditary equivalents—that is to say, that criminals frequently have epileptic children, and conversely. If, however, we find no lack of relationships between epilepsy and crime, these are not explained by the supposition of a simple identity between the two. What Lombroso has succeeded in proving is that in the wide group of degenerates who, under certain social conditions, may become criminals, the epileptics are notably represented. Epileptics, indeed, unquestionably belong to the less valuable constituents of society.

The importance of the “stigmata” described by Lombroso as indications of psychical degeneration can no longer be disputed, however difficult it remains to understand what relationship handle-shaped and projecting ears, facial asymmetry, dental abnormalities, hypospadias, epispadias, etc., can have to psychical degeneration. We have, in fact, no better explanation than the phrase “correlation of growth.” Our present knowledge of the functions of the brain certainly does not suffice to elucidate the causal chain by means of which anomalies of the skull are associated with moral imbecility. But, after all, there is no single problem of psycho-pathology in which the chain of causation is completely known to us. However, it should not be difficult to understand that a brain enclosed in an abnormal skull can never develop to the full its most complicated function—viz., the coordination of the voluntary activities for the purposes of a course of conduct adapted to the conditions of social life.

The term “degeneration” is unquestionably an indefinite one, and remains to-day incapable of either anatomical or physiological explanation; but it owes to Lombroso’s researches a definite _practical_ significance, from the fact that he has proved that the majority of degenerates are socially inadequate, and, further, that this social inadequacy of degenerate individuals makes their existence a great danger to society. The degenerate is often an anti-social being, and society must protect itself against him.

The importance of these stigmata was not comprehensively understood by Morel and the other predecessors of Lombroso, in respect either of their mode of origin, or of their grouping to constitute specific types of degenerate. Morel merely sketched the outlines, and enumerated a few important facts about degeneration. One small area only of this enormous province has as yet been carefully studied—that of criminality. By Lombroso’s anthropometric and other researches very numerous demonstrations and statistical classifications of the stigmata of degeneration have been effected, whilst nothing of the kind has yet been attempted in respect of other forms of degeneration. As a result of his work, we are enabled to define the type of the criminal as that form of degeneration which is characterized morphologically and biologically by atavistic characters, and psychologically by the deficiency of altruistic feelings. Even if this type does not afford us a brief or invariably harmonious signification of crime, still, in a period in which we no longer believe in the persistence of species, and in which, even in “good species,” we recognize the tendency to variation, we must not demand that a degenerative subtype should exhibit constant characters.