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Page 52
Passing from the mental condition of murderers, let us now take into
consideration the mental state of criminals generally. Beginning with
the senses, it may be said that very little stress can be laid on the
experiments conducted by the Anthropological School as to
peculiarities in the sense of smell, taste, sight, and so on,
discovered among criminals. In all these inquiries it is so easy for
the subject to deceive the investigator, and he has often so direct an
interest in doing it that all results in this department must be
accepted with the utmost caution. Wherever investigations necessitate
the acceptance upon trust of statements made by criminals, their
scientific value descends to the lowest level. As this must be largely
the case with respect to the senses of hearing, taste, smell, etc., it
is almost impossible to reach assured conclusions.
It is different in inquiries respecting the intellect. Here the
investigator is able to judge for himself. According to Dr. Ogle, 86.5
per cent. of the general population were able to read and write in the
years 1881-4, and as this represents an increase of 10 per cent. since
the passing of the Elementary Education Act, it is probably not far
from the mark to say that at the present time almost 90 per cent. of
the English population can read and write. In other words, only 10
per cent. of the population is wholly ignorant. In the local prisons
on the other hand, no less than 25 per cent. of the prisoners can
neither read nor write, and 72 per cent. can only read or read and
write imperfectly. The vast difference in the proportion of
uninstructed among the prison, as compared with the general
population, is not to be explained by the defective early training of
the former. This explanation only covers a portion of the ground: the
other portion is covered by the fact that a certain number of
criminals are almost incapable of acquiring instruction. The memory
and the reasoning powers of such persons are so utterly feeble that
attempts to school them is a waste of time.[43] Deficiencies in
memory, imagination, reason, are three undoubted characteristics of
the ordinary criminal intellect. Of course, there are very many
criminals in which all these qualities are present, and whose defects
lie in another direction, but taken as a whole the criminal is
unquestionably less gifted intellectually than the rest of the
community.
Respecting the emotions of criminals, it is much more difficult to
speak, and much more easy to fall into error. The only thing that can
be said of them for certain, is, that they do not, as a rule, possess
the same keenness of feeling as the ordinary man. Some Italian writers
make much of the religiosity of delinquents; such a sentiment may be
common among offenders in Italy; it is certainly rare among the same
class in Great Britain. The cellular system puts an effective stop to
any thing like active hostility to religion; but it is a mistake to
argue from this that the criminal is addicted to the exercise of
religious sentiments. The family sentiment is also feebly developed;
the exceptions to this rule form a small fraction of the criminal
population.
[43] In Christiania the number of children who cannot learn
amounts in the elementary schools to 4 per 1000. See _Reformatory
and Refuge Journal_ for August, 1890.
The will in criminals, when it is not impaired by disease, is, in the
main, dominated by a boundless egoism. Let us first consider those
whose wills are impaired by disease. Among drunkards and the
degenerate generally the power of sustained volition is often as good
as gone. Nothing can be more pitiful or hopeless than the position of
wretched beings in a condition such as this. Often animated by good
resolutions, often anxious to do what is right, often possessing a
sense of moral responsibility, these unhappy creatures plunge again
and again into vice and crime. In some cases of this description the
will is practically annihilated; in others it is under the dominion of
momentary caprice; in others again it has no power of concentration,
or it is the victim of sudden hurricanes of feeling which drive
everything before them. Persons afflicted in this way, when not
drunkards, are generally convicted for crimes of violence, such as
assault, manslaughter, murder. They experience real sentiments of
remorse, but neither remorse nor penitence enables them to grapple
with their evil star. The will is stricken with disease, and the man
is dashed hither and thither, a helpless wreck on the sea of life.[44]
[44] Cf. Ribot, _Les Maladies de la Volont�_, 1887.
Let us now consider the class of criminals whose wills are not
diseased, but are, on the other hand, dominated by a boundless egoism.
Of such criminals it may be said that there is no essential difference
between them and immoral men. Egoism, selfishness, a lack of
consideration for the rights and feelings of others, are the dominant
principles in the life of both. The dividing line between the two
types consists in this, that the egoism of the immoral man is bounded
by the criminal law; but the egoism of the criminal is bounded by no
law either without him or within. It does not follow from this that
the criminal is without a sense of duty or a dread of legal
punishment. In most cases he possesses both in a more or less
developed form. But his immense egoism so completely overpowers both
his sense of duty and his fear of punishment that it demands
gratification at whatever cost. He sees what he ought to do; he knows
how he ought to act; he is perfectly alive to the consequences of
transgression, but these motives are not strong enough to induce him
to alter his ways of life.
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