Let us consider first the “personal characteristics of the criminal.” Professor Ferri draws the following conclusions with regard to the existence of anthropological factors in general: “In fact, if crime were the product of the social environment exclusively, how could the fact be explained, that in the same social environment and in like circumstances of poverty, abandonment, and lack of education, out of 100 individuals, 60 commit no crime, and of the 40 that remain, 5 prefer suicide to crime, 5 become insane, 5 become beggars or non-dangerous vagrants, and only the 25 others become real criminals? And why is it that among these, while some limit themselves to theft without violence, others commit robberies, and even, before the victim resists, or threatens, or calls for help, commit a murder with the sole aim of theft?”21

—It seems to me that there are many objections to be made to this rather carelessly drawn conclusion. In the first place, Professor Ferri is of the opinion that it may be assumed that it will be easy to find groups of persons only a quarter of whom become criminal, though they all live in the same bad environment. Leaving out of account the individuals who, because of their physical condition are incapable of crime, I do not believe that there are, for example, 60% who have never been convicted. However, even admitting that this assertion is accurate, then, that out of 100 persons living in the same environment, only one part will fall into crime, I believe that it [103]is impossible to find even two persons who live, and have lived, in an environment exactly similar, and whose parents also have always lived in the same surroundings. In this way only can the question be clearly put. It is not only present conditions that influence a man; all past conditions have their part in the motives of present acts. It cannot be denied that the present includes the past. Nor ought the conditions which have influenced the parents to be excluded. Let us put the following case: A, B, and C live in the same very bad surroundings. A commits suicide, B becomes crazy, C commits a crime. The parents of A were well-to-do, gave their child a good education, and accustomed him to consider many things as necessities. Fallen into poverty, then weakened and become incapable of good work, A believes that it is impossible for him to restore himself. His moral ideas, acquired in his youth, are opposed to his engaging in crime. And then the few francs that he would be able to steal would not be sufficient to maintain him in the life to which he has been accustomed. Consequently he commits suicide. B is the child of a father who became an alcoholic from actual poverty. Inferior on this account, B cannot keep up the struggle for existence and becomes insane. The parents of C were indigent. He received no education; moral ideas are totally unknown to him; he has never lived in anything but poverty, and commits a theft when the opportunity presents itself without any hesitation. In these three cases, which occur daily, circumstances are the only factor that enters into consideration.

I have said above that there are no two persons who live in exactly the same circumstances. This word “exactly” is not used by Professor Ferri, and in this, in my opinion, he is wrong. In ordinary life we speak of great and small causes. But in treating of scientific questions this is surely forbidden. For no one is ignorant that what is apparently the least important occurrence may have the most extensive consequences.

May I here be permitted to make a quotation from an interesting page of Professor Manouvrier upon this question: “That the effect of environment is generally understood in too limited a way, we see proved every day in the appreciation expressed, of the causes that have determined certain differences of productive power or moral conduct. It is a question, perhaps, of two brothers. It is said that they have been brought up exactly in the same manner, that they have received exactly the same education, and that the question of environment is thus settled. Immediately the doctors begin to call in [104]atavism, to feel the bumps of the head, to study facial asymmetry, etc. Anatomy must be appealed to, since the influence of environment has been eliminated. It can be put down to bad luck if some bump, some depression, some asymmetry is not found that will serve, whether or no, to account for a solution of the question. There remains always, further, the resource of invoking invisible, hypothetical vices of the internal constitution. The phrenologists were in a relatively difficult situation; they had to find a fixed anatomical character, a bump for a function specified in advance, or they were obliged to imagine a conflict of bump with bump. The present method is less exacting; it is enough to find no matter what deviation from morphological perfection, without its being necessary to show the connection between this deviation and the physiological inferiority to be explained. But what am I saying? The question is often of an inferiority of a sociological order, and trouble is not even taken to make sure, to begin with, that this corresponds to a psychological inferiority. Yet however indispensable this may be as a preliminary, it is not enough; it must be ascertained that this inferiority implies a functional trouble before calling in pathological anatomy at all hazards.

“The statement is made that the two brothers have been subjected to the same environmental influences merely because they have been brought up in the same house, taught in the same school, fed and clothed alike. Yet the mere fact of having been born first or second is not without importance. To have been reared with an older or with a younger brother constitutes a difference of environment that may contribute powerfully to differentiate character. Add to this the differences of environment proceeding from nurses, servants, diseases, games, etc., and you will have opened headings under which may be classed differences innumerable. There are no small things in such a matter. Biographies as now written are no more than outlines when one thinks of what truly psychological biographies ought to be. To have been taught in the same college in the case of two brothers is a similarity that may, and certainly does, conceal the greatest differences. They have not had the same teachers, the same fellow-pupils, nor, above all, the same comrades. Between the education given, and that actually received, the difference may be great.…

“The influences that act upon the child outside of the curriculum have the more chance to be effective, since the curriculum is carried out in the less agreeable manner.”22 [105]

In consequence of what has been said, I believe that the conclusion of Professor Ferri that there are anthropological factors of crime, is too hasty. But there are still other objections to be urged to it.

Let us suppose that two persons who live, and have lived, in the same circumstances are in a position to commit a very advantageous crime, and their morality does not prevent. At the moment when the time comes to act, one commits the crime and the other does not—he lacks the courage. Courage, then, is a factor of crime, and the lack of it a factor of virtue! Not so, that depends upon circumstances. In another case, he who commits a crime is stupid, and does not consider the risk, and he who does not commit it is a crafty man. Stupidity, then, is a factor of crime, and craft of virtue! Not so, that depends upon circumstances. The reverse is also true, probably more true still. Thousands of great criminals so far from being stupid have had something of the genius in them.

The famous individual factors are only ordinary human qualities, like courage, strength, needs, intelligence, etc. etc.,23 which men possess in differing degrees, and which in like circumstances lead the one rather than the other to commit a crime. These qualities in themselves, however, have nothing to do with crime. Professor Manouvrier expresses my thought on this subject in the following: “There are, however, certain individuals more moved to crime than others, in circumstances otherwise equal. Certainly, as man is more given to crime than woman, as a robust and bold man is more given to crimes of violence than one who is miserable and timid, etc., yet each type of character finds some kind of crime practicable, if only arson. The athlete will be more inclined to strike, the smooth talker to play the confidence man, but we do not for that reason indict muscular strength, nor ready speech, nor boldness, nor agility, nor address. No more do we indict violence or trickery, qualities defined from the vicious use made of qualities valuable for honest purposes.”24

The reasoning of Professor Ferri, that there is in every crime, besides others, an anthropological factor, is only the statement of the fact, known long before the rise of modern criminology, that the predisposition to crime is not the same with all men. This predisposition, as we have seen, considered by itself, has nothing to do with crime as such. So much the more is the conclusion of Professor Ferri and the Italian school in general absolutely false, when they deduce from the undeniable fact that the predisposition is not the [106]same for all, the notion that this predisposition is by nature pathological.

Thus we have finally come to two other groups of anthropological factors: the organic constitution of the criminal, as, for example, the anomalies of the skull, brain, etc. and the psychical constitution of the criminal, as, for example, the anomalies of intelligence and feeling.25 This is the special territory of the Italian school: the criminal is a being apart—“genus homo criminalis”—with special stigmata peculiar to him; there is a criminal type, anatomically recognizable; most criminals are born-criminals, etc. The explanation of this special character is to be found in atavism, an hypothesis later replaced by that of epilepsy; finally it has been claimed that the character of the criminal is in general of a pathological nature.

In our purely sociological work, though it combats in an indirect way the hypothesis of the Italian school, we do not have to concern ourselves with the conflict between the different anthropological schools, with regard to the origin of crime. We demonstrate merely, what no one who judges fairly will attempt to deny, that the hypothesis of the Italian school is erroneous. The anthropological authorities like Manouvrier, Baer, Näcke, and others, have broken this doctrine down.26 There are no stigmata belonging to criminals only, nor is there any criminal type; the atavistic hypothesis is one of the profoundest errors.

Although the doctrine of Lombroso and his school is in general abandoned by anthropologists, it still persists in the acceptance of one fact, to which it is its immortal merit to have called attention, namely that there are a number of criminals (though a very limited number) who show a truly pathological nature, and whose criminal character can only be explained by this pathological nature. For example, when someone in an epileptic condition commits a murder, without any motive; or the case in which a well-to-do individual steals continually useless articles, of little value, etc., etc. Even in most of these instances, which are a small minority in the colossal mass of criminality, the social environment plays its part; but it must be recognized without reserve that here we have to do with true individual factors, peculiar to certain individuals. The hypothesis of the [107]Italian school is, then, accurate for the exception, but false as a rule.—