CHAPTER IV 



THE HERITABLE BASIS OF CRIME AND 

 DELINQUENCY 



" Si la pauvrete est la mere des crimes, le d6f aut d'esprit en est le 

 pere." La Bruyere, De I'Homme. 



STRICTLY speaking it is of course absurd to speak of the inheri- 

 tance of criminality. Crime is an offense against law. What is 

 crime in one age and country may not be crime in another. No 

 one is a criminal until he commits a crime, and whether or not a 

 person so acts as to bring himself into conflict with the Jaw of 

 the land is obviously dependent upon many circumstances. 

 Under just the proper combination of conditions, doubtless most 

 of us might have become criminals, for a time at least. 



While crime is in a very large degree a product of bad training 

 and evil surroundings, some individuals may have, in a much 

 greater degree than others, certain traits which dispose them to 

 commit criminal actions. What a man does is the result of both 

 hereditary and environmental factors. The recognition of the 

 fact that the criminal is not merely a sinner to be punished, but a 

 product to be scientifically studied and understood, is gradually 

 leading to a new attitude toward the phenomena of crime. As 

 judged by many modern students of the subject, crime belongs 

 largely in the field of pathology. Where it is not to be attributed 

 to bad education or environment it is charged to abnormal 

 heredity. 



Since the publication of Morel's treatise on degeneration, there 

 has been an increasing amount of attention paid to the various 

 physical characteristics which are supposed to stigmatize the 

 natural-born criminal. Among the foremost of the students of 

 criminal anthropology is Lombroso whose anthropometric studies 

 of numerous criminals in Italian prisons convinced him of the 



73 



