ON MORAL CO NT AG I OX. 619 



all the newspapers are filled, and particularly those which, by their low 

 price, are intended to be read by the lower classes. If the recital of 

 immoral, criminal acts is not dangerous for individuals of good parts, 

 who from their mental constitution reprobate these acts with horror, 

 who have only an aversion to what is bad, it is incontestable that, for 

 those morally deformed, in whom the tendencies to evil are very pow- 

 erful, easily excited, or already developed, either by their inherent ac- 

 tivity, or by the corrupting influence of immoral surroundings, and in 

 whom the moral sentiments which are antagonistic to the depraved 

 tendencies are feeble or absent it is incontestable, I say, and I have 

 brought forward numerous facts in evidence thereof, that the publica- 

 tion of criminal acts is very dangerous to public morality and security, 

 because it stimulates in these individuals the same depraved tendencies 

 which had occasioned these crimes, and awakens those sentiments, 

 those penchants, those passions ; and the desire to commit similar acts 

 then appears. Now, in such morally-deformed individuals, who form 

 the unfortunate dregs of society, a class which is constantly renewed, 

 and of which the source is never exhausted, the recital of such acts be- 

 comes to them a cause of crime, and consequently a cause of danger to 

 society. These individuals, abnormally constructed in the moral part 

 of their nature, real moral idiots, though perhaps very intelligent, 

 physically well developed, and in good bodily condition ; these indi- 

 viduals whom the public describe as heartless, whom magistrates, be- 

 fore whom they appear on various charges, accuse of being destitute 

 of human feelings ; these individuals in whom criminal tendencies are 

 not commanded by the sentiment of moral duty, by moral perception, 

 by religious feelings, and by other noble instincts of humanity ; these 

 individuals who consider their immoral and hideous desires without 

 abhorrence, and whom crime leaves unmoved and without remorse, 

 who, in way of regret, feel only what injures the success of their un- 

 dertakings at being captured and punished these individuals, I say, 

 will be tempted to commit crime if an evil desire excited by example 

 becomes more powerful than their other better feelings which, while 

 they predominated, restrained any criminal tendencies which these per- 

 sons might have experienced. This miserable scum of humanity so 

 dangerous to society, which produces exclusively all the greatest crim- 

 inals, and to which we have directed too little attention up to the pres- 

 ent time, ought to be explored to the bottom. Journal of Mental 

 Science. 



