268 MENTAL CONSTITUTION OF ANIMALS. 



decessor. God no more expressly decreed the mean form of 

 his brain than he expressly decreed the excesses which led to 

 it. We have seen that it is for wise ends that God leaves our 

 moral faculties to an indefinite range of action ; the general 

 good results of this arrangement are obvious ; but exceptions 

 of evil are inseparable from such a system, and this is one of 

 them. To come to particular illustration when a people are 

 oppressed, or kept in a state of slavery, they invariably contract 

 habits of lying for the purpose of deceiving and outwitting 

 their superiors, falsehood being a refuge of the weak under 

 difficulties. What is a habit in parents, becomes an inherent 

 quality in children. We are not, therefore, to be surprised 

 when a traveller tells us that black children in the West In- 

 dies appear to lie by instinct, and never answer a white person 

 truly, even in the simplest matter. Here we have secretive- 

 ness roused in a people to a state of constant and exalted 

 exercise : an over-tendency of the nervous energy in that 

 direction is the consequence, and a new organic condition is 

 established. This tells upon the progeny, which comes into 

 the world with secretiveness excessive in strength and activity. 

 All other evil characteristics may be readily conceived as being 

 implanted in a new generation in the same way. And some- 

 times not one, but several generations may be concerned in 

 bringing up the result to a pitch which produces crime. It is, 

 however, to be observed that the general tendency of things is 

 to a limitation, not the extension of such abnormally consti- 

 tuted beings. The criminal brain finds itself in a social scene 

 where all is against it. It may struggle on for a time, but it 

 is sure to be overcome at last by the medium and superior 

 natures. The disposal of such beings will always depend 

 much on the moral state of a community, the degree in which 

 just views prevail with regard to human nature, and the feel- 

 ings which accident may have caused to predominate at a 

 particular time. Where the mass was little enlightened or 

 refined, and terrors for life or property were highly excited, 

 malefactors have ever been treated severely. But when order 

 is generally triumphant, and reason allowed sway, men begin 

 to see the true case of criminals namely, that while one 

 large section are victims of erroneous social conditions, another 

 are brought to error by tendencies which they are only unfor- 

 tunate in having inherited. Criminal jurisprudence then ad- 

 dresses itself less to the direct punishment, than to the reforma- 

 tion and care-taking of those liable to its attention. And such 



