SPONTANEOUS AND IMITATIVE CRIME. 657 



grosser passions also those who from congenital defects of organiza- 

 tion have strong natural tendencies toward the commission of crime 

 sporadic criminals against whom it is scarcely possible for society 

 to protect itself, unless, like the ancient Spartans, it is prepared to 

 undertake the entire education of the future citizen, morally, intellec- 

 tually, and physically, including the ante-natal period. Some recent 

 investigations and social experiments have proved that, numerous as 

 these are, they are a small minority as compared with those of the 

 imitative and therefore curable class. 



Alibert, the ingenious author of the " Systeme Sensible," regarded the 

 instinct of imitation as the primordial law of nature, which has ruled, 

 taught, and bound together the successive generations of the human 

 race in a more potent manner than any other single faculty : and our 

 every-day observation and experience tend to confirm the sagacity of 

 this remark ; and in the matter of crime it is certainly one of the per- 

 manent sources of its development and increase. There is one patent 

 fact recognized by the average mind of the community, that the record 

 and publication of any extraordinary crime is very certain to be fol- 

 lowed by one or more examples of the same description. This cer- 

 tainly hints at some psychical influence worthy of examination, though 

 it is generally dismissed with an expression as to its being a " singu- 

 lar fatality " such as appears to follow certain kinds of accidents by 

 flood or field, by land or sea. 



The fotms and phases of imitation are extremely varied being 

 sometimes the outcome of the conscious will, but not infrequently it is 

 the result of an automatic sympathy with which the will has nothing 

 to do. In many cases imitation is simply the active form of nervous 

 sympathy and approaches the condition of mania. This instinct or 

 faculty, like all other human attributes, may be well or ill applied, but 

 the essential fact remains ever true that the instinct itself is irrepres- 

 sible, and will exercise itself in some form : and, often as it is misused, 

 the world could not afford to dispense with it. The race would make 

 small progress if every man had to begin de novo, instead of imitat- 

 ing the previous acquirements of bis ancestors. We may even admit, 

 with the French philosopher, that without the perpetual use of the 

 imitative faculty there could be no distinctive nationalities ; for, is it 

 not by successive generations imitating their parents that national 

 customs, usages, and languages are formed, and communities consoli- 

 dated so as to afford each other mutual support ? And the important 

 fact should not be lost sight of that the faculty of imitation is one of 

 the earliest developed, and has acquired strength and vigor long before 

 the reflective faculties or the judgment is prepared to sit in council 

 upon these immature tendencies ; particularly should this be remem- 

 bered in connection with all efforts in behalf of the weaker members 

 of our human brotherhood whether the young, as such, or the incipi- 

 ent criminal, in which this faculty often plays so considerable a part ; 



VOL. XT. 42 



