i62 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



It will readily be conceded that no two individuals have ex- 

 actly the same degree of responsibility, bnt all must be held to 

 equal responsibility under the law, until it shall be demonstrated 

 in certain cases that a given person is by reason of defective cere- 

 bral tissues unable to support the social relation, in which case 

 society should permanently restrain him. This decision should 

 be reached by experts, who would carefully compare the environ- 

 ment to which the individual had been exposed with his mental 

 state, or the functional product of his brain. This, I believe, 

 has actually been done in some States by the enactment of the 

 habitual criminal law, which provides for the perpetual re- 

 straint of these cases, without regard to the nature of the last 

 offense. 



Without at all suspecting the anatomical and physiological 

 conditions upon which it depends, many intelligent observers, 

 who have been intimately associated with the criminal classes in 

 prisons, reformatories, etc., agree as to the fact that a large pro- 

 portion are unable to resist the commission of crime, even under 

 the most favorable circumstances, and a still larger proportion 

 under the unfavorable circumstances in which their defective 

 organization tends to force them. 



A commission of experts appointed by the State to thoroughly 

 examine the inmates of prisons, to determine their mental status, 

 might do much, by effecting the permanent restraint of certain 

 cases, to diminish crime and the cost and suffering it entails, with 

 a fuller measure of justice toward all parties concerned. 



A few words in regard to heredity, by way of digression. It is 

 not disputed that the form which the aggregation of cells takes 

 entering into the structure of a man's nose may be distinctly 

 hereditary, and it is no less reasonable to suppose that variations 

 in the convolutions of the brain are equally hereditary ; and that, 

 influenced by the same or a similar environment, the functional 

 product observed in the child will be similar to what obtained in 

 the parent that is, practically, crime is often hereditary, and to 

 the same extent so may be any other mental tendency. 



Finally, a few words in reference to insanity and criminal 

 responsibility. Practically the best definition of insanity is that 

 of Dr. Maudsley, which is substantially this : Insanity is a disease 

 of the brain, producing such a change in the mode of feeling, 

 thinking, and acting as to render the individual unable to sup- 

 port the ordinary relations of life. The question of responsibility 

 is rarely raised in well-developed cases, where the disease of the 

 brain renders the centers inactive and the person sits and mopes 

 in silent misery, or in the cases where the disease of the cerebral 

 structures is so severe as to constantly stir them to irregular and 

 unwonted activity, prompting the individual to laugh, weep, sing. 



