2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



enon rather than as an accident. Those efforts which society has 

 made to stamp out and confine this tendency to evil must, to an equal 

 extent, spring from higher law; just as a breakwater is reared to pro- 

 tect an exposed harbor from the encroacliments of storm and wave. 



We have of late years come to look upon criminals as a special 

 class of the community. We have come to complacently call them 

 the "criminal class," just as we do the mercantile class or any other 

 reputable order of men. This is so far true as to be capable of proof 

 more by the exceptions than the rule. We have come to look upon 

 crime as we do the typhus fever or the cholera, as prevailing mainly 

 amid dirt and ignorance. I believe this to be true only so far as igno- 

 rance permits those good qualities in men to be undeveloped wliich 

 require culture for their development ; and the existence of such quali- 

 ties has not aayet been demonstrated. It must be understood that 

 while the word " ignorance " does not express a positive quantity, it 

 yet expresses a positive quality which is true of the mass of people. 

 This word with perfect fairness may be applied to the vast numbers 

 which swell the aggregate of a census-table, without any qualification. 

 I believe it can be shown that it is simply from excess in numbers that 

 the ignorant classes furnish the recruits to the ranks of crime, and not 

 from any tendency to crime dependent upon the negative quality of 

 ignorance. A careful analysis of facts in this field induces Mr. Buckle 

 to say that " the existence of crime, according to a fixed and uniform 

 scheme, is a fact more clearly attested than any other in the moral 

 history of man." * Another high authority may be quoted in evidence 

 to prove that this scheme is exempt from those laws which govern 

 intellectual development: "It is one of the plainest facts that neither 

 the individuals nor the ages that have been most distinguished for 

 intellectual achievements have been most distinguished for moral ex- 

 cellence, and that a high intellectual and material civilization has 

 often coexisted with much depravity." "^ 



All this seems to show us that there is a rhythm in human actions 

 that forms a minor chord in the forever unwritten music which those 

 who love Nature know as existing profoundly in all her works. 



Since we are dealing with an element in human character which 

 preserves a fixed value, it is evident that we may study the relation 

 of any class in any community to these constantly-recurring phenom- 

 ena, provided we can isolate this class from all others. In the study 

 before us, this has already been done by the division of mankind into 

 the sexes. I need draw no other line.* Women stand out so clearly as 

 a class, and, in relation to any series of acts wdiich preserve a more or 

 less constant periodicity, are so sharply defined from man, that they are 

 easily contrasted with him in relation to any condition common to 

 both. 



* "History of Civilization in England," vol. i., pp. 22, 23. 



-* "History of European Morals from Augustus to Charlemagne," vol. i., p. 157. 



