832 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



And this brings us to the last portion of this study concerning 

 the psychic constitution of murderers — that is to say, to the intel- 

 lectual element. We already know the cerebral inferiority of 

 delinquents as compared with healthy subjects. This inferiority 

 in the class of born homicides can not be better characterized 

 than as a weak and incomplete association of ideas. The intel- 

 lectual characteristic of mental weakness in delinquents does not 

 exclude in some of them a certain degree of intelligence in other 

 branches of mental activity — so much so that, according to Lom- 

 broso, there are found murderers who have talent, not to say 

 genius. These, like all born homicides, have in common the lack 

 of a moral sentiment; as regards irtelligence, they may be classed 

 under these two headings : The sanguinary homicide, la bete 

 humaine, who kills more often for vendetta or for covetousness, 

 and the calculating homicide, who kills for covetousness and for 

 ambition, and is often endowed with brilliant intellectual quali- 

 ties. Generally speaking, however, in all criminals, as a result 

 of their defective association of repellent ideas, there is very 

 marked improvidence. This improvidence is shown in many 

 criminals by the carelessness with which they themselves reveal 

 their misdeeds, the imprudent manifestations they are the first to 

 give during and after the consummation of the crime, the careless 

 manner in which they leave traces of it, the way in which they 

 return to the site of their deed, as well as in not foreseeing the 

 punishment. In others, instead, the art they adopt to render dif- 

 ficult the discovery of their deeds is very marked, and the per- 

 centage of the authors of crimes who have remained undiscovered 

 is remarkable — twenty-five per cent in Italy on crimes that have 

 been denounced, without counting the contingent of those where 

 even the crimes have not been discovered. 



As a conclusion of this positive examination of the born homi- 

 cide, Ferri thus defines the fundamental psychological characters 

 of these persons : " Abnormal impulsiveness of action for lack of 

 or owing to weak power of resistance to criminal desires." In 

 general, normal man, although subject to temptations and to 

 momentary criminal impulses, fights against them. A case in 

 point is that of the celebrated alienist doctor Morel, who, feeling 

 himself suddenly impelled to the idea of throwing a workman 

 who happened to stand near him into the river, fled from the 

 spot. The born homicide can not thus defend himself. These 

 facts, in which is delineated the embryo of that pathological 

 homicidal obsession which our author now goes on to examine, 

 can bo explained by congenital weakness of development, the 

 nerve centers having been arrested, and hence not apt nor edu- 

 cated to resist. 



It may also happen that the delinquent docs not complete his 



