644 CRIMINAL ANTHROPOLOGY. 



the best equipped. Many persous who uow might be regarded as more 

 or less criminal would have been esteemed honest if they had been 

 destined to live in the primitive condition of man at the origin of civil- 

 ization, or, at least, in the civilization of ancient times when our ances- 

 tors formed the barbaric races of Europe. Each political government 

 is a vast organism for the social education of all its citizens. Never- 

 theless there are persons who, by virtue of an instinctive and invin- 

 cible opposition, reject the possibility of modification by the adapting 

 efficacy of political government. Out of this opposition grows instinct 

 ive criminality. Because of it, criminals perform their actions without 

 being conscious of evil. Giving free course to their instincts, they 

 have only the consciousness of the good of their own individuality. 

 Their selfishness seeks only their own good, and if they are not to be 

 charged with the evil which their acts cause, no more are they entitled 

 to credit for the good. The family is a small coi)y of society. The 

 historic evolution of the family is that of society in general. There 

 is a law which gives the highest importance to the good order of gen- 

 eral society. There is also another law, only second to this, the good 

 order of the family. The law of general society is the same in a 

 greater sense as is the law of the family. The law of good order 

 in the family is intended for the adaptation of the individual to tbe 

 social law. It is easy to recognize by observation and experiment that 

 there are some individuals, however small the number, who present 

 an insensible, instinctive, and obstinate resistance to the law of the 

 family. This repugnance to family government is sometimes revealed 

 during their infancy. These are the individuals who rebel against edu- 

 cation and good order, whether of the family or of the State. The ini- 

 tial adaptation of these individuals to the social law, on which are to be 

 found all ulterior adaptations to law and order, are in a great part 

 achieved by these individuals during their infancj'. We ask, in what 

 consists this opposition of the individual, the student, the infant, to 

 the good order, whether of the family or society ? How is it explained ? 

 It appears to consist in the physical impossibility of the individual to 

 bring into subjection certain of his nervous centers, and his inability 

 to require them to accommodate themselves in their structure so that 

 they can execute with facility all those molecular movements on which 

 depend the acts of obedience to the domestic law, Mhether of the family 

 or of society. These should be repeated and executed with so little 

 friction as to become habitual, and they can be taught by the ordi- 

 nary i)edagogic process. This want of power in the nervous center 

 brings about in the young person a default in the impressions neces- 

 sary, by which the moral life of the individual is made to correspond to 

 that of society. As a consequence of this default all idealization which 

 leads to this end, is absent in the student without possible substitu- 

 tion, nor can he effect it by any spontaneous appreciation of his intel- 

 ligence. 



