256 Proceedings of the Royal Soeiety of Victoria. 



temptation, become by force of liabit a habitual criminal. 

 This much was clear enough, and capable of proof, but wlien 

 it came to a (juestion of moi-al delect, it was difficult to s; y 

 how lar it was natural and how far acquired. It was just 

 as ])robable that people failed in moral capacit}' just as they 

 did in intellectual capacity, but it did xiot iiecessaiily follow 

 that both defects should be co-existent in the same pei'son. 

 A man might be strongly endowed mentally, and yet Ix' 

 weak in moral qualities, and it had been observed that some 

 people who were well endowed morally were rather poor in 

 intellectual constitution. But it was difficult to say how lai 

 what Avas called moral detect was natuiul, and how far it 

 was acquired. It might be admitted as a likely enough 

 thing that there were peojjle insufficiently endowed with 

 moral qualities, who readily enough became criminals, 

 independently of their intellectual capacit}^, and as a meic 

 matter of theory it might be admitted that the moral 

 endowment could be so poor that the person of necessity 

 became a criminal. He would not like to say on 

 theoretical grounds that this was not so, but the difficulty 

 was m proving it to be so, and to recognise a theoieticai 

 deficiency of moi-al endowments, apart from pure mental 

 capacity, as a ground of iri-esponsibilities, was excessively 

 dangerous doctrine. But this seemed to be the doctrine 

 held by the modern school of criminal anthropologists, who 

 went so far as to sa}^ that they could tell pretty accurately 

 what would be the physical characteristics of the habitual 

 criminal. He did not think any of them would profess to 

 be able to tell from the physical characteristics of a man, 

 without knowing anything about his conduct, whether or 

 not he was a criminal, and this was the difficulty of safely 

 apyjlying the doctrine, however rational it might be as a 

 general principle, to individual cases. For that reason he 

 thought that any attempts to save criminals from the 

 consequences of their actions on such grounds should 

 certainly not be encouraged, but should on the contiaiy 

 be discouraged very strongly. With regard to the ques- 

 tion of punishment, he agreed with Mr. Sutherland 

 that ret'oT-mation could not properly be spoken of as 

 a form of punishment, although the criminal might 

 regard in that light any etlbrts made by the authorities 

 in that direction. He feared that retiilmtion could not be 

 got rid of If one man inflicted injuries u])on another that 

 could be measured pecuniarily, he was fined to a proportionate 



