THE LA W OF LIKENESS, AND ITS WORKING. 237- 



the general contour of the head can be shown to afford 

 valuable means for grouping of criminals into classes, and 

 also for estimating, as far as circumstances will permit, the 

 influence of heredity and its working. This method of 

 investigation, however, it must be noted, is by no means 

 a return to the old standing of phrenology, which, as all 

 readers know, boasts its ability to mark out the surface of 

 the brain itself into a large number of different faculties. 

 The most that anthropologists would contend for, according 

 to the data laid down, is, that certain general types of head 

 and face are peculiar to certain types of criminals. Physical 

 conformation of a general kind becomes thus in a general 

 manner related to the mental type, and the intercalation 

 between brain and mind is thus demonstrated anew. 



The practical outcome of such a subject may be readily 

 found in the ultimate attention which morality, education, 

 and the State itself, may give to the reclaiming of youthful 

 criminals and to the fostering, from an early period in their 

 history, of those tendencies of good which even the most 

 degraded may be shown to possess. Thus it is clear that, 

 contrary to the deep-rooted belief of many, we do not come 

 into the world like clean slates, upon which the world may 

 write what it pleases ; nor are we born with utterly fixed and 

 immovable characters, but with a natural heritage of good and 

 evil, upon which circumstances may operate either for woe 

 or for weal. It is thus true that we are largely the products, 

 of past time, and that our physical and mental constitutions 

 are in great measure woven for us and independently of us. 

 But it is none the less a stable fact that there exists a margin 

 of free will, which, however limited in extent, may perchance- 

 be made in the criminal and debased, and under proper 

 trainining and encouragement, the foundation of a new and 

 better life. 



The relativity of our knowledge, however, forms a 

 subject which may well be suggested as a closing thought. 

 Whether pangenesis or any other explanation of heredity be 

 ultimately proved to be true or not, the consideration must. 



