530 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



result we have the criminal. It is quite unnecessary to spend 

 time in exposing this fallacy in physiology ; we need only refer 

 to the Italians, whose food is very largely vegetable, and whose 

 percentage of crime is among the greatest. The native inhabit- 

 ants in India are another case in point ; for their diet is likewise 

 almost entirely a vegetable one, and yet, if it were not for the in- 

 terference of the carnivorous English, they would even now be 

 addicted to the almost universal practice of infanticide. So also 

 is it that social rank, while setting metes and bounds in every 

 other direction, fades away in the domain of evil. The criminal 

 may be high or low, he still is the criminal ; and, reasoned 

 about broadly, there are as many offenses among the socially 

 exalted as the socially debased. 



Thus from every side we are driven away from the fortuitous, 

 the occasional, the accidental as the controlling cause. We are 

 forced, as a necessary resort, to something more reasonable, more 

 stable, something which we can work on and understand. And as 

 soon as we look on the matter with such eyes, it becomes plainer, 

 more tangible, holding out hopes for amelioration if not entire 

 cure. 



In a problem like this, which has so many ramifications, we 

 should seek for constant factors of divergence from the normal ; 

 or, better still, let us decide what is the healthiest development, 

 so that we may be better able to understand the abnormal, the 

 deficient in human character. " The perfection of man," says 

 M. de Laveleye, "consists in the full development of all his 

 forces, physical as well as intellectual, and of all his sentiments ; 

 in the feeling of affection for the family and humanity; in a 

 feeling for the beautiful in Nature and art." Now we have 

 something really definite. We have a clear idea of what is 

 essential to the highest growth of human worth, and immedi- 

 ately we recognize that in the criminal we have a being more or 

 less utterly removed from this standard, and thus representing 

 what is abnormal, twisted, or diseased. What is more, this di- 

 vergence is a constant one, which reproduces itself over and over 

 again in successive generations of wrongdoers. It is rarely 

 necessary for a man to commit crime at the present time, even 

 though he be laboring under adverse circumstances; and it is 

 never necessary for him to continue such a career. Therefore, 

 when he does, it is a matter of choice or of temperament. Very 

 often the amount of ingenuity and talent exhibited would be suf- 

 ficient, if rightly applied, to bring him comfort if not greater 

 rewards in the regular lines of effort. 



The majority of us exhibit a strange lack of logic in thinking 

 about hereditary transmissions. We recognize the necessity of 

 breeding and the duty of selection in regard to animals ; we are 



