830 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tween ideas and sentiments in the genesis of homicide. In this 

 place Ferri recapitulates his famous classification of homicides 

 into madmen born ; homicides habitual, by occasion, and by pas- 

 sion ; and finds that among these types the most characteristic and 

 marked are the homicides born and the insane homicides, with 

 whom alone he is occupied in this volume.* 



He then exposes with a large array of facts the most marked 

 psychological characteristics of the born homicide which consti- 

 tute his psychic condition before committing his crime. These 

 characteristics are moral insensibility; insensibility toward the 

 victim, toward the sufferings of others, a cold ferocity in the 

 execution of crime, which is sometimes pushed to cannibalism ; 

 an apathetic impassibility after committing the crime and even 

 in sight of the corpse of the victim ; quiet sleep after the com- 

 mittal of the deed. These characteristics indifference at sight 

 of the sufferings and death of others are extended to the person- 

 ality of the murderer himself. Such persons are noted for their 

 moral and physical insensibility with regard to themselves, which 

 is sometimes pushed to the point of analgesia, to impassibility to 

 their own punishment, to indifference to death, and which also 

 manifests itself in the frequency of suicides among delinquents. 

 They are also cruel and insensible toward their own accomplices, 

 whom they will betray and even kill. This ferocity, this indif- 

 ference, this insensibility, of born homicides, serve as a psycho- 

 logical explanation of other characteristics which are conjoined 

 to these and which help to support these views. Indifference is 

 chronic, manifesting itself also in a preoccupation with most tri- 

 fling things quite outside of the crime committed or of a diverse 

 character, and which certainly can not by any means be attributed 

 to a supposed corruption during confinement. They feel no repug- 

 nance to the idea or to the act of homicide before the crime. They 

 have no moral sense, they use expressions which pertain to honest 

 work or expressions which ridicule their crime, which they regard 

 as a simple transgression. They do not hesitate to boast before- 

 hand of the crime they intend to commit, as though it would do 

 them credit; and even admit that they are disposed to commit 

 many more ; they have not, in short, any remorse concerning their 

 offense. To this absence of remorse, of which Ferri traces the 

 differential characteristics, must be added the obstinate denial, 

 the disinclination to repair the injury done or to repent, the indif- 

 ference to escape punishment, the easy adaptation to prison life, 



* The invention of this gradation and variety of types among criminals, certainly the 

 most fecund and fundamental, so cleverly carried into the camp of criminal anthropology, 

 has already been put forward by Ferri before the publication of this his latest work, and 

 he has every right to be proud of it. 



