CRIMINAL ANTHROPOLOGY IN ITALY. 747 



and unthinking expression that all criminals are mad, though every- 

 day experience in the police courts puts it beyond doubt that many 

 are actually deranged, but in the sense that both classes are in a 

 similar pathological state, which manifests itself on the one hand in 

 lunacy, on the other in crime. This position is rendered still 

 stronger by the revelations of genealogical statistics, which reveal 

 the heredity through long generations of criminal tendencies, as they 

 do of insanity, and alternations of criminals and madmen, in the 

 same or successive generations. 



Lombroso divides criminals into two great classes, the original 

 or born delinquent, and the fortuitous offender, a man who becomes 

 criminal through outward influences. 



The first, the synthesis of every degeneration, the outcome of all 

 biological deterioration, commits crimes against society by virtue of 

 a morbid process passing from one generation to another, derived 

 from cerebral and other physiological conditions. In him the im- 

 pulse of passion is not sullen or isolated, but associates itself almost 

 always with reflection. The second, on the contrary, the crim- 

 inal of passion and impetus, acts at a given moment in conse- 

 quence of an overwhelming stimulus, say a sudden access of jealousy. 

 The two classes frequently merge into each other, for the mere fact 

 that a man, suddenly, without reflection, by a reflex act, as it were, 

 stabs his offender or his unfaithful wife, proves that he is not normal. 

 The want of reflection constitutes an extenuating circumstance be- 

 fore judge or jury, but before pathological psychology, says Signor 

 Sergi, u it constitutes an accusation." 



The importance of the distinction is seen in the views taken on 

 criminal jurisprudence by Lombroso and his school. It is generally 

 said that to act logically in face of these views we should have to 

 make extensive use of capital punishment. The most hasty perusal 

 of Lombroso's books will show that this is not his view of the case. 

 He lays immense stress on prevention, for even the morbid process 

 may, he asserts, be modified in the very young, just as a disease, 

 taken in time, may be cured, but, neglected, becomes chronic. 



He examines carefully the means adopted in various countries 

 for refining the minds of children, and speaks warmly of English 

 ragged schools. Juvenile refinement, strict but judicious control, 

 education in the highest sense of the word these must be, he argues, 

 the primary object of every nation which aims at decreasing its 

 criminality. He also advocates an association between various na- 

 tions for the hunting of criminals, and for making such observations 

 on their lives and habits as shall lead to their easier classification. In 

 reformatories he has small belief; statistics show that they in no way 

 decrease the percentage of recidivists; the fact of recidivism shows 



