284 THE ABNORMAL MAN. 



position and directed his conduct. Bad heredity, 

 bad whiskey and bad environment vie with one 



The Principal another for the trophy of crime. Seldom does 

 Causes of Crime. r 



a man become a habitual criminal without the 



conjoined influence of the* three. In thousands 

 of cases in which liquor or evil associates are the 

 immediate cause, bad heredity is primary. 



Criminal tendencies in a man are quickly awak- 

 ened and greatly augmented by evil associations 

 and the use of narcotics. Even where the crim- 

 inal instincts are very strong by inheritance, if 

 The Well-born a man lives a temperate life and is removed from 

 Crime? ommit all bad associations, neither he nor his most in- 

 timate friends may ever suspect his criminal tend- 

 encies; but let him begin drinking and associate 

 with vicious characters and his inborn criminal 

 instincts will soon be expressed in conduct. If 

 he commit crime, the natural inference is (since 

 he has always been a law abiding citizen up to 

 the time he began drinking) that liquor was the 

 supreme cause while, in reality, it was only the 

 stimulator of his latent criminal tendencies. 



The more I study the criminal and I have 

 looked up the family record and prenatal influ- 

 ences of many the more I am inclined to the 

 opinion that the well-born person rarely, if ever, 

 lapses into high crime. 



Occasionally well-born persons under the in- 

 The Occasional fluence of liquor, excitement, or hypnotic sug- 



C]riinin.til . . I 



gestion commit crime, but they quickly repent, 

 are horrified at the thought of their mistake and 

 some would prefer death to repeating it, thereby 

 showing that they are vastly different from the 

 hereditary or habitual criminal who delights in 



