74 THE TREND OF THE RACE 



existence of a definite type, — a kind of human being endowed with 

 a pecuHar physical organization and with instincts which power- 

 fully dispose him to commit anti-social acts. Such individuals 

 seem predestined to a life of crime from the day of their concep- 

 tion. They take to it as a cow takes to pasture, because of the 

 impelling force of unconquerable instinct. 



Lombroso's early study of psychiatry gradually led him into 

 the field of anthropometry. He began a series of studies on the 

 physical and mental characteristics of Italian prisoners and 

 having had occasion to make a post-mortem study of a famous 

 brigand, Vilella, he was struck with certain anomalies of the 

 brain and particularly with a depression situated "precisely in the 

 middle of the occiput as in inferior animals, especially rodents." 

 "At the sight of that skull," says Lombroso, "I seemed to see 

 all of a sudden, lighted up as a vast plain under a flaming sky, the 

 problem of the nature of the criminal — an atavistic being who 

 reproduces in his person the ferocious instincts of primitive 

 humanity and the inferior animals. Thus were explained anatom- 

 ically the enormous jaws, high cheek-bones, prominent super- 

 ciliary arches, solitary lines in the palms, extreme size of the 

 orbits, handle-shaped or sessile ears found in criminals, savages, 

 and apes, insensibility to pain, extremely acute sight, tattooing, 

 excessive idleness, love of orgies, and the irresistible craving for 

 evil for its own sake, the desire not only to extinguish life in the 

 victim, but to mutilate the corpse, tear its flesh, and drink its 

 blood." 



Further studies carried on with much industry and enthusiasm 

 served to confirm Lombroso in his interpretation of the born 

 criminal as an atavistic product. It would be unjust to represent 

 Lombroso, as some of his critics have done, as teaching that all 

 or even a large majority of offenders are born criminals. He is 

 perfectly well aware, and has clearly stated, that many who are 

 led into crime are the victims of untoward influences, but he 

 insists that there is a class of human beings of degenerate inheri- 

 tance, and distinguished by certain physical and mental peculiar- 

 ities, who constitute a so-called criminal type. And he is careful 



