HERITABLE BASIS OF CRIME AND DELINQUENCY 77 



for by the theory that epilepsy of criminals commonly exists in 

 an attenuated or modified form. "If fully developed epileptic 

 fits are often lacking in case of the born criminal, this is because 

 they remain latent under the influence of the causes assigned, 

 (anger, alcoholism), which bring them to the surface. With both 

 criminals and epileptics there is to be noted an insufficient devel- 

 opment of the higher centres. This manifests itself in the de- 

 terioration in the moral and emotional sensibilities . . . and es- 

 pecially in the lack of balance in the mental faculties, which, even 

 when distinguished by genius and altruism, nevertheless always 

 show gaps, contrasts, and intermittent action." 



The investigations and theories of Lombroso greatly stimu- 

 lated the study of criminology and formed the starting point of a 

 school, the so-called positive school of criminologists, which has 

 been particularly active in collecting data on criminal anthro- 

 pology. The doctrines of this school have been vigorously 

 opposed by other students of crime, especially by Tarde, Topi- 

 nard, and more recently Goring whose work on The English 

 Convict represents perhaps the most thorough biometric investi- 

 gation of criminals that has yet been made. If the members of 

 the positive school went too far in representing the born criminal 

 as a member of a distinct atavistic type, they did valuable service 

 in directing attention to the fact that crime often has a basis in 

 physical and mental abnormality, and in paving the way for a 

 true science of criminology. 



The notion of atavism in the sense in which it figures so largely 

 in the theories of the positive school is one which is no longer 

 adopted by most modern workers in genetics. The reversion 

 which follows upon the restoration of ancestral conditions in the 

 germ plasm by the combination of complementary factors in the 

 crossing of different races of plants and animals, is a phenomenon 

 quite different from the so-called atavistic peculiarities of criminal 

 man. Much of what appears like atavism may result from 

 arrested development occasioned by various pathological causes. 

 And many deviations from normal structure which, if they do not 

 happen to resemble conditions occurring in one animal may be 



