376 BEPORT— 1882. 



The statistics of crime liave often given rise to tlie theory, that a 

 propensity for crime is within us, and that in committing it the criminal 

 only follows a necessity of nature — that free will is, in fact, powerless, 

 where a necessity, or fatality, really governs all our actions. Whence is it, 

 it is asked, that nearly the same proportion of crimes are committed every 

 year in proportion to population, and these in nearly the same proportion 

 as against the person and against property ? Buckle, in his ' History of 

 Civilisation in England,' said that free will is only a dream of weak minds 

 who obstinately refuse to admit that the world is held together by an 

 inexorable law of causality. Quetelet saw in man a being subject to the 

 action of certain laws which are beyond his power to control, knowing 

 what is in him, yet conscious of responsibility for what he is doing. 

 Wagner' represented the law of necessity which masters human actions as 

 acting to such an extent that whatever happens occurs independently of 

 the human will, and simply as a consequence of an absolute law. It is 

 true, indeed, that human society is bound together by a thousand threads, 

 and that every individual is affected by events which influence his con- 

 duct from his very birth ; but human actions do not exhibit that same 

 identity of character from age to age as the presence of such a law would 

 necessitate. The operative causes of crime are, moreover, not always the- 

 same, and they act more powerfully on the weak than on the strong. 

 Most certainly we are free to master them, and are even able to do so,, 

 if only by patience and endurance we acquire moral strength to conquer, 

 instead of being conquered by them. 



§ 2. Judicial Statistics. 



The record of ci-ime in the United Kingdom is embodied in the three 

 annual volumes of Judicial Statistics for England and Wales, Scotland,, 

 and Ireland, respectively ; those for England and Wales dating from 1856; 

 for Scotland, from 1868 ; and from Ireland, from 1863. All the three 

 fall considerably short of the plan, which I laid down in my paper on 

 'Judicial Statistics,' read before the Law Amendment Society, in 1855, 

 as the result of the recommendation of the International Statistical 

 Congress,^ in that they do not furnish the necessary particulars regarding 

 criminals in relation to the crimes committed. The Judicial Statistics 

 for Ireland have recently omitted a most valuable part, consisting of 

 the number of persons committed for trial in each county, for the use of 

 which in this paper I am indebted to the Irish Office in London. And 

 the Judicial Statistics of Scotland do not sufficiently distinguish indict- 

 able crimes from police offences, while differences of method and nomen- 

 clature render any comparison more difficult. Nevertheless, in these 

 documents we have ample materials for determining the amount and pro- 

 gress of crime in the United Kingdom, and it is from them that all tba 

 facts commented upon in this paper are derived. 



' A. Wagner : ' Gesetamiissigkeit in den sclieinbar willkurlichen Handlnngen. 

 Hamburg, 18C4.' Drobisch : ' Die moralische statistik und die menscliliche Villens- 

 freiheit, Leipsig, 1867.' Annali di Statistica, Serie 2, vol. xsiii. 1881. 



^ See Professor Levi's letter to Mr. Fonblanque, House of Lords paper, 541 of 

 18.56, and Resolutions proposed by Lord Brougham in the House of Lords and Bill 

 for the collection of judicial statistics, introduced by Lord Brougham and prepared 

 by Professor Levi, Jlarch 3, 18.56. 



