74 THE TREND OF THE RACE 
existence of a definite type,—a kind of human being endowed with 
a peculiar 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 
