1 879*3 TAtf Criminal Law of the Future. 595 
on the question of heredity. But letting this pass, we may 
ask if external influences, moral or social, can modify the 
conduct and character of the individual, what is our right 
to assume — as the author just quoted evidently does — that 
their effects must cease with his death, and fail to reach his 
posterity ? Everyone has seen a series of parallel portraits 
entitled “ The Child ; what will he become ? ” Can we 
suppose that the diverse agencies which have moulded the 
one into intelligence, refinement, and integrity, but have 
warped the other into ignorance, vice, and brutality, will 
leave their descendants equal and similar, the minds of both 
groups being tahulce rasce as easily open to good as to bad 
impressions ? Unless we can grant this monstrous postu- 
late we must, “ vulgar ” as it may seem, recognise heredity 
as an important faCtor in the generation of conduct and 
character. 
In meeting the deniers of heredity we are, however, 
placed at a disadvantage, inasmuch as they have hitherto 
brought forward no definite and tangible arguments for its 
rejection, but have contented themselves with the easier 
task of vituperation, or of mourning over the possible con- 
sequences of its general recognition. Till they produce 
objections of a different stamp they may perhaps be safely 
ignored. One thing at least is certain, that if there be any 
truth in heredity it is a principle which cannot be rationally 
or safely ignored in the framing and enforcement of criminal 
law. Without at all denying that a normal man may, under 
circumstances of temptation, transgress against the property 
and even the persons of his neighbours, we must admit that 
on the theory of inheritance the criminal class must produce 
its like. The murderers, the burglars, the ruffians of our 
day, are the sons of similar characters who infested the 
country some thirty or forty years ago, and are in turn 
becoming the fathers of a new generation of evil-doers. 
Surely, then,, a most important point in criminal jurispru- 
dence is the arrest of this succession. Of what use is the 
occasional imprisonment and the ultimate execution of the 
habitual criminal if he is suffered to become a father ? It 
is often said by the humanitarian school that in the treat- 
ment of crime we have tried severity and failed. To this 
argument our reply is easy : — Our severity, though in some 
cases excessive, was illogical, as bearing no proportion to 
the moral delinquency of the offender. It treated crimes 
against property more rigorously than those against the 
person, and hence it failed to eliminate the most dangerous 
class of offenders, and it totally overlooked the propagation 
