i8yg.] The Criminal Law of the Future, 597 
that if, by a systematic and persevering course of action, 
ability, with its culminating point genius, has been stamped 
out among one great nation, so, by another course of adtion 
equally systematic and equally persevering, roughdom, with 
its culminating point crime, might be eliminated quite as 
thoroughly in another. It must not be forgotten that when 
in the good old times the Holy Office had roasted any man 
in the market-place, ad majorem Dei gloriam, it failed not to 
keep an especially minute watch upon the doings of his 
family, whether in the ascending, descending, or collateral 
lines. Here then it appears was a tacit admission of the 
heredity of character. 
A still more striking recognition of the same principle is 
to be found in the annals of Oriental despotism. It was 
nothing unusual for sultan, shah, caliph, or mogul, when 
condemning to death any man who from points of view then 
prevailing was deemed an arch-criminal, to include in the 
sentence all his kindred. That here the mark was grossly 
overleapt needs little showing. All the children and other 
relatives, even of a Peace, are no more necessarily criminals 
than are all the descendants of a blood horse necessarily fit 
to be entered for the Derby or the St. Leger. But what 
the criminal legislation of the future will do — unless it be 
dominated by those who pander to crime — is probably this : 
the lineage and connections of every offender, and especially 
of every habitual criminal, will be carefully scrutinised, and 
all surviving members will be subjected to an unobtrusive 
but penetrating scrutiny. The younger members of the race 
will be as far as possible surrounded with such moral and 
religious influences as may most effectually check and coun- 
teract their probable inbred tendency to crime. They will 
be treated, mutatis mutandis , on the same principle as we 
now observe in handling petroleum spirit, nitro-glycerin, and 
other specially dangerous substances. Just as we guard the 
latter from the approach of fire, and prevent them from 
being accumulated in too great quantities at one place, so 
will the scions of a criminal family be kept from the contact 
of incitements to evil. Our courts of justice will have 
their criminal genealogists, whose records will shed a new 
and most valuable light on not a few unsolved problems, 
both of biology and of mental science. 
As for the man who has once formally declared war 
against Society, hoisting, so to speak, the black flag, care 
will be taken that he shall neither repeat his offence nor 
after its commission become a parent. 
One of the peculiarities of the half-educated public is that 
