JUSTICE. 
Section 4.—Justice. 
Those, who have directed their attention to the philosophy of crime, are aware that of late 
years several ingenious attempts have been made, more especially by continental writers, to reduce 
the subject to a science. M. Quetelet, of Brussels, and M. Guerry, of Paris, have taken the 
lead in these investigations; and—by tracing crime through the various motives and circum¬ 
stances, which had led to or accompanied it—have given ground to hope that, when sufficient 
time and space have been afforded for the extension of such investigations, it may be practicable, 
by reaching the general causes of crime, to attain the first step towards its diminution and ulti¬ 
mate removal. 
M. Quetelet infers, from the results of his inquiries, the possibility of calculating what 
number of murders, forgeries, &c. will be committed in any given community, within any given 
time, with the same weapons, &c. &c.—and this with the same certainty as we can reckon on the 
occurrence of the number of marriages, births, deaths, &c.—but adds :—“ Je suis loin d’en 
conclure cependant que I’homme ne puisse rien pour son amelioration: je crois, comme je 
l ai dit au commencement de ce Memoire, qu'il possede une force morale capable de modifier 
les lois qui le concernent; mais cette force n’agit que de la maniere la plus lente, de sorte 
que les causes qui influent sur le systbne social ne peuvent subir aucune alteration brusque.”* 
M. Guerry, likewise, has expended a great deal of ingenuity and research on this most in¬ 
teresting subject, and furnished a variety of curious tables, which have been laid before the 
British public by Mr. H. L. Bulwer, who expresses himself “ greatly disposed to concur in the 
majority of M. Guerry’s conclusions,” adding, however:—“This disposition I own is not merely 
founded upon a faith inspired by the calculations I have submitted to the reader. I do not feel 
that faith in such calculations which many do. But in this instance the results which M. Guerry 
has given are those which the ordinary rules of nature and observation would teach me to be- 
lieve.”t _ These considerations disarm the subject of its terror; and enable us to enter calmly on 
the inquiry how far natural, or general, causes may be modified by those circumstances, which it 
is in the power of a community to throw around them. Similar causes must, to a great extent, 
produce similar effects, while the human race continues to exist; hut those causes are of two 
kinds one general, or founded in nature, the other particular, or proceeding from the interven¬ 
tion of mankind : over the first, in the present state of knowledge of the natural history of man, 
it cannot be expected that any marked control can be exercised, and it is therefore on the second 
that reliance must be placed for that direction of the mental impulses, which shall lead rather to 
virtuous than to vicious results. It is demonstrated that mere intellectual instruction tends neither 
to diminish nor augment human depravity. “ L’instruction,” says M. Guerry, “ est un instru¬ 
ment dont on peut faire bon ou mauvais usage. Celle qu on va puiser dans nos ecoles elemen- 
taires, et qui consiste seulement d savoir, d’une maniere assez imparfaite, lire, ecrire, et 
calculer, ne peut supplier au defaut d’education, et ne semble pas devoir exercer une grande 
influence sur la moralite. Nous pensons qu’elle ne rend ni plus deprave ni meilleur. Nous 
aurions peine d comprendre comment il suffirait de former un homme d certaines operations 
presque materielles, pour lui donner aussitot des moeurs regulieres et developper en lui des 
sentimens d honneur et de probite.”\ How 1 , then, can so important a result as the improvement of 
human character be hoped for from the application of mental training alone, at least when exhibited 
in the mere rudiments of knowledge ? rather, indeed, might an advancement in the aptitude to 
crime be expected to attend it; for intellectual knowledge alone is not sufficient to restrain the 
passions, though it may in some degree influence the mode of their direction. It is therefore to 
the combined influence of religious, moral, and intellectual instruction alone, that the ameliora¬ 
tion of the human race may be safely committed. Had the researches of M. Quetelet been con- 
tl " u ° d hr forty years instead of four (“ les quatre annees quiontpre.ci.de 1830”), or those of 
M. Guerry for sixty years instead of six (“ les six annees comprises de 1825 d 1830”), ac¬ 
companied by the favourable circumstances here premised as essential to the improvement of 
mankind, there can be little doubt that the results developed would have been such as the 
warmest philanthropist could desire. Were such indeed not the case, how gloomy would be the 
prospect of the future—combining the same tendency to crime, with an increase of knowledge to fa¬ 
cilitate its perpetration ! Happy is it that the favourable is also the reasonable view of the 
* “ Recherches sur le Penchant au Crime mix differevs Ages. By A. Quetelet. 
t “ France, Social, Literary, Political.” 2 vols. By H. L. Bulwer, Esq. 
t “ Essai sur la Statislique Morale de la France." By A. M. Guerry. 
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