Maconochie had invented the mark system (the principle of the indeterminate system) and made the prisoners' liberation depend upon their conduct and character and not upon the original offence. Maconochie's experience led him to write in after years to a friend, "if you would try a social-moral one (prison system) you would soon get important results. If our punishments were first of all made REFORMATORY, and generally successful in this object the prejudices of society against the early criminal would abate." Inspired with this hope of reforming the criminal and restoring him to society as a useful member, philanthropists began the exhaustive study of the criminal. In prisons where the value of this science is recognized the criminal upon his entry is subject to a most thorough examination, every item of his family history is carefully enquired into. Information concerning the occupation, education, health and character of all who are nearly related to him is obtained, as also the moral and economic conditions of his home life, and the character of his associates. He himself is studied for the existence or traces of disease; for abnormalities, arrested or exaggerated physical and mental development. The strength of his various muscles, the vitality of his organs, his mental and nervous capacity, and his moral susceptibility are all estimated. His powers of self-control are determined. His disposition is carefully studied. His opportunities in life, his educational advantages, his early career, the nature of the crime, the immediate influencing circumstances, as provocation, hunger, cold, atmospheric disturbances are all noted. Such is a brief outline of the examination, the object of which is to discover as far as possible the real cause which led to the crime, what, if any, were the social, physical, psychical and provocative elements contributing to the cause; what their value; and what are the most promising lines upon which the criminal's reform may be directed. He is by no means regarded as a passive product of forces over which he has no control, nor his crime as the consequence of himself. It is essential to the success of all reformatory discipline that moral responsibility must be recognised and observed. In fact it may be said, that reformation is complete when moral responsibility, insisted upon by the discipline, becomes at last acknowledged by the man. Perhaps it may be thought that it is not possible to conduct such a study with anything like accurate results, and that the greater part of it would be mere guess work, as e.g. the determining the capacity of a man's nervous system or his degree of moral susceptibility. This is quite a mistake. There is nothing whatever of a speculative quality in the results advanced by criminologists. Their methods are exact and compare equally with those for the investigation of other phenomena.