Finally, in other portions of his address, Ranke approximates even more closely to the “heresies” of criminal anthropology. He insists on the need for a careful study of the brains of criminals, and he points out that there are two questions to which especial attention should be paid in future investigations of this kind. The first of these is the question whether the possessor of a brain of medium size does not exhibit less inclination to crime than one whose brain is either excessively large or excessively small; and the second is the question whether, perhaps, certain intellectual abnormalities, which readily lead to criminal practices, may not depend upon a partial microcephaly—that is to say, is it not possible that in certain sharply circumscribed portions of the brain, during intra-uterine life, there may have developed certain abnormalities corresponding to those characteristic of microcephaly? According to Ranke, it is always possible that an indirect connection exists between the so-called stenocrotaphy (narrowing of the skull in the temporal region) and the criminal tendency, in so far as, in consequence of the said narrowing of the skull, those nervous centres by whose activity automatism is kept within bounds may have their development partially arrested or may in some other way be sympathetically affected. In these remarks we find, in the first place, a reference (although one less clear than many recorded demonstrations of Lombroso’s teachings) to the law in accordance with which extreme dimensions of physical characteristics occur in criminals with especial frequency; and, in the second place, in the theoretical portion of Ranke’s utterances we encounter the fundamental notion of criminal anthropology, which is that the lower organization of criminals, standing nearer to the lower animals than that of normal men, predisposes the former to the commission of criminal acts; and more especially that in the criminal’s skull there is no room for a brain able to hold the feelings (or, in physiological parlance, the inhibitory apparatus) requisite to induce normal social behaviour. I have devoted considerable space to this address of Ranke’s because it shows how convincing are these basic ideas of criminal anthropology, and how irresistibly they are associated with an anthropological mode of study of this social group. But how remarkable it is that, through a study of the brains of Chinese criminals, a recognition of the truth of Lombroso’s doctrines should first dawn upon a German professor of established reputation!