Amongst brigands, we find a few badly-armed individuals performing marvels of valour, and the leaders, although ignorant men, manifesting an intelligence and tactical skill that puts trained armies to shame. Could not the tendencies of criminals be used for the good of their country? The qualities developed in primitive races by constant warfare against the forces of nature are characteristic also of criminals. Let those whom nature has destined to reproduce impulsive and brutal instincts in a civil and industrial age be permitted to employ them in defending civilisation with true primitive valour against external and internal enemies, against barbarous peoples who would restrict its boundaries, or reactionary elements who seek to hinder its progress. The Great Redeemer, who in pardoning the adulteress, said, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her," and the Prophet who foretold the day when the wolf and the lamb should dwell together and the lion should eat straw like the ox and should "not hurt nor destroy," divined perhaps this noble aim. If criminal anthropology is destined to lead mankind to this goal, it may well be pardoned all the harsh measures it has seen fit to suggest in order to realise the supreme end--social safety. PART III CHARACTERS AND TYPES OF CRIMINALS CHAPTER I _EXAMINATION OF CRIMINALS_ Criminal anthropologists are unanimous in insisting on the importance of the results to be gained from a careful examination of the physical and psychic individuality of the offender, with a view to establishing the extent of his responsibility, the probabilities of recidivation on his part, the cure to be prescribed or the punishment to be meted out to him; but besides furnishing the magistrate with a sound basis for his decisions, the anthropological examination will prove of great assistance to probation officers, superintendents of orphanages and rescue homes and all those who are entrusted with the destinies of actual offenders or candidates for crime. I have therefore decided to devote this part of my summary to a minute demonstration of the methods to be employed in these examinations, which should be conducted on the one hand with the scientific precision that distinguishes clinical diagnoses of diseases and on the other with special rules deduced from the long experience of criminologists in dealing with criminals and the insane, between whom there is so much affinity. ANTECEDENTS AND PSYCHIC INDIVIDUALITY