Well, all this is just a game, and no one would dare to draw conclusions concerning our so serious work from such observations merely. But they can have a corroborative value if they are well done, when large numbers, and not an isolated few, are brought together, and when appropriate analogies are brought from appropriate cases. Such studies, which have to be sought in the daily life itself, permit easy development; if observations have been clearly made, correctly apprehended, and if, especially, the proper notions have been drawn from them, they are easily to be observed, stick in the memory, and come willingly at the right moment. But they must then serve only as indices, they must only suggest: “perhaps the case is the same to-day.” And that means a good deal; a point of view for the taking of evidence is established, not, of course, proof as such, or a bit of evidence, but a way of receiving it,--perhaps a false one. But if one proceeds carefully along this way, it shows its falseness immediately, and another presented by memory shows us another way that is perhaps correct. The most important thing in this matter is to get a general view of the human specimen--and incidentally, nobody needs more to do this than the criminalist. For most of us the person before us is only “A, suspected of _x_.” But our man is rather more than that, and especially he was rather more before he became “A suspected of _x_.” Hence, the greatest mistake, and, unfortunately, the commonest, committed by the judge, is his failure to discuss with the prisoner his more or less necessary earlier life. Is it not known that every deed is an outcome of the total character of the doer? Is it not considered that deed and character are correlative concepts, and that the character by means of which the deed is to be established cannot be inferred from the deed alone? “Crime is the product of the physiologically grounded psyche of the criminal and his environing external conditions.” (Liszt). Each particular deed is thinkable only when a determinate character of the doer is brought in relation with it--a certain character predisposes to determinate deeds, another character makes them unthinkable and unrelatable with this or that person. But who thinks to know the character of a man without knowing his view of the world, and who talks of their world-views with his criminals? “Whoever wants to learn to know men,” says Hippel,[82] “must judge them according to their wishes,” and it is the opinion of Struve:[83] “A man’s belief indicates his purpose.” But who of us asks his criminals about their wishes and beliefs?