The significant fact in regard to the procedures of justice is that they
are of men, by men, and for men. Any attempt to eliminate unduly the
human element, or to esteem a system apart from its adaptation to the
psychology of human traits as they serve the ends of justice, is likely
to result in a machine-made justice and a mechanical administration. As
a means of furthering the plasticity of the law, of infusing it with a
large human vitality--a movement of large scope in which religion and
ethics, economics and sociology are worthily cooperating--the psychology
of the party of the first part and the party of the second part may well
be considered. The psychology of the judge enters into the consideration
as influentially as the psychology of the offender. The many-sidedness
of the problems thus unified in a common application is worthy of
emphasis. There is the problem of evidence: the ability of a witness to
observe and recount an incident, and the distortions to which such
report is liable through errors of sense, confusion of inference with
observation, weakness of judgment, prepossession, emotional interest,
excitement, or an abnormal mental condition. It is the author’s view
that the judge should understand these relations not merely in their
narrower practical bearings, but in their larger and more theoretical
aspects which the study of psychology as a comprehensive science sets
forth. There is the allied problem of testimony and belief, which
concerns the peculiarly judicial qualities. To ease the step from ideas
to their expression, to estimate motive and intention, to know and
appraise at their proper value the logical weaknesses and personal
foibles of all kinds and conditions of offenders and witnesses,--to do
this in accord with high standards, requires that men as well as
evidence shall be judged. Allied to this problem which appeals to a
large range of psychological doctrine, there is yet another which
appeals to a yet larger and more intricate range,--that of human
character and condition. Crimes are such complex issues as to demand the
systematic diagnosis of the criminal. Heredity and environment,
associations and standards, initiative and suggestibility, may all be
condoning as well as aggravating factors of what becomes a “case.” The
peculiar temptations of distinctive periods of life, the perplexing
intrusion of subtle abnormalities, particularly when of a sexual type,
have brought it about that the psychologist has extended his laboratory
procedures to include the study of such deviation; and thus a common set
of findings have an equally pertinent though a different interest for
the theoretical student of relations and the practitioner. There are, as
well, certain special psychological conditions that may color and quite
transform the interpretation of a situation or a bit of testimony. To
distinguish between hysterical deception and lying, between a
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