Outside of these conditions of the moral sense, which is no
special sentiment, but an expression of the entire moral
constitution of the individual, as the temperament is of his
physiological constitution, other sentiments, of selfishness or
even of unselfishness, are not wanting in the majority of
criminals. Hence arise many illusions for superficial observers
of criminal life. But these latter sentiments are either
excessive, as hate, cupidity, vanity and the like, and are thus
stimulants to crime, or else, as with religion, love, honour,
loyalty, and so on, they cease to be forces antagonistic to crime,
because they have no foundation in a normal moral sense.
From this fundamental inferiority of sentiment there follows an
inferiority of intelligence, which, however, does not exclude
certain forms of craftiness, though it tends to inability to
foresee the consequences of crime, far in excess of what is
observed in the average members of the classes of society to which
the several criminals belong.
<p 11>
Thus the psychology of the criminal is summed up in a defective
resistance to criminal tendencies and temptations, due to that
ill-balanced impulsiveness which characterises children and
savages.
II.
I have long been convinced, by my study of works on criminal
anthropology, but especially by direct and continuous observation
from a physiological or a psychological point of view of a large
number of criminals, whether mad or of normal intelligence, that
the data of criminal anthropology are not entirely applicable, in
their complete and essential form, to all who commit crimes. They
are to be confined to a certain number, who may be called
congenital, incorrigible, and habitual criminals. But apart from
these there is a class of occasional criminals, who do not
exhibit, or who exhibit in slighter degrees, the anatomical,
physiological, and psychological characteristics which constitute
the type described by Lombroso as ``the criminal man.''
Before further defining these two main classes of criminals, in
their natural and descriptive characterisation, I must add a
positive demonstration, which can be attested under two distinct
forms--(1) by the results of anthropological observation of
criminals, and (2) by statistics of relapse, and of the
manifestations of crime which anthropologists have hitherto
chiefly studied.
As for organic anomalies, as I cannot here treat <p 12>the whole
matter in detail, I will simply reproduce from my study of
homicide a summary of results for a single category of these
anomalies, which a methodical observation of every class of
criminals will carry further and render more precise, as Lombroso
has already shown (see the fourth edition of his work, 1889, p.
273).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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