This general theory of defectiveness as a general attribute of criminality may be regarded by some as confirmed by the fact that persons convicted of crime are mainly drawn from the lowest social scale; and it is plausible to infer that physical and mental inferiority is allied to a low economic scale of living. This theory, however, must not be pressed so far as to affect the liability to punishment of the offender for his act. Penal law is, through its prohibitions, the expression of the social standard of life in the country. Where that standard is high, there must be a residuum of individuals whose mental and physical state does not enable them to live up to that standard. They fall below it through constitutional incapacity, which manifests itself in weakness of will and power of resistance. This inquiry goes to show that it may be predicated that with regard to the great mass of offenders coming within the meshes of the criminal law, this _defectiveness_, in its economic sense, is a predisposing cause, and has no necessary relation to definite physical or mental disease. It is a relative term only, relative to a high standard of social requirement to maintain which the law exists. Penal law, wisely and humanely administered, as in a highly civilized State, should apply its sanctions only with regard to the varying characters and capacities of those who come before the Courts. In other words, punishment must be individualized. The tendency towards the individualization of punishment is making marked progress in all the countries of the world, and nowhere more than in this country. In addition to the absolute discretion vested in the Courts and Tribunals, there is a careful classification for purposes of prison treatment, the object of which is to adapt, as far as practicable, the nature of the punishment to the character and antecedents of the offender. Although, therefore, the fact brought out by the inquiry that, on the average, the English prisoner is defective in physique and mental capacity, would seem to call in question the whole responsibility of any person guilty of an anti-social act, yet, if fully and properly understood, it does not mean more than that in a perfect world where the faculties of each would be fully and highly developed, the problem of punishment would not exist; and it would be a cause of rejoicing if the crime of the country could be demonstrated by statistical methods to be the result, not of a general perversity pervading all classes, but a tendency only on the part of persons living on a low economic scale to fail, on account of physical or mental defectiveness, to conform to the restraints of the criminal law. I regard this as a fair and reasonable explanation of crime generally in this country. It is, at least, an explanation which must fortify and stimulate all those who desire that there shall be fewer persons suffering from those incapacities