_Dictionary of Psychological Medicine_, art. “Criminal Anthropology.” Here it is stated that, at Elmira, 34 per cent. criminals on admission exhibit entire absence of moral susceptibility; while (according to Dr. Salsotto, at Turin) in 130 women guilty of murder, or complicity in murder, genuine remorse was only observed in 6. ----- Moral insensibility is usually innate, and coincident with other symptoms of degeneracy. Among several children of the same family, brought up in the same surroundings, having received the same care, a single one may differ from all the rest, be amenable neither to gentleness nor to force, and manifest a precocious depravity, which will only strengthen as he grows older. This state may be acquired and momentary, its causes being epilepsy, hysteria, apoplexy, paralytic dementia, senile decay, blows on the head, etc. Krafft-Ebing, besides an observation made by himself (_loc. cit._), quotes from Wigan the case of a young man who, in consequence of being struck on the head with a ruler, developed complete moral insensibility. When, by means of the operation of trephining, a splinter of bone pressing on the brain had been removed, he returned to his former state. We have met with other analogous cases in the course of this work. The most difficult and fiercely debated point is whether this moral anomaly is strictly instinctive and emotional in its origin, intellectual activity being entirely unconnected with it. Most writers take the affirmative view of this question, others deny it. The different modes of mental activity are so interdependent, and their relations so close, that it is difficult to solve the question definitely. We cannot refuse to admit that the intellect sometimes suffers from a counter-shock; but observation shows that most of these persons are well acquainted with the requirements of morality, and have had the abstract ideas of good, of evil, and of duty instilled into them by education, though without the slightest influence on their conduct. They have moral _ideas_, not moral feelings—_i.e._, a disposition to feel and act. The law is to them nothing but a police regulation, which they are conscious of having broken. Their intellect, often firm and clear, is only an instrument for weaving skilful plots, or justifying themselves by subtle sophisms. It was worth our while to recall, if only in a cursory manner, the nature of moral insensibility, in order to show the importance of the emotional element. In these cases there is a lack of completeness, and the deficit comes, not from the intellect, but from the character. CHAPTER IX. THE RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT.