CRIMINALS AND THE INSANE.

Criminality, though not very various in its development, is extremely complex in its origin; nevertheless certain general conclusions are arrived at by the best writers on the subject, among whom Prosper Despine is one of the most instructive.  The ideal criminal has marked peculiarities of character:  his conscience is almost deficient, his instincts are vicious, his power of self-control is very weak, and he usually detests continuous labour.  The absence of self-control is due to ungovernable temper, to passion, or to mere imbecility, and the conditions that determine the particular description of crime are the character of the instincts and of the temptation.

The deficiency of conscience in criminals, as shown by the absence of genuine remorse for their guilt, astonishes all who first become familiar with the details of prison life.  Scenes of heartrending despair are hardly ever witnessed among prisoners; their sleep is broken by no uneasy dreams—­on the contrary, it is easy and sound; they have also excellent appetites.  But hypocrisy is a very common vice; and all my information agrees as to the utter untruthfulness of criminals, however plausible their statements may be.

We must guard ourselves against looking upon vicious instincts as perversions, inasmuch as they may be strictly in accordance with the healthy nature of the man, and, being transmissible by inheritance, may become the normal characteristics of a healthy race, just as the sheep-dog, the retriever, the pointer, and the bull-dog, have their several instincts.  There can be no greater popular error than the supposition that natural instinct is a perfectly trustworthy guide, for there are striking contradictions to such an opinion in individuals of every description of animal.  The most that we are entitled to say in any case is, that the prevalent instincts of each race are trustworthy, not those of every individual.  But even this is saying too much, because when the conditions under which the race is living have recently been changed, some instincts which were adapted to the old state of things are sure to be fallacious guides to conduct in the new one.  A man who is counted as an atrocious criminal in England, and is punished as such by English law in social self-defence, may nevertheless have acted in strict accordance with instincts that are laudable in less civilised societies.  The ideal criminal is, unhappily for him, deficient in qualities that are capable of restraining his unkindly or inconvenient instincts; he has neither sympathy for others nor the sense of duty, both of which lie at the base of conscience; nor has he sufficient self-control to accommodate himself to the society in which he has to live, and so to promote his own selfish interests in the long-run.  He cannot be preserved from criminal misadventure, either by altruistic sentiments or by intelligently egoistic ones.