Lombroso was led to formulate his doctrine of the criminal, not through the influence of the earlier workers in the same field, whose names were mentioned at the end of the last chapter, but as a natural consequence of the idea which dominated his whole mental development. This leading idea—a part of the teaching of anthropological materialism—is, on the one hand, that a man’s mode of feeling, and therewith the actual conduct of his life, are determined by his physical constitution; and, on the other hand, that this constitution must find expression in his bodily structure. He was led to the more definite formulation of this idea by chance anatomical discoveries (vide Arch. ital. delle malattie nervose, and also R.C. dell’ Istituto Lombardo, 1871, v., fasc. 18)^[9] in the corpses of criminals, one of which, the so-called “median occipital fossa,” had not been noticed by previous observers; this is found in most of the lower mammals, as well as in many monkeys. This first discovery of the kind has since been supplemented by a large number of others: in part such as were in the first instance most carefully observed by Lombroso and his pupils; in part those described by other anthropologists as “theromorphs”; in part those enumerated by Darwinian naturalists as “atavisms”—that is, characters regarded and described as vestiges inherited from the prehuman ancestors of our species. If we compare the writings of those zoologists and anatomists who treat of these questions, with those of Lombroso and his followers, we cannot fail to notice the complete independence of the Italians, and at the same time their more comprehensive grasp, and their better knowledge of prehistoric data. The anthropologists of the Italian school usually went to work in the following way. If in examining the body of a criminal they came across a theromorph in any organ, or observed any other unusual structure, they propounded certain questions regarding the peculiarity, viz.:

1. Is this peculiarity present in any of the authentic remains of prehistoric man, and, if so, how often is it met with in these, as compared with the frequency of its presence in the bodies of criminals?

2. Is it met with in the lower races of man, and, if so, how often? (The answer to this question is obtained by examining the skulls, etc., of these lower races, to be found in European museums.)

3. Is it found in the higher apes, and, if so, is it an occasional or a constant feature?

4. Is it found in other species of the group of primates?

5. Is it found in animals lower than these in the scale of classification?

6. Is it found in human beings presenting congenital morbid anomalies; more especially is it found in epileptics and in idiots?

It is easy to understand that such investigations are very laborious. In order to throw light on the meaning of comparatively insignificant data, it may be necessary to organize most comprehensive researches. Unceasing care and indefatigability in such isolated observations, and in the interpretation of their meaning, is one of Lombroso’s highest claims to honour. For this reason, his books and the thirty volumes of his archives will remain for many decades to come a rich mine of discovery for anthropology, as soon as this science returns from the study of Mongols and Australians to the examination of contemporary Europeans. As a result of these investigations, the fact has been established that, above all in the skulls and the brains of criminals, but also in other parts of the skeleton, in the muscles, and in the viscera, we find anatomical peculiarities, which in some cases resemble the characters of the few authentic remnants of the earliest prehistoric human beings, in other cases correspond to the characters of still extant lower races of mankind, and in yet others, correspond to the characters of some or all of the varieties of monkey.

From these facts Lombroso draws a somewhat rash conclusion—namely, that there are born criminals, representing the type of mankind which existed before the origin of law, the family, and property, and that the representatives of long past conditions thus thrust upon our own time are incapable of respecting the security of life and property and other legal rights; but, bold as this conclusion seems, it has, none the less, all the qualities of a scientific conjecture, inasmuch as it harmonizes with all the known facts, and enables us to deal in an orderly and critical manner with the material upon which it bears.

I leave the question open whether we are to regard this idea as a theory or merely as a hypothesis; but it is necessary to point out, in opposition to the obstinate assertions of Lombroso’s opponents, that the Italian school of anthropology has never maintained the proposition that all persons who come before European courts of justice upon criminal charges, or all who are confined in the criminal prisons of Europe, are the unchanged descendants of the Neanderthal men, who hunted the cave-bear with stone arrows. Put as concisely as possible, the doctrine of the Italian school runs as follows: Born criminals exist, presenting typical characters, both bodily and mental, and they owe their peculiar organization to the fact that their development has been affected by an atavistic reversion. It is impossible here to give particulars showing the manner in which, in the five successive editions of “L’ uomo delinquente,” this conception becomes gradually more clearly defined.

I may be permitted to make some further observations regarding the nature of this atavistic reversion. There is not one single characteristic of the human anatomy which is not the product of inheritance. The existing type of the European mixed race appears to be a permanent type; or rather, owing to the fact that the struggle for existence of our time takes an almost exclusively economic form, and that in consequence of this the brain has received a preponderant importance, the present phase of human evolution affects the brain only (in women, unfortunately, as well as in men); if any other organ than the brain is influenced by selection in modern man, it is affected solely or mainly on account of its correlation with brain development.

Naturally, future extensive changes in the size and shape of the brain will ultimately give rise to changes more or less extensive in neighbouring organs also, such as the bones of the skull, the teeth, the jaws, the external ear, and the upper cervical vertebrÆ. But for the brief period which the individual investigator has under his observation in the course of his life, the human species may approximately be regarded as a permanent type. Now our most enduring possessions in the way of bodily characteristics are inherited from very remote ancestors—they are atavisms. The great weight of the brain, the upright forehead, the large facial angle, peculiar to the European, have been inherited by him from his ancestors of the historic epoch; on the other hand, the number and shape of his teeth, the structure of his sense-organs, the arrangement of the fissures and convolutions of his cerebral cortex, the number and form of the mammary glands, the configuration of the upper limbs—these the European shares with the so-called anthropoid apes, with whom in other respects also he possesses a very close blood-relationship. Finally, the number of our fingers and toes, and the structure of the various tissues, as demonstrated by the microscope, are common to us and to the great majority of mammals; whilst innumerable other physical characteristics are shared by us with the lower vertebrata. Thus most of our bodily peculiarities are derived from our prehuman ancestors; they are atavisms, interesting antiquities. But if this be so, then the occasional appearance of one or two additional atavistic characters, whether these be derived from the men of the ice-age or from those of the tertiary period, or date back to the still undiscovered ape-men of a yet earlier day, or to the half-apes, or even to our remote fish-like progenitors, is hardly so incredible an occurrence as to demand that the thunderbolts of sterile anthropometry, so long carefully cherished by Virchow, should be launched against the heretic Lombroso.^[10]

Modern man has freed himself from much that was rooted in the blood and bone of his forefathers. But unquestionably he has not freed himself from all that was so rooted, and therefore it need not surprise us to encounter individuals who exhibit, firmly fixed either in their bodily or in their mental organization, characteristics which in the majority have been weakened or have disappeared.

Such individuals, exhibiting characters no longer possessed by the European permanent type, but still common to the most primitive extant races of mankind, such as the Old Peruvians, the Papuans, and the Australian blacks, and common also to the other primates, are found among criminals, as Lombroso showed, with remarkable frequency—in fact, to the extent of more than 40 per cent.—and with especial frequency among those whose first crime is of a serious nature, and among those who have for many years been living for and by crime.

In addition, we meet with numerous characters, either not atavisms, or not yet regarded as atavisms, but which are or may be rather of a morbid nature. Thus, the skull or the brain of a criminal may exhibit, in addition to dubious atavistic characters, certain morbid features or signs of past disease. It is, indeed, by no means improbable that a congenital atavistic special predisposition may only become active to such an extent as to lead to a criminal act in consequence of some superadded disease; but in such a case it is idle to dispute whether we have to do with a congenital, an insane, or an alcoholic criminal.

If Lombroso’s teaching were based solely upon the examination of the skulls and brains of criminals to be found in European collections, its foundation would unquestionably be too narrow. But it is based, in addition, upon the anthropological examination of many thousands of living criminals—an examination quite as thorough as that carried out by an anthropologist in the case of a savage tribe which he has crossed the world to study.

The examination of living criminals cannot, of course, take into account the convolutions of the brain, or the fossÆ, foramina, and processes on the inner surface of the skull. The first place must here be given to the external measurements of the head.

Now, as regards many of the problems of anthropology, it is left to the examiner to decide whether he will describe the facts he has to record by means of figures or ratios, or by means of a catchword descriptive of some visible peculiarity of shape or of some other objective fact.

Thus the presence of a thick bony prominence in the middle of the hard palate (torus palatinus) may, of course, be indicated by simply recording the numerical results of the measurements of the palate; but, on the other hand, we may prefer to state that one man has a slightly developed torus palatinus, another a large torus, a third none at all, and so on.

Another important character gives to the face, when seen from the front, an extremely typical shape. This is a great lateral extension of the malar bones, or, to speak more precisely, of the zygomatic arches. This condition may be denoted simply by the one word, eurygnathism, which describes it amply and aptly. On the other hand, instead of employing this term, we may, in the case of each person examined, record the exact width of the face between the malar eminences, and note also the relation of this measurement to the width of the forehead.

As regards characteristics of form, however, it is much more convenient, and at the same time conveys a much more vivid impression, to denote these merely quantitative variations, and also relations perceptible only through comparison, by means of a generally descriptive terminology, which must not, of course, be confused with the precise description of actual structures.

Employing this method, we have a lengthy register of crimino-anthropological characters, and in the following table I append a fragment of such a register:

I. PRIMATOID VARIETIES.

A. Affecting the Skull.

Cerebrogenous.

(a) Direct Cerebrogenous.

1. Frontal submicrocephaly (expressed in the relative and absolute smallness of the brain, especially in the transverse diameter). Criminals, 41 per cent.

2. Narrowing of the cranio-facial angle at the base of the skull, leading to prognathism.

Occurrence: In all primates, in negroes, Papuans, Australian blacks, etc. Criminals, 60 per cent.

3. Receding forehead.

Occurrence: According to Lombroso, in 19·4 per cent. of 4,244 criminals. According to Kurella, in criminals from Upper Silesia, 11 per cent.; in workmen from Upper Silesia, 4 per cent.

4. Often associated with 2 or 3. Middle occipital fossa.

Occurrence: In all apes, in the anthropoids, including the gibbon.

In the skulls of various races of mankind—

(b) Indirect Cerebrogenous Varieties.

1. External angular process of the frontal bone abnormally large. In criminals (704), 11·9 per cent.

2. Excessive size of orbits (exceeding the highest degree of Mantegazza’s scale of the index cranio-orbitalis)—

3. Abnormal width of frontal sinuses—

4. Strongly developed superciliary ridges—

Lombroso:

Kurella:

5. High (internal) frontal crest. The mean height of the frontal crest is normally 3·8 mm.; in criminals the mean height is 5·4 mm. In 25 per cent. of criminals it exceeds 7 mm., and in 35 per cent. of these latter it is associated with the presence of an internal occipital fossa.

(c) Marked Development of the Antagonism between Brain Development on the one hand, and Development of the Facial Portion of the Skull on the other, the latter predominating.

1. Strongly developed temporal crest, nearer than usual to the sagittal suture.

Distance between the two temporal crests, measured across the sagittal suture—

2. Torus occipitalis—

3. Eurygnathism—i.e., abnormal breadth of the face at the level of the zygoma. This is a common characteristic in the oldest human remains (skulls from Gibraltar, Cro-Magnon, and Furfooz), and in the lower races of to-day (the circumpolar tribes).

4. Excessive height of the upper jaw.

This table exhibits the characters visible in the skull in a definite class only, those whom in my “Naturgeschichte des Verbrechers” (“Natural History of the Criminal”) I have, with Lombroso’s approval, designated “primatoid.” Granted that they are typical of the criminal, it has none the less often been maintained that the Italian school is not justified in speaking of a criminal type, for the reason that not one of the individuals described exhibits all these peculiarities. How, then, it is said, can a criminal type be abstracted from such utterly heterogeneous abnormalities?

This really depends upon the possibilities of abstraction. Academically correct anthropologists continue to dispute regarding the types of the most important races of mankind, whilst description is always preceded by perception, and perception is not always in a position to comprehend the typical; he who is not endowed with a sense for the significant will see nothing but the insignificant. But there is something extremely typical in the commonest and most important characteristic of the criminal nature—namely, the coexistence of several primatoid characters in the same individual. (Characters are termed “primatoid” which are present in all primates, but which in the normal human being are developed very slightly—in part, indeed, so slightly developed as to be almost imperceptible. But in many criminals these peculiarities, which are chiefly physical, are either more strongly marked than in the normal European, or else they make their appearance in the criminal in a form in which in the normal European they are entirely unknown, whereas they are present in the members of many savage races, as well as in primates lower down in the scale.)

There is one character, however, by which the primates in general are distinguished from the lower mammals, whilst in the human species it is far more strongly marked than in other primates; but in the criminal this character is often so little developed as hardly to reach the degree characteristic of prehistoric human remains. The character in question is the greater development of the cranium (dependent upon the more powerful development of the cerebral hemispheres) in association with a lesser development of the jaws and their appendages. In this way the direct cerebrogenous characters originate; and with these are associated yet other characters, evidently in part mechanically dependent on the cerebrogenous characters, but in part arising from these in a different way. To this category belongs prognathism—the condition in which the upper jaw protrudes markedly in front of the base of the skull, so that when the face is viewed in profile, the region of the incisor teeth appears very prominent. The skulls of the lower races of mankind are prognathous, and still more prognathous are the skulls of the anthropoid apes. Directly associated with prognathism is another characteristic of the criminal type—namely, the forehead which “recedes” markedly as it rises; and associated with the receding forehead is a marked projection of the “superciliary ridges.”

It is well known that the two earliest known human skulls—that of the Neanderthal and that of Spy—both exhibit to a high degree the two characters last mentioned. If we compare with these the drawing in Lombroso’s “Archivio di psichiatria” (vol. ii., 1882) of the skull of Gasparone (the brigand celebrated under the name of “Fra Diavolo”), we cannot fail to recognize a striking example of atavism.

One of the most remarkable of these characters is the middle occipital fossa, first described by Lombroso, whose dependence upon the formation of the cerebellum is still open to dispute. In any case it is a well-marked primatoid character, for it is present in all the higher primates, with the exception of the gorilla, the chimpanzee, and the orang-utan. The middle occipital fossa was found to be present in 4·1 per cent. of the skulls provided with “students’ sets” that were examined (but it must be remembered that such skulls always include a certain proportion of the skulls of criminals). In prehistoric skulls the character was present in 14·3 per cent.; in ancient Peruvian skulls in 15 per cent.; in Australian blacks in 28 per cent.; in all the criminal skulls examined it was present in 20 per cent. The significance of such a fact as this cannot be gainsaid; and it is not surprising that its discovery by Lombroso, the pupil of Panizza, made a profound impression, more especially in view of the fact that he was then about to bring to a close his comparison of the European with the melanodermic races.

The book in which Lombroso instituted this comparison, “L’ uomo bianco e l’ Uomo di colore,” was published in 1871 by Sacchetto of Padua, after the manuscript had spent three years in vain wanderings from publisher to publisher. In this work the writer asserted the common descent of the higher apes and of the human species from an unknown primate, supporting his contention by means of anthropological data. Darwin’s “Descent of Man” was published while Lombroso’s work was in the press. The latter displays the remarkable knowledge of comparative anatomy which Lombroso owed to his teacher Panizza. It displays also a wide knowledge of ethnological literature, and a thorough acquaintanceship with the previous discoveries regarding prehistoric man (including those made at Cro-Magnon, Hohlenfels, etc., during the years 1868–1870); and it shows, in addition, the author’s remarkable talent for the discovery and utilization of fruitful analogies.

I do not propose to consider here the various anomalies and malformations of the skull discovered, described, and enumerated by Lombroso and his pupils; but on account of their importance in relation to the criminal physiognomy, we may mention that an abnormal widening of the face (due to an exceptionally great distance between the two zygomatic arches), and an abnormal divergence of the two halves of the inferior maxillary bone, are characteristic of the criminal type. Subsequently to the first publication of Lombroso’s results the question of the distance between the angles of the lower jaw was thoroughly investigated, more especially by the Dutch anthropologists and alienists, at the instigation of Winkler of Amsterdam, and with the aid of a very large quantity of material.^[11]

Many remarkable peculiarities in the shape of the skull, the origin of which cannot be referred to the above-mentioned antagonism between the development of the cranium and that of the facial portion of the skull, depend upon abnormalities and disturbances in the sequence and extent of the ossification of the sutures of the skull. We know that the flat bones of the skull-cap grow principally at the edges, with which they come into contact one with another, and that normally they continue to grow in this way as long as growth continues in the subjacent portions of the brain; but if such a suture undergoes premature ossification, room can only be provided for the growth of the brain by the yielding of one or more of the other sutures, whereby that diameter of the skull at right angles to the yielding suture becomes increased. Thus a skull in which the sagittal or interparietal suture has undergone premature ossification (as often occurs in the Eskimo) assumes the shape of a narrow boat (scaphocephaly).

It is probable that such sutural varieties are dependent upon the most diverse causes, and that in many cases they are not anomalies, but racial peculiarities or racial congenital variations, whose origin is genetically very ancient. In the skulls of criminals examined for the detection of sutural abnormalities these have been found in about 40 per cent., whilst in 1,200 living criminals the frequency was as high as 49 per cent.

Among the most interesting of the sutural abnormalities are the “Wormian bones,” by which more or less extensive deficiencies of bone along the principal sutures are filled in. A Wormian bone found at the apex of the lambdoid suture, where this joins the posterior extremity of the sagittal suture, was first discovered in the mummies of the ancient civilized race of Peru, and it has therefore been named the “Inca bone.” It is said that all the infant Inca mummies possess this bone, and that it is present in 15 to 20 per cent. of the adult Inca remains. Italian observers found it in 25 per cent. of the skulls of murderers, and in 8 per cent. of the skulls of other criminals.^[12]

Certain other peculiarities of the sutures of the skull have received much attention from students of general anthropology, on account of the fact that they constitute distinctive racial characters; but some of these are met with even more frequently in the skulls of criminals than in ethnological specimens, although their appearance in these latter is considered a characteristic feature of normal anthropology.

Of great interest are measurements of the cubical capacity of dried skulls, and also estimates of this capacity, based upon measurements of the head taken in living criminals (although such estimates can be no more than approximations). Be it noted in this connection that the extreme recorded range of capacity of normal skulls is from 2,050 c.c. (the largest) to 1,050 c.c. (the smallest); the largest recorded cubic capacity of skull in an anthropoid ape is 621 c.c.; thus, the difference between the cubic capacity of the largest and that of the smallest human skull exceeds the difference between the cubic capacity of the smallest human skull and that of the largest simian skull.

Now, collections of the skulls of criminals comparatively often contain skulls with a cubic capacity of less that 1,100 c.c., whereas skulls as small as this are hardly ever met with in collections of normal skulls; skulls ranging in cubic capacity from 1,100 c.c. to 1,800 c.c., which in collections of normal skulls are found to the extent of from 6 to 10 per cent., in collections of the skulls of criminals have been present, in various instances, to the extent of 17·8, 18, 65·5, and 72·2 per cent. respectively. Skulls below the normal mean in cubic capacity, which in collections of ordinary skulls are present to the extent of from 25 to 30 per cent., are found in the different collections of the skulls of criminals to be present to the extent of from 30 to 60 per cent. To put the matter in a word, the criminal’s skull is often submicrocephalic; it is, however, necessary to point out that skulls with the very largest cubic capacity, exceeding 1,600 c.c., are met with twice or thrice as often among the skulls of criminals (although this is not true of the Italian collections personally known to me) as they are among bone-dealers’ or museum skulls. A somewhat similar characteristic is exhibited by all the criminal characters accessible to measurement. When the material under investigation is derived indifferently from the general population, the extreme values recorded by measurement are seldom encountered. Among criminals, on the other hand, these extreme values occur much more frequently; and, indeed, the extremely low values are encountered in criminals with especial frequency when the dimension under consideration is one which usually increases as we pass from lower to higher stages in the scale of development. For example, great breadth of the face across the zygomatic arches is a characteristic of lower development; in criminals (900 instances), exceptional width and exceptional narrowness of the face in this region occurs more frequently than in the general population; but this is true to a greater extent as regards the maximal than it is as regards the minimal values of this dimension of the criminal skull.

Similar relations to those which obtain with regard to the size of the skull are found in the bodies of criminals, in respect of the size, or, rather, the weight of the brain, since the mass of the brain must naturally bear a definite relationship to the cubic capacity of the skull. In my “Naturgeschichte des Verbrechers” (“Natural History of the Criminal”), published in 1893, I have collected the data known at that period, derived, for the most part, from Italian sources; these data relate to 305 brains accurately examined. To understand the results here given, it is necessary to remember that the average weight of the European brain, the mean resultant of a very large number of weighings, is 1,360 grammes for males, and 1,220 grammes for females. A maximum very rarely exceeded (though it was exceeded, for example, in the case of Cuvier, and also in that of Tourgeniew) is a brain-weight of 1,800 grammes; whilst the smallest brain-weight known in individuals who can be regarded as having possessed normal intellectual endowments is 960 grammes for males, and 880 grammes for females. Among a very large number of normal brains, we shall find very few indeed weighing as little as 1,150 grammes, and a considerable number weighing more than 1,500 grammes. On the other hand, among the total number of the brains of criminals that have hitherto been weighed, we find that brains weighing less than 1,300 grammes form a very considerable majority; whereas, among the brains of normal individuals, less than 25 per cent. weigh less than 1,300 grammes. In the various collections of the brains of criminals, we find that brains weighing less than 1,300 grammes numbered, in one case, 62·5 per cent. (Benedikt), in a second case, 77 per cent. (Mingazzini), and in a third case, 83·2 per cent. (Mondio).

At the very time when the criminal anthropologists were making a thorough study of this problem, the anatomists (with the exception of Flesch of Wurzburg) and the professorial anthropologists (that is, those in official positions who were interested in this branch of knowledge) were vigorously contesting the idea that there was any difference between the brains of criminals and the so-called normal brains. All the more interesting, therefore, were the data communicated by Professor Johannes Ranke to the German Anthropological Congress at Dortmund in August, 1902, in association with a demonstration of plaster-casts of the heads of decapitated Chinese criminals. According to Ranke, the brains of criminals show no structural deviation from the brains of normal Europeans. This was Professor Ranke’s first contention; but to this there succeeds a little parenthesis, in which he alludes to certain peculiarities in the conformation of the central convolutions. (So, after all, these brains do differ from those of Europeans!) Ranke is straightforward enough to describe the abnormalities in question, but he adds that they are probably to be regarded as racial peculiarities. He gives no grounds whatever for this view, but he prefers to drag in an ethnological hypothesis of this kind rather than to commit himself to the heresy that the brains of criminals exhibit peculiarities; the abnormalities must be labelled “ethnological,” lest they should fall a prize to the heretical school of Lombroso.

On the other hand, in the same address (1902), Ranke laid stress on the fact that among the brains of criminals there is a preponderance of exceptionally large and of abnormally small brains, and also that among the skulls of criminals there is, similarly, a marked preponderance of extremely large and extremely small skulls—a fact which he might have ascertained as long ago as 1893 from a study of the very numerous tables of measurements and weights published in my “Natural History of the Criminal.”

Finally, in other portions of his address, Ranke approximates even more closely to the “heresies” of criminal anthropology. He insists on the need for a careful study of the brains of criminals, and he points out that there are two questions to which especial attention should be paid in future investigations of this kind. The first of these is the question whether the possessor of a brain of medium size does not exhibit less inclination to crime than one whose brain is either excessively large or excessively small; and the second is the question whether, perhaps, certain intellectual abnormalities, which readily lead to criminal practices, may not depend upon a partial microcephaly—that is to say, is it not possible that in certain sharply circumscribed portions of the brain, during intra-uterine life, there may have developed certain abnormalities corresponding to those characteristic of microcephaly? According to Ranke, it is always possible that an indirect connection exists between the so-called stenocrotaphy (narrowing of the skull in the temporal region) and the criminal tendency, in so far as, in consequence of the said narrowing of the skull, those nervous centres by whose activity automatism is kept within bounds may have their development partially arrested or may in some other way be sympathetically affected.

In these remarks we find, in the first place, a reference (although one less clear than many recorded demonstrations of Lombroso’s teachings) to the law in accordance with which extreme dimensions of physical characteristics occur in criminals with especial frequency; and, in the second place, in the theoretical portion of Ranke’s utterances we encounter the fundamental notion of criminal anthropology, which is that the lower organization of criminals, standing nearer to the lower animals than that of normal men, predisposes the former to the commission of criminal acts; and more especially that in the criminal’s skull there is no room for a brain able to hold the feelings (or, in physiological parlance, the inhibitory apparatus) requisite to induce normal social behaviour. I have devoted considerable space to this address of Ranke’s because it shows how convincing are these basic ideas of criminal anthropology, and how irresistibly they are associated with an anthropological mode of study of this social group. But how remarkable it is that, through a study of the brains of Chinese criminals, a recognition of the truth of Lombroso’s doctrines should first dawn upon a German professor of established reputation!

The study of the brains of criminals subsequently moved in two directions: whereas Benedikt, the talented and original Viennese investigator, and after him a number of Italian investigators, studied the fissures and sulci by which the surface of the human brain is divided into convolutions in such a remarkable manner; during the years 1894 to 1900, the more limited circle of Lombroso and his immediate pupils was engaged in the study of atavistic anomalies, and of those more delicate peculiarities of the intimate structure of the brain which can be demonstrated only with the aid of the microscope.

Moreover, the study of the convolutions in the brains of criminals has led to the discovery of a number of characters which may be regarded as atavistic. Most of these are primatoid varieties—that is to say, either they are manifestations of an abnormally slight development of those peculiarities of the convolutions by which the members of the human species are distinguished from the other primates, or else they are characters which are not normally found in human beings at all, although they exist normally in other primates. In a tabular comparison of the differences between the human and the simian brain, we observe that these differences are precisely those in respect of which the deviations of the criminal brain from the normal human type of brain are also manifested.

In other words, the human brain is an advanced type of the brain of the primates in general, but in the brain of the criminal the resemblances to the simian type are much more strongly marked.

It is, indeed, quite impossible to explain the abnormal moral and social behaviour of the criminal with reference merely to the abnormal configuration of the criminal’s cerebral convolutions. Perhaps the human contemporaries of the cave-bear in Europe possessed a brain, and, mutatis mutandis, exhibited in many respects a mode of life analogous to that of the modern Sardinian bandit, of the London street arab, the voyou of Montmartre, or the fugitive from the Siberian mines. But in the Stone Age there existed no economically developed society upon which our palÆolithic progenitor could become parasitic. We know almost nothing about post-glacial man. It may be possible at some future date, from a chart of the surface of the brain, to deduce the social characteristics of the race; but, although at present this deduction remains beyond our powers—and perhaps will never become easy—the primatoid character of the cerebral convolutions of the criminal possesses, none the less, a profound anthropological significance. No ethnologist is able from an examination of the convolutions of a Greenlander’s brain to deduce the national characteristics of the race to which the possessor of the brain belonged; but, nevertheless, when we see a brain with certain characteristics we are able to declare it to be the brain of a Greenlander.^[13]

The interesting discoveries of Roncoroni, regarding the peculiarities of certain cells of the cerebral cortex in criminals, though widely discredited at first, have been subsequently confirmed by Pelizzi. In this case also it appears that we have to do with atavism (Pelizzi, “Idiozia ed Epilessia,” Arch. di psichiatria, 1900, p. 409).

Not only in the skulls and brains of criminals, but also in almost all their other organs, we find abnormalities with greater average frequency than among the general population, and this is especially true of rudimentary organs, those which constitute the majority of the so-called secondary and tertiary sexual characters. Many of these abnormalities may be regarded as primatoid or atavistic; others appear to be mainly dependent upon disturbance or arrest of development. All alike, in so far as they are not merely characters acquired during the lifetime of the individual, give the impression that the criminal is a being whose humanity is not completely developed. This does not exclude the fact that the criminal himself, in the light of his own peculiar valuation of social and legal value, is apt to be firmly convinced that his is a superman.

This arrest at an earlier stage of development gives rise, in respect of numerous traits, to an approximation in the “criminal type” to the characteristics of one or other of the extant savage races of mankind—races such as the Australian, etc., which, owing to prolonged isolation from other types and, possibly, also to less rigorous selection and therefore less marked differentiation, in consequence of a less severe struggle for existence, have been able for thousands of years to retain their primitive characteristics.

We are, however, compelled to assume that many savage races have been unable to raise themselves above their present low level of intellectual, economic, and social culture, not merely on account of the slighter operation of the factors of differentiation, but also on account of an inferior innate developmental capacity. In philosophical terminology we should perhaps therefore say that the world of crime recruits itself from among the number of the less developed individuals of the nation concerned; for it is an obvious deduction from the law of organic variability that among all the individuals born as members of any civilized race there should be some who are congenitally incapacitated to attain the normal mean level of development peculiar to that race.

It is not proposed to deal here at any length with the innumerable anthropological characteristics of criminals other than those found in the skull and the brain, but the physiognomically important characters deserve separate notice.

Like all rudimentary organs (organs, that is to say, which continue to be transmitted in the absence of any discoverable physiological function), the external ear (pinna, or auricle) exhibits all possible variations. Among these variations, two only appear to be of importance in relation to criminal anthropology—viz., the handle-shaped and projecting ear (German Henkelohr) and the Darwinian tipped ear,^[14] which are met with comparatively often in criminals, the former being found in 328 among 1,568 criminals examined, and the latter in 189 out of 1,187; rare in comparison with these is the so-called Morel’s ear, in which the external margin of the auricle (the helix) is not folded upon itself. Morel’s ear is a sign of a congenital tendency to severe nervous troubles, and it is a remarkable fact that this character is common in prostitutes.

According to my own observations, in addition to the two abnormalities in the shape of the external ear already mentioned, we sometimes find in criminals other strongly marked malformations of the ear; and as in the case of other abnormal characters in criminals, so also in the case of those of the ear, the anomalies are met with more frequently in proportion as the crime for which the man was condemned was grave in character, and in proportion also to the intensity with which the criminal tendency has been manifested in the course of life.

The length of the auricle is also subject to great variations in criminals. In Europeans the normal length of the ear lies between 51 and 60 millimetres (2 and 2·36 inches); it is longer than this in Mongols and Indians, shorter in Malays, Papuans, and Australians; shortest in Nubians, Negroes, and Bushmen. In this respect also (i.e., in the greater range of variation) criminals resemble savage races rather than civilized. According to the measurements of Frigerio, great length of the external ear is in thieves and robbers even more characteristic than great length of fingers, which latter, however, is also something more than proverbial merely.^[15]

If we endeavour to combine the physiognomical peculiarities of the criminal type with the data of anthropological investigation, we obtain a somewhat monotonous picture in widely different climates, notwithstanding the fact that it is not permissible to speak of a perfectly uniform type. The reason why this is impossible is one to which I have already alluded more than once—namely, the fact that the extreme cases, very great or very small values of linear dimensions, surfaces, and weights, of the human body and its parts, are encountered far more frequently among the inmates of our great prisons than they are among an equivalent number of non-criminals; for example, among several hundred factory employÉs, soldiers, emigrants—in a word, any other category of mankind. It must not, however, be supposed that what we find is, in one-half of the criminals we examine, that everything is too large, and in the other half, that everything is too small. What we find is: one dimension too large, and another dimension too small, side by side in the same individual. An extremely common combination is: too small a cranium, with jaws unduly large; beard too scanty; ears too large. As regards an immediate general impression, and on superficial observation, there can be no question of a “type.” The type first becomes manifest as a result of intimate study. Anthropometrically, the criminal type represents the extreme values; zoologically, it represents the primatoid characters; developmentally, cases of incomplete development, such as are found here and there in all nationalities. Such is the meaning of the doctrine of the criminal type, which, intentionally or unintentionally, has been continually misunderstood.

In respect of an immediate general impression, a well-marked example of the criminal type attracts attention less by the expression of the face than by the permanent structural peculiarities of the skull and the face, more especially the smallness of the skull as a whole or in the frontal region, the receding forehead, the large frontal sinuses, prognathism of the upper jaw, and massiveness of the lower jaw, prominent malar bones, and all kinds of anomalies in the shape of the skull. The large, pale face is often very striking, with scanty beard, thick, usually dark, hair, and large projecting ears. The nose is commonly long and straight; in some cases it is bulky, with a wide, ill-defined bridge. A well-formed, symmetrical nose is extremely rare in the criminal type. Asymmetry of the face and a crooked nose are so typical that realistic painters, from the period of the Early Renascence down to the days of modern naturalism, depict these peculiarities whenever they are painting rascals, vagabonds, executioners, condemned criminals, and the like. I may mention, more especially, Goya, Gavarni, GÉricault, Canon, Wiertz, Leibl, etc. In GÉricault’s drawing, “TÊte d’un SuppliciÉ” (“Head of an Executed Criminal”), the asymmetry of the nose is very clearly represented; whilst the broad, deeply-furrowed face, the thin moustache, the narrow and receding forehead with prominent superciliary ridges, the prominent cheek-bones, the heavy lower jaw, and the irregular teeth, combine to constitute the complete criminal type.

The physiognomy of the criminal is naturally dominated by the traces left on the face by the habitual modes of expression. Youthful criminals have, for the most part, a dull or a frivolous appearance. The life of crime when they are free, and the prison life when they are not free, combine to produce a permanent imprint of anger and obstinacy, cunning and hypocrisy. Obstinacy and anger are often expressed by a permanent compression of the lips, marked wrinkling of the forehead, and a wild look in the eyes. This last, quite by itself, often suffices to betray the criminal nature, especially in the faces of women.

Elderly criminals often lose the energetic expansive expression, which during prolonged periods of confinement they have endeavoured to transform into a submissive mien—often, however, with but partial success, resulting in a peculiar form of the superciliary arches, which assume the appearance of an S lying on the side. In others, the dominant brutality is marked by a one-sided grin, or by restless facial movements. Lombroso made some valuable observations regarding the peculiar look of the criminal, which he often demonstrated to me personally. The cold, wild glance of the murderer, and the restless glance of the thief, are unmistakable. The cheat and the chevalier d’industrie (sharper), attempting to play the man of integrity or the loyal soul, betray themselves by their piercing glances. Very great restlessness of the glance, to a degree verging on the pathological, is often seen in murderers, alternating with a cold, glassy, fixed stare. In the mouth may be observed all shades of cruelty and defiance; the fawning smile of the poisoner and of the homosexual prostitute is a very common appearance. In the deeply-wrinkled face of elderly criminals, Lombroso’s pupil, Ottolenghi, was the first to discover a remarkable furrow, extending across the middle of the cheek at the level of the angle of the mouth. I have rarely seen it outside the prison walls, but have found it with notable frequency in the convicts of Upper Silesia. Lombroso has named it the ride du vice.

In this chapter I have simply attempted to give a sketch of the data of criminal anthropology. In view of the extensive material already available, collected by numerous observers whose methods often differ, a scientifically adequate exposition of these data is by no means easy. It gives little satisfaction to learn from tabular statements that such and such characters occur with such and such frequency. What we want to know is, what proportion of criminals in general exhibit characters of this kind, and how many of such characters may be assembled in a single individual.

From 5,000 cases described in the literature of the subject, for the most part by Lombroso himself or by his immediate pupils, I have selected those cases in which the individual had been carefully examined, in which his life-history was thoroughly known, and in which mental disorder could be excluded: these numbered 800. I compared them with the cases studied by myself in the prisons of Upper Silesia, whose records were accessible to me; from these also I excluded several dozen as idiots or lunatics.

The material being thus rigorously sifted, very carefully analyzed, and consisting exclusively of criminals, it was then tabulated. The results obtained were briefly the following:

There were present

From this we learn that among those repeatedly convicted of serious crime in Western and Middle Europe, no less than 60 per cent. exhibit several distinctive characters, indicating the existence of an abnormal congenital predisposition.