“Proceeding to a more extended view of the subject and praising the successful efforts of M. Bertillon, M. Herbette pointed out how a verification of the physical personality, and of the identity of people of adult age, would fulfil requirements of modern society in an indisputable manner under very varied conditions.
“If it were a question, for instance, of giving to the inhabitants of a country, to the soldiers of an army, or to travellers proceeding to distant lands, notices or personal cards as recognisable signs, enabling them always to prove who they are; if it were a question of completing the obligatory records of civil life by perfectly sure indications, such as would prevent all error, or substitution of persons; if it were a question of recording the distinctive marks of an individual in documents, titles or contracts, where his identity requires to be established for his own interest, for that of third parties, or for that of the State,—there the anthropometric system of identification would find place.
“Should it be a question of a life certificate, of a life assurance, or of a proof of death, or should it be required to certify the identity of a person who was insane, severely wounded, or of a dead body that had been partly destroyed, or so disfigured as to be hardly recognisable from a sudden or violent death due to crime, accident, shipwreck, or battle—how great would be the advantage of being able to trace these characters, unchangeable as they are in each individual, infinitely variable as between one individual and another, indelible, at least in part, even in death.
“There is still more cause to be interested in this subject when it is a question of identifying persons who are living at a great distance, and after the lapse of a considerable time, when the physiognomy, the features, and the physical habits may have changed from natural or artificial causes, and to be able to identify them without taking a journey and without cost, by the simple exchange of a few lines or figures that may be sent from one country or continent to another, so as to give information in America as to who any particular man is, who has just arrived from France, and to certify whether a certain traveller found in Rome is the same person who was measured in Stockholm ten years before.
“In one word, to fix the human personality, to give to each human being an identity, an individuality that can be depended upon with certainty, lasting, unchangeable, always recognisable and easily adduced, this appears to be in the largest sense the aim of the new method.
“Consequently, it may be said that the extent of the problem, as well as the importance of its solution, far exceeds the limits of penitentiary work and the interest, which is however by no means inconsiderable, that penal action has excited amongst various nations. These are the motives for giving to the labours of M. Bertillon and to their practical utilisation the publicity they merit.”
These full and clear remarks seem even more applicable to the method of finger prints than to that of anthropometry.