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
| Per cent. | |
|---|---|
| At least one cerebrogenous character in | 98 |
| Frontal microcephaly in | 57 |
| Three or more cerebrogenous characters in | 40 |
| Primatoid characters in | 100 |
| Three or more primatoid characters in | 60 |
| Primatoid characters in the brain (post-mortem) | 47 |
| Varieties of the pinna in | 41 |
| More than three characters of any of the above kinds in | 77 |
| More than five characters of any of the above kinds in | 33 |
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.
CHAPTER III
OPPOSITION TO LOMBROSO’S VIEWS—WOMAN AS CRIMINAL—THE POLITICAL CRIMINAL—CRIMINAL PSYCHOLOGY
In the first fierce campaign against criminal anthropology two objections are repeatedly encountered. One of these points out the absence of distinctive anthropological characters in female criminals; the other contests the conceivability of the anthropological unity of a social group whose sole link of union consists of a concept so variable in time and place as is the concept of crime.
The latter of these two objections was, of course, controverted by Lombroso in part on purely conceptual grounds; but in addition to this he has shown that the criminal group in which the idea of crime is so relative that the criminal of yesterday may be the judge to-day, whilst the judge of yesterday may to-day be the criminal—to wit, the category of political criminals—he has shown that this criminal group may, with a little criticism, readily be resolved into geniuses, enthusiasts, fools, rogues (and, finally, the crowd these carry along with and after them); and that in every revolution—even the most desirable one—old-established professional rascality and newly-awakened cruelty find a most suitable field for the display of their dangerous attributes. By means of the study of a large number of regicides, and also that of the most notable personalities of the French Revolution at the end of the eighteenth century, of the fight for Italian unity, the uprising of the Paris Commune, and the Russian terrorism of our own day, he demonstrates this truth beyond dispute.
The other objection, regarding the lack of distinctive anthropological characters in female offenders, demanded for its answer very comprehensive studies in a previously neglected field; these researches were undertaken in co-operation with G. Ferrero, and resulted in the publication in 1893 of the widely read work on “Woman as Criminal and Prostitute.”[[16]]
The Introduction to this book, 180 pages in length, appears to me to be the most interesting and remarkable piece of work Lombroso ever issued. Even his opponents never denied his all-embracing culture and extraordinarily wide reading, nor his brilliant intuitive powers and bold faculty for combination; on the other hand, his most zealous advocates and adherents have always complained of his obvious neglect of critical examination of his sources of information, of analytical treatment and systematic arrangement of his material, and of comprehensive presentation and definitive architectonic. But nowhere else are his merits so strikingly manifest, and nowhere else are his defects less conspicuous, than they are in this brilliant description of the biological and physiological characteristics of woman and accurate survey of the differences between the sexes. In part, indeed, the work under consideration may owe its conspicuous merits in point of style and arrangement to the fact that Lombroso’s own deficiencies in these respects were supplemented by the assistance of his collaborator and subsequent son-in-law, G. Ferrero, the author of the celebrated “History of the Roman Empire.” However this may be, Lombroso in this work penetrates deeply into the science of general biology, and endeavours, having regard to the characters found by him to differentiate woman from man, to formulate a comprehensive law of sexual differentiation in general.
He refers this differentiation to the fact that the whole organization of woman is predestined to motherhood, and to the fact that any other professional activity of whatever kind is hardly possible to her, or, if possible, only on account of an abnormal and degenerative predisposition.