In the normal man the sexual instinct is inherited but the passion is submissive to the control of the will. The will is supreme and self-restraint is always possible. The immoral man has refused to exercise this restraining power, he has, in fact, by his immoral thoughts, lent his mind to the strengthening of the passion until it has gained an ascendancy. Continual sexual excitement has resulted in the nervous centres controlling the sexual organs becoming so powerfully developed as to act almost automatically, and independently of the will. In the normal man, sexual excitement results upon the mental vision; in the sensualist the excitement precedes the vision. Another effect is noticed in the physiognomy which changes in accordance with the development of the nerve centres and presents all the appearances of the typical sensualist or prostitute.
In some cases the sensualist transmits this highly organised or disordered nervous system to his descendants, and consequently when they arrive at a certain age they find their bodies invaded by a passion over which they have small, and sometimes no, control. It is distinctly a case of functional insanity with them. Their will power is weak because of undue stress, but it has not been perverted. Perversion may follow; but may also be avoided, and even the will sufficiently strengthened so that it may re-assume control and subject the passion to control. The influence of heredity is here also confined to the nervous system. That is, the direct influence, the influence which was first felt and before it received any support which the mind of the victim may give it. The cases of hereditary suicides, murderers and assassins afford a very large field for investigation, and we cannot do more than suggest some causes which seem to give strong evidence of their existence. These causes if their existence be allowed, and we see every reason that it should, will restrict the influence of heredity to a much narrower sphere than is popularly supposed. The old story of the devil preaching upon the horrors of hell serves somewhat to illustrate our meaning. When the abbot enquired whether it was not contrary to his interests to draw so vivid and terrible a picture he replied in the negative and gave as his reason that the man who contemplated the horrors of hell was the man who was bound to find his way there.
The contemplation of criminal acts effects a strange fascination upon the mind and very often induces imitation of the same acts. When a suicide or murder, in fact any crime, is committed by a member of a family the other members either, according to their moral disposition, experience a greater or lesser repulsion for the deed than they formerly possessed. The enormity of the deed is either stronger or lesser in their eyes than before. In the latter case, murder or suicide does not seem nearly so heinous a crime when it is brought so closely under their notice. The very knowledge that a father or uncle or any other near relative, or even friends for that matter, committed suicide, makes the act appear far less terrible, and also far less impossible for themselves. Most men have at some time or another an impulse to destroy themselves, it may not be very strong; but if it is felt at a time when the circumstances of life are unfavourable and, if added to this, there is presented the example of a suicide very near at home, the impulse is undoubtedly strengthened. The whole chain of circumstances seem to direct the vision upon the rash act of the friend or relative, until at last the vision becomes fascinating, and the act is imitated. To use a concise expression one may call this the "hypnotic power of circumstances." It is not an absolute cause in itself; but, strictly speaking, may we call any cause absolute? It is not a cause which would influence a man of strong will or of sound morality. But a sentimental person, one of morbid ideas, weak will, or overcome by the thought of detection, or the fear of misfortune, might easily fall a victim to its influences. It will not account for all the cases of hereditary suicide, for a mental disease may be transmitted which would account for the suicide of both father and son or whatever the combination may be. It, however, does account, we believe, for the majority of the cases, and the similarity of the method employed strengthens this belief, for it indicates that the mind is dwelling upon the actual vision of the relative's suicide, and is not merely contemplating suicide in the abstract. This theory would imply that any case of suicide, upon which the mind would dwell and concentrate itself, would exercise the same influence, and this is the case. A few years ago in Dunedin an accountant who was involved in financial difficulties, shot himself with a pistol. His executor, against the advice of friends, took charge of the pistol. Becoming involved in financial difficulties himself, he too committed suicide by shooting himself with the same weapon! Almost, without a doubt, we may say that the circumstances of the first suicide exerted upon the mind of the trustee a hypnotic influence which combined with and gave the final impulse to the other contributing causes of his act.
Another instance is that of a young man who, contemplating suicide, carried a revolver about with him for a whole day. He spoke of suicide to his friends, occasionally discharged shots into the ground, and finally, during the evening, blew his brains out. That he contemplated suicide was evident from his conversation, but that his mind was not made up, is also evident from the delay he occasioned. In fact, his whole behaviour indicates a faint desire to cling to something stronger than himself in order to brace himself against his haunting fears. The revolver fascinated him. He dallied with it, made up his mind, changed it again, and finally the influence became supreme for a moment, and he fired the fatal shot. Throughout the day, he very probably thought of the grief of his relatives and of the young woman he was soon to marry, he pictured the consternation of his friends, read the newspaper accounts of his act, saw his funeral, and let his mind run altogether in morbid channels. Thus it was that the vision of his own act exerted an hypnotic influence upon him which became at the critical moment supreme and irresistible.
When the picture is real and not imaginary, and when the circumstances of a parent's or brother's or friend's suicide may easily be recalled and the mind allowed to dwell upon them, how much greater would the influence become, especially when the same example has served to diminish the idea of the enormity of the act. Where persons lend themselves to the idea that an hereditary influence exists and may spring upon them at any moment, they are almost sure either to destroy themselves or else to develop some form of insanity. There are cases of murder and assassination (apparently hereditary crime) where the conditions are so similar that the hypnotic power of circumstances may likewise be urged as sufficient cause.
So far, an attempt has been made to show that whatever the influence of heredity may be, it is restricted outside the sphere of morality. It cannot transmit an IMMORAL IDEA. So far as certain forms of vice and crime are concerned it most probably is limited entirely to its effect upon the physical structure of man. Combined with family tradition and working upon a diseased, or weakened will, it accounts for similarities of conduct. Suicides, murderers and assassins do not then receive by transmission from their ancestry any taint or tendency which may be called the direct cause of their crime. Another factor is present, a hypnotising power, and this is the final and directing power. It is a different influence to imitation, although its first result is the same, viz: the lowering of the moral idea. But crimes where the act is the imitation of another person's act are generally committed from the desire to become notorious and to be the centre of observation. The spirit of vanity, very strong in the low type, is appealed to and aroused. Or perhaps, the example of another's crime affords a suggestion for the method of accomplishing a certain desired end. On the other hand, the ancestral example, after having broken down the moral barrier depends entirely upon its power to fascinate. Those of weak will or guilty conscience, alone succumb to its influence. If we consider the cases of thieves, vagabonds and paupers we find their crimes and vices likewise running in families. It is nevertheless quite a mistake to jump at the conclusion that heredity accounts for all these coincidencies. Exempting all cases of transmitted mental alienation and observing only those who are quite responsible for their action, it is impossible to suppose that there is, somewhere in their organism, a power which will direct their lives into the channels of vice or crime just as irresistibly as the influence which makes the hair grow on the crown of their heads. It is unthinkable. It supposes a responsible person who cannot control himself. Which is a contradiction.
M. Moleschott, at the International Congress of Criminal Anthropology held in Paris in 1889, "mentioned an influence towards crime that had not been noticed, to wit, the hereditary social influence, or that is, the tradition which is instilled into the mind of every child before he knows the difference between right and wrong, that by which he obtains the rudiments of his knowledge of right and wrong. Whether it be correct or not it is the child's standard. He gets it not from any knowledge of theory of justice, but from the tradition of his own neighbourhood, as it is taught by his parents and associates by the people, and as is believed by them." (Criminal Anthropology; the Smithsonian Report for 1891.)
It will be understood that the influences of which M. Moleschott speaks are not of an hereditary nature, that is, they are not transmitted through the blood; but they are influences which are present from the first moment of consciousness. They are quite sufficient to account for the criminal type being found in the physiognomy of a person born and reared among such surroundings. It is a very popular error to suppose that a person's physiognomy never changes, and therefore that if the criminal cast of countenance is seen it must be a faithful witness to some innate depravity transmitted from an ancestry. The expression plays such an important part in the moulding of the countenance, that of two brothers very much alike in youth, one, afterwards given to crime, will still retain his resemblance to his brother; but will display the criminal type as well. It is thus that we have the different types in murderers, assassins, thieves, swindlers and sensualists. They are all criminal or vicious but their forms of criminality and vice are so diverse that a different expression results from the different kinds of thought passing through their minds. In their theories, few people acknowledge that the symmetry of the facial features may change, and yet it is a matter of common observance that they do. In the cases of persons becoming insane or persons who have suffered from long and painful illnesses it is very remarkable. Likewise in the case of the man who has fallen into crime, it is also most noticeable. Of course there are limits to the changes which the expression may produce, but these changes are nevertheless very great and sufficiently so, not perhaps to produce Lombroso's type in any given face, but to give that face at least a distinctly criminal cast.
The appearance then of this criminal cast upon the features is not sufficient evidence to account for an inherited tendency towards crime. Dr Manouvrier insists that Lombroso's theory that the criminal is born and not made is based upon the exploded science of phrenology, and declares that all the anatomical distinctions and physicological characteristics quoted by Lombroso are to be found among honest men as well as among criminals. The fact that a greater proportion are found among criminals to his mind proves nothing.
[There is not vast difference between normal and abnormal persons possessing these peculiarities. In Lombroso's work "The Female Offender" he notices:—