"You mean that jails should be reformatories?"
"Exclusively. Moreover, the length of the confinement should not be regulated by statute, but should depend upon the intensity of the attack of crime or vice, which has occasioned the arrest of the prisoner. He should be jailed until cured, just as a leper is, even though it be for life. However, I cannot now discuss that aspect of the question. I wish to more fully explain the germ theory of crime."
"I am impatient to hear you." In his interest in the subject the Judge had almost forgotten his recent feeling of animosity.
"The idea then is this. Suppose that a babe could be born, with a perfect psychical endowment. We would have a being in whom all the higher virtues would predominate, while the vices would be non-existent. But take such an individual and place him in an environment where he would daily be associated with vice in its worst form and it would be inevitable that he would become vicious, for crime is as contagious as small-pox. The germ of a physical disease is a parasite so small in some instances, that when placed under a microscope and magnified one thousand times, it then becomes visible as a tiny dot, which might be made by a very sharp pencil. The germ of crime is even more minute and intangible. It exists as a suggestion."
"A suggestion?"
"Yes! Suggestion is the most potent factor in the affairs of the world. There is never a suggestion without an effect. Wherever it occurs an impression is created. No living man is free from its influence. A common example which I might cite is the congregation of a crowd. Without knowing what he goes to see, a man crosses the street and swells a growing crowd merely because others do so. The idea is suggested, and the impulse becomes almost irresistible. Even if resisted, the temptation will be appreciated. The suggestion has produced an effect. To explain the specific growth of a crime by this means, I will remind you of the woman who, when leaving home, told her children not to go into the barn and steal any apples, but that if they did go, above all things not to lie about it when she should return. Of course they went, and of course they lied to her upon her return. She had suggested both actions to them. The child who sees theft for the first time, may look upon it with abhorrence, because home influence has suggested to it that stealing is wrong. But permit a daily association with theives, and the abhorrence will pass into tolerance, and thence into imitation."
"I begin to perceive your meaning, and after all it is only the old idea, that conscience is merely the result of education."
"Precisely so! But that very expression is but another example of the indefinite recognition of an important fact. You say my theory is old. Perhaps! But my utilization of it is new. Just as there are pathogenic bacteria which produce disease, so there are also non-pathogenic bacteria which not only do not cause bodily affliction, but which actually are essential and conducive to perfect health. The one takes its sustenance by destroying that which is needed by man, at the same time generating poisons which are deleterious, while the latter thrives upon that which is harmful to the human body. Analogously, just as there are germs, or suggestions which debase the morality, so also there are suggestions which produce the highest moral health."
"That seems probable enough!"
"By the means which I have explained to you, your daughter was born, immune to all diseases. You have heard that certain maladies, as consumption, can be transmitted, and are therefore inherited. This is not true. But a parent who has suffered with phthisis, may transmit to his progeny what is termed a diminished vital resistance. The child is not born consumptive, but he is poorly equipped to contend against the germ of that disease. If thrown into contact with it, consumption will probably follow. But it is possible that as he matures his environment may be such, that his vital resistance may increase, so that the time might come when he would not acquire the disease, even though brought into contact with it. The reverse follows as a logical deduction. Agnes was born with an enormous stock of vital resistance, which would operate to protect her from all diseases. But it would have been possible for her to degenerate as she matured. This I guarded against. By cultivating her companionship, and yours, I have had access to her at all times, and I have periodically supplied her with potions containing those germs which are conducive to health. In a similiar way, I have cared for her psychical life, by advancing her moral nature!"