Euphemia Vale Blake

“ To diminish crimes' of all sorts, let the teaching of self-control, the subordination of the emotions to the will, a knowledge of the nervous system, and a worthy, definite object in life, become a part of the education of every youth, male and female. Many crimes which are penally punished are the outcome of semi-insane persons, whose really abnormal condition is not recognized by court or jury, while others are excused as insane when their culminating crime is but the outcome of habitual indulgence of violent temper. ”

“ It will probably be admitted, in most cases of mob violence, that the mass of intimidators are ignorant, unreasoning followers, who, if they think at all, only reflect to the extent of supposing that the presence of numbers will suffice to conceal their individual share of the crime; but possibly some of our readers may not be so ready to admit that the faculty of imitation works quite as potentially in secret, where to aid it come various suggestive faculties, such as emulation, vanity, imagination, contrivance, secretiveness, hope, despair, and various other emotions. ”

“ Speaking of those who might be tempted to crime, he perceives very clearly the power of association over the imitative instinct of human beings, especially of those who dwell together, and he thus advises. "When any such ill thought [as that of committing a crime] comes into your mind, go at once to the society of those who are called good among you. Fly from the wicked; fly, and turn not back, and, if thy disorder is lightened by these remedies, well and good; but if not, then acknowledge death to be nobler than life, and depart hence." ”

“ In those particular localities where crime seeks to shelter and hide itself among numbers, the suggestions to wrong-doing are ever present, and the young, who as yet have the criminal instinct only latent, but who still must be regarded from the circumstances as incipient criminals, are the objects which offer the best promises of success in any effort for the reduction of crime. There is also this promising feature in reformatory efforts, that the moral emotions, once thoroughly awakened, do not satiate and deaden by exercise, like many pleasurable vices ”

“ When Polonius describes to the King the course of the seeming madness, he confines himself exclusively to the mental analysis, and makes no mention that the Prince's body has succumbed to the malady. When the King drinks to him, it is not to his better health or better wits, but to his "better breath"! And the Queenmother, watching him anxiously during the passage-at-arms with Laertes, makes the exclamation which we have taken as the keynote of our theory, "He's fat and scant of breath." And then, with instinctive maternal tenderness calls to him, "Here, Hamlet, take my napkin, rub thy brow" ”

“ Of all the insane, but the smallest fractional part are the result of excessive intellectual effort; a somewhat larger number arise from structural disease; but the great majority of the insane who have committed or attempted to commit crimes have lost control of their reason because they habitually allowed passion, not reason, to control them. Therefore, we repeat, the greatest possible preventive of crime is to raise a race who shall know how to control their emotional natures through an enlightened will and the habitual exercise of a moral judgment. ”

“ Even the recent mania of suddenly "lifting" church debts by the high-pressure method of inciting the instinct of imitation and emulation in the mode of subscribing, was very sagaciously based upon this well-recognized principle that the foolish many will always try to do what the leaders of society initiate, often with as little reason as a herd of quadrupeds. ”

“ The history of the world is full of crimes and follies committed under the influence of the imitative instinct. In many cases so devoid of thought are the actors in these scenes as scarcely to bring them under the judgment of responsible human beings. It is in fact no easy task to draw with any degree of accuracy the dividing line between folly and crime, especially when the exalted sentiments of patriotism or the fanaticism induced by the misapplication of religious dogma, or fervent appeals to the emotions, are the basis of certain wild proceedings ”

“ The conclusion to be drawn from these considerations of the different phases of crime suggests at least this practical idea: that, in all stages of education, the proper direction of the will, the due control of the emotions, and the subjection of nervous impulses to the cool judgment of the reason, are far more important than the mere acquisition of this or that branch of so-called knowledge. A large majority of crimes, particularly crimes of violence, occur because the perpetrators have never been taught or compelled to control their feelings ”

“ It is a well-settled rule in all animal structures that, when the quantity of fat exceeds the law of their construction, bulk becomes a source of imperfect equilibrium, and therefore of danger. The most bulky animals are not the most useful nor the strongest. An elephant compared with its size is not as strong as an ant. Then there is this physiological fact, that the oleaginous principle is actually less alive than any other part of an animal. ”

“ There is, indeed, a certain amount of rhythmical response in most of us to the time measurements of harmony—particularly, when lively airs are played; but as some more than others are easily affected by moral and physical harmonies, may there not be other souls, or vitalized bodies, which spontaneously respond to the moral and physical discords—people who may be said to be out of tune with the organized harmonies of society, and whose natural impulse is to put these into modes of activity? ”

“ IT is not to be expected that law-makers or the administrators of legal justice should discriminate between spontaneous and imitative crime; but to the patient thinker, the medical scientist, and the practical philanthropist it is evident that the grades and distinctions of actual criminality are almost as various as the individual criminals. Even the word crime is very indefinite, and by no means always indicates the true character of an act usually so designated. ”

“ From two persons who have had extensive acquaintance with criminals, as also with those living in ignorance and poverty, which too often prove the approximate cause of crime, we are able to draw conclusive reasons for believing that the instinct of imitation may be used with astonishing effect, if rightly directed over those whose habits have not become irretrievably fixed. ”

“ In many cases imitation is simply the active form of nervous sympathy and approaches the condition of mania. This instinct or faculty, like all other human attributes, may be well or ill applied, but the essential fact remains ever true that the instinct itself is irrepressible, and will exercise itself in some form: and, often as it is misused, the world could not afford to dispense with it. The race would make small progress if every man had to begin de novo, instead of imitating the previous acquirements of bis ancestors. ”

“ That he is consciously represented as feeling the impediment of the weight of his own flesh is clearly discerned by the frequent references to it. A gaunt, thin, wiry, or even an ordinary muscular man, would not be apt to describe his flesh as "too solid," or to enumerate as one of the serious ills of humanity "the grunting and sweating under burdens." In Hamlet's description of himself to Guildenstern, where he says he "has lost all his mirth," and so forth, it is still the dejection of his mind which he puts forward: he does not pretend to excite sympathy by pointing to his failing body. ”

“ The "walking" mania is a still later example of the irresistible fascination of doing what others are doing.
But it is not always in masses that the powerful instinct of imitation shows itself. In nothing is it more common than in the form which suicides adopt—and suicide is naturally enacted à la solitaire. ”

“ It may likewise be understood that to a permanent cure of hereditary tendency to crime separation from contaminating example is essential, and this separation must be permanent. Criminals who have acquired habits of industry and self-control during the discipline of a term of imprisonment might reasonably be expected to retain them if placed on their release in conditions which insured paying work and a pure moral atmosphere; but they will inevitably relapse if thrown back into their old circle, where crime and its contrivance are the main business of life. ”

“ Acts innocent in themselves—such, for instance, as buying goods in a foreign market and bringing them for use to this—may be made a legal crime by statute law, while other acts which are monstrous violations of natural human rights may be and are ignored by the code, and are perpetrated with impunity in the highest grades of civilized society. ”

“ Other causes of crime are certainly more obvious, for they lie upon the surface—ignorance, poverty, intemperance, the desire to live beyond one's legitimate means, unrestrained passions of all kinds: these are of course the leaders and pioneers of the great criminal army; but the rank and file are mainly made up of imitators, who do as they see others do with whom they associate. ”

“ By spontaneous criminals we mean those who act from well-defined motives, from avarice, revenge, the gratification of pride, vanity, or the grosser passions—also those who from congenital defects of organization have strong natural tendencies toward the commission of crime—sporadic criminals against whom it is scarcely possible for society to protect itself, unless, like the ancient Spartans, it is prepared to undertake the entire education of the future citizen, morally, intellectually, and physically, including the ante-natal period. ”

“ Without endorsing the apothegm of the able author of the "Intellectual Development of Europe," that "the equilibrium and movements of humanity are altogether physiological phenomena, and that the succession of events are the inevitable results of a law depending on, or the consequences of physical conditions," we are persuaded that a large proportion of crime is to be attributed to the responsive nature of the physical organization. ”

“ In Italy the dancing mania originated in the spasmodic action of a person who believed himself to have been bitten by a tarantula, or venomous spider, and his singular dancing movements being seen and extensively reported, every one who found a little speck or injury upon his body began to imagine that he also had been bitten, and consequently to imitate the actions of the original nervous victim. The army of imitators daily increased, and their apparent malady could only be relieved by music, mostly of a lively kind, which aided them to "dance out the attack" ”

“ The fine spirit, the clear insight, the keen reader of other men's thoughts, is imprisoned in walls of adipose, and the desire for action dies out with the utterance of wise maxims, philosophic doubts, and morbid upbraidings of his own inertness. Hamlet is like one of those persons (to be met with in every community) who can relieve themselves by talking. This is a kind of character well understood by Shakespeare. In the third Richard's conference with the murderers of Clarence, one replies to him ”

“ As a general rule it may be assumed that before maturity the life of every individual is in the main imitative; later, experience and social compulsion reach the reason and teach all persons of average brain-power and moral culture that conformity to the laws of society is in the end more profitable than crime. ”

“ Observing the analogies of nature might teach the social scientist as well as the philanthropist that the measures taken to produce excellence in the animal and vegetable kingdoms are equally applicable to human beings. And what is the course of an arboriculturist or horticulturist if a plant shows abnormal qualities and a tendency to disease? ”

“ Carnivorous animals that have to earn their dinners are generally thin; domestic ruminants are fat. Animals shut up in cages either pine and die or get fat. At Strasburg, famous for páté-de-fois-gras, geese are shut up in warm coops and overfed to produce the fat (and diseased) livers so much admired by gourmets. In Italy, wealthy connoisseurs are very fond of fat ortolans, and this is the device by which they obtain them: They shut the birds up in a dark chamber, (knowing that in their natural state it is their habit to feed at sunrise) . ”

“ Because "he's fat and scant of breath"—in other words, is weighted down with a non-executive or lymphatic temperament.
Painters, as well as actors, have done much to foist a false Hamlet upon the public imagination. He has habitually been represented by both as possessing a nervous, bilious, saturnine temperament, for which there is no warrant in the poet's description of him. Artists have portrayed him as fleshless and dark-hued. ”

“ Another point bearing on the argument of the propelling influence of imitation is the discovery of the fact that where relatives of the poor have received shelter in almshouses, the children of these more readily resort to them in emergencies than do others in more pressing need, who have had no such record in their families. In fact, pauperism of the chronic kind is more difficult to cure than a tendency to criminality—for the first indicates weakness, the latter vitality. ”

“ FROM the days of Hippocrates, intelligent medical observers have noticed that an unusual accumulation of fat, far from adding to the strength of a person, was a source of physical weakness, and, to a certain extent, an outward sign of incapacity; that it limited activity and shortened life. It is only in comparatively modern times that scientific experimentalists have ascertained precisely how the system generally, and the heart particularly, is affected either by the overloading or infiltration of superfluous fatty matter upon or in its muscular substance. ”

“ These are the people whose course is always "in the direction of the least resistance," who, if they are placed under good influences, will lead at least quiet and orderly lives, but who are equally plastic to evil, and who will inevitably bloom into criminality if surrounded by lawless associates. ”