Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 6.djvu/618

Rh 584 C E I M E approximately the same, continue to act upon nearly the same motives arid to display nearly the same weaknesses. The statistics of a quarter of a century, of half a century, even of a whole century (if we had them complete for so long a period), could tell us but little of those subtle changes in human organization which have come to pass in the lapse of ages, and the sum of which has rendered life in Britain in the 10th century so different as it is from life in the Gth. Some of the earliest statisticians, indeed (and their science is of vary recent origin), did an injustice both to themselves and to their favourite study through their own enthusiasm. They were eager to claim for numbers all anl more than all that had been claimed by the Pytha goreans of old. Not content with praising the virtues of numbers in general, they appeared to believe that the par ticular numbers of a particular period would suffice for the discovery of social and political principles of universal application. They found certain uniformities in an area so bounded, and a time so short, as to bear to the previous existence of the whole earth and its inhabitants about the same proportion that a drop of water bears to the ocean ; and they assumed that they had found a law or laws of a range co-extensive with human existence. But this exag geration does not impair the real value of the statistical method or of some of the facts which it has brought to light. It has supplied us with some generalizations which are demonstrably tru 3 within certain limits, and which con stitute useful elements of comparison with others discover able elsewhere. It has not established that human conduct, regarded as a great whole, is absolutely invariable, but it has supplied a powerful instrument for an inquiry into the conditions by which variation may be determined. If, for instance, we look at the statistics of homicide and suicide in England during any ten recent years we perceive that the figures of any one year very little exceed or fall below the general average. Yet no inference could be more erroneous than that homicide has always borne the same proportion to population in England as at present, for in the reign of Edward III. there were in proportion to popu lation at least sixteen cases of homicide to every one which occurs in our own time. On the other hand, according to modern statistics, the number of male suicides is far greater than the number of female ; and the inference that the number of mile suicides always has been greater is at least supported by records as early as the middle of the 1 7th century. Again, the homicides in one country may be and are far more numerous than in another, among equal populations ; but nowhere does there exist any exception to the rule that there are more male suicides than female. Tims it is clear that any suggestion of uniformity offered by statistics requires the most careful verification before being accepted as even approximately true ; but it is also clear that the suggestion may be of the highest value in leading us to distinguish those cases in which uniformity really exists from those in which uni formity is only apparent. The criminal statistics of any one country and period should be carefully examined by the light of history, and of any relevant details which can be procured from other parts of the world. Only by the aid of the adequate information tins to be acquired can criminal legislation ever be wise and effective, no matter what definition of crime may be accepted by the legislators. A knowledge of human nature in the widest sense, not excepting, indeed, some of the principles of physiology, may give some power of discriminating between the mutable and the immutable, the possible and the impossible, in human affairs. Without it, well-meaning efforts to improve the condition of society may be not only unsuccessful but even mischievous. With out it, disappointment is apt to follow upou the failure of some apparently well-conceived law to effect the purpose for which it was devised. The disposition inherited from past ages can (in some fields of action and in some individuals at least) as little be changed by the fiat of a Government, as the ebb and flow of the sea can be con trolled by the word of a king. But, nevertheless, there is good reason to believe that judicious lawgivers may gradu ally effect a salutary change in the manners of a people. One of the most remarkable illustrations of uniformity in the phenomena of crime is one which may be regarded also as an illustration of the influence of past conditions of society upon the present. As the human embryo passes through sundry stages of an inferior state of existence, so, after birth, the human being is before the age of thirty more apt to fall into courses which we now regard as criminal (but which the savage considered laudable) than the human being of more advanced years. This, like the rule of the sexes in suicide, is a rule having no exception at any time or in any country concerning which it is possible to obtain information. But even here the proportions are not absolutely invariable, though the general law holds universally good. From various causes, of which one is the abolition of transportation, another the establishment of reformatories, the criminal age has perceptibly risen in England since the year 1851. So also, although the general law that men are more prone to commit suicide than women is altogether beyond dispute, the proportions of the sexes vary considerably in suicide and in various crimes in different countries, and apparently also at different times in the same country. Hence we may infer that there is hardly any social change of which the human species need absolutely despair, though some changes may be far more easily brought about, and may more reasonably be the subject of legislation, than others. But all legisla tion should be adapted to the possibilities of the existing generation. A very curious feature of crimes in the modern sense, though one susceptible of very easy explanation, is the effect upon them of the seasons. Those which are prompted by the animal passions are most common in the summer months ; larceny, and offences wholly or partly prompted by want, in the winter months. As might also have been predicted a priori, theft increases in times of adversity, and various minor offences, such as drunkenness, in times of prosperity. The metropolitan police returns, indeed, show a very complete descending scale of drunkenness, beginning with a maximum on that day of the week on which wages are paid, and ending with a minimum six days afterwards. Insanity, in its relation to crime, is a subject which might appropriately be considered in connection with the tendencies inherited by each human being at birth, but cannot be adequately discussed here. Suffice it to say that as youth, when the instincts and passions are at their strongest, is the period at which the human being is most inclined to commit crimes in general (as now understood), so old age, when both the bodily powers and the intellect are decaying, is the period at which one particular class of sexual offences is most frequently committed ; and there is good reason to suppose that persons committing them in earlier years are weak-minded also. Kleptomania and homicidal monomania are asserted by medical theorists to be forms of mental aberration. This doctrine, however, though perhaps sufficiently well-founded, can hardly te established upon the basis of a very wide induction, but only by a subtle reasoning from particular instances upon which it is now impossible to enter. With regard to the very complex subjects of the preven tion and punishment of crime, it maybe suggested that the broader the view taken by legislators the more likely is