Topic III. PHENOMENOLOGY: STUDY OF THE OUTWARD
EXPRESSION OF MENTAL STATES.
Section 10.
Phenomenology is in general the science of appearances. In
our usage it is the systematic co-ordination of those outer symptoms
occasioned by inner processes, and conversely, the inference
from the symptoms to them. Broadly construed, this may be taken
as the study of the habits and whole bearing of any individual.
But essentially only those external manifestations can be considered
that refer back to definite psychical conditions, so that our
phenomenology may be defined as the semiotic of normal psychology.
This science is legally of immense importance, but has not
yet assumed the task of showing how unquestionable inferences
may be drawn from an uncounted collection of outward appearances
to inner processes. In addition, observations are not numerous
enough, far from accurate enough, and psychological research not
advanced enough. What dangerous mistakes premature use of
such things may lead to is evident in the teaching of the Italian
positivistic school, which defines itself also as psychopathic semiotic.
But if our phenomenology can only attempt to approximate the
establishment of a science of symptoms, it may at least study critically
the customary popular inferences from such symptoms and
reduce exaggerated theories concerning the value of individual
symptoms to a point of explanation and proof. It might seem that
our present task is destructive, but it will be an achievement if
we can show the way to later development of this science, and to
have examined and set aside the useless material already to hand.
Section 11. (a) General External Conditions.
"Every state of consciousness has its physical correlate," says
Helmholtz,[1] and this
proposition contains the all in all of our problem.
Every mental event must have its corresponding physical
event[2] in some
form, and is therefore capable of being sensed, or
known to be indicated by some trace. Identical inner states do
not, of course, invariably have identical bodily concomitants,
neither in all individuals alike, nor in the same individual at different
times. Modern methods of generalization so invariably involve
danger and incorrectness that one can not be too cautious in
this matter. If generalization were permissible, psychical events
would have to be at least as clear as physical processes, but that
is not admissible for many reasons. First of all, physical concomitants
are rarely direct and unmeditated expressions of a psychical
instant (e. g., clenching a fist in threatening). Generally
they stand in no causal relation, so that explanations drawn from
physiological, anatomical, or even atavistic conditions are only
approximate and hypothetical. In addition, accidental habits and
inheritances exercise an influence which, although it does not alter
the expression, has a moulding effect that in the course of time does
finally so recast a very natural expression as to make it altogether
unintelligible. The phenomena, moreover, are in most cases personal,
so that each individual means a new study. Again the phenomena
rarely remain constant; e. g.: we call a thing habit,—
we say, "He has the habit of clutching his chin when he is embarrassed,"—
but that such habits change is well known. Furthermore,
purely physiological conditions operate in many directions,
(such as blushing, trembling,
laughter,
[3] weeping, stuttering, etc.),
and finally, very few men want to show their minds openly to their
friends, so that they see no reason for co-ordinating their symbolic
bodily expressions. Nevertheless, they do so, and not since yesterday,
but for thousands of years. Hence definite expressions have
been transmitted for generations and have at the same time been
constantly modified, until to-day they are altogether unrecognizable.
Characteristically, the desire to fool others has also its predetermined
limitations, so that it often happens that simple and significant
gestures contradict words when the latter are false. E. g., you hear
somebody say, "She went down," but see him point at the same time,
not clearly, but visibly, up. Here the speech was false and the
gesture true. The speaker had to turn all his attention on what he
wanted to say so that the unwatched co-consciousness moved his
hand in some degree.
A remarkable case of this kind was that of a suspect of child
murder. The girl told that she had given birth to the child all
alone, had washed it, and then laid it on the bed beside herself.
She had also observed how a corner of the coverlet had fallen on
the child's face, and thought it might interfere with the child's
breathing. But at this point she swooned, was unable to help the
child, and it was choked. While sobbing and weeping as she was
telling this story, she spread the fingers of her left hand and pressed
it on her thigh, as perhaps she might have done, if she had first
put something soft, the corner of a coverlet possibly, over the child's
nose and mouth, and then pressed on it. This action was so clearly
significant that it inevitably led to the question whether she hadn't
choked the child in that way. She assented, sobbing.
Similar is another case in which a man assured us that he lived
very peaceably with his neighbor and at the same time clenched his
fist. The latter meant illwill toward the neighbor while the words
did not.
It need not, of course, be urged that the certainty of a belief
will be much endangered if too much value is sanguinely set on such
and similar gestures, when their observation is not easy. There is
enough to do in taking testimony, and enough to observe, to make
it difficult to watch gestures too. Then there is danger (because of
slight practice) of easily mistaking indifferent or habitual gestures
for significant ones; of supposing oneself to have seen more than
should have been seen, and of making such observations too noticeable,
in which case the witness immediately controls his gestures.
In short, there are difficulties, but once they are surmounted, the
effort to do so is not regretted.
It is to be recommended here, also, not to begin one's studies
with murder and robbery, but with the simple cases of the daily
life, where there is no danger of making far-reaching mistakes, and
where observations may be made much more calmly. Gestures
are especially powerful habits and almost everybody makes them,
mainly not indifferent ones. It is amusing to
observe a man at the
telephone, his free hand making the gestures for both. He clenches
his fist threateningly, stretches one finger after another into the air
if he is counting something, stamps his foot if he is angry, and puts
his finger to his head if he does not understand—in that he behaves
as he would if his interlocutor were before him. Such deep-rooted
tendencies to gesture hardly ever leave us. The movements also
occur when we lie; and inasmuch as a man who is lying at the same
time has the idea of the truth either directly or subconsciously
before him, it is conceivable that this idea exercises much greater
influence on gesture than the probably transitory lie. The question,
therefore, is one of intensity, for each gesture requires a powerful
impulse and the more energetic is the one that succeeds in causing
the gesture. According to Herbert
Spencer[4] it is a general and
important rule that any sensation which exceeds a definite intensity
expresses itself ordinarily in activity of the body. This fact is
the more important for us inasmuch as we rarely have to deal with
light and with not deep-reaching and superficial sensations. In
most cases the sensations in question "exceed a certain intensity,"
so that we are able to perceive a bodily expression at least in the
form of a gesture.
The old English physician, Charles
Bell,[5] is of the opinion, in his
cautious way, that what is called the external sign of passion is
only the accompanying phenomenon of that spontaneous movement
required by the structure, or better, by the situation of the body.
Later this was demonstrated by Darwin and his friends to be the
indubitable starting point of all gesticulation:—so, for example,
the defensive action upon hearing something disgusting, the clenching
of the fists in anger; or among wild animals, the baring of the
teeth, or the bull's dropping of the head, etc. In the course of time
the various forms of action became largely unintelligible and significatory
only after long experience. It became, moreover, differently
differentiated with each individual, and hence still more difficult
to understand. How far this differentiation may go when it has
endured generation after generation and is at last crystallized into
a set type, is well known; just as by training the muscles of porters,
tumblers or fencers develop in each individual, so the muscles develop
in those portions of our body most animated by the mind—in our
face and hands, especially, have there occurred through the centuries
fixed expressions or types of movement. This has led to the
observations of common-sense which speak of raw, animal, passionate
or modest faces, and of ordinary, nervous, or spiritual hands; but it
has also led to the scientific interpretation of these phenomena which
afterwards went shipwreck in the form of Lombroso's "criminal stigmata,"
inasmuch as an overhasty theory has been built on barren,
unexperienced, and unstudied material. The notion of criminal
stigmata is, however, in no sense new, and Lombroso has not invented
it; according to an incidental remark of Kant in his "Menschenkunde,"
the first who tried scientifically to interpret these otherwise
ancient observations was the German J. B.
Friedreich,
[6] who says
expressly that determinate somatic pathological phenomena may
be shown to occur with certain moral perversions. It has
been observed with approximate clearness in several types of cases.
So, for example, incendiarism occurs in the case of abnormal sexual
conditions; poisoning also springs from abnormal sexual impulses;
drowning is the consequence of oversatiated drink mania, etc.
Modern psychopathology knows nothing additional concerning
these marvels; and similar matters which are spoken of nowadays
again, have shown themselves incapable of demonstration. But
that there are phenomena so related, and that their number is
continually increasing under exact observations, is not open to
doubt.
[7] If we stop with the
phenomena of daily life and keep in
mind the ever-cited fact that everybody recognizes at a glance the
old hunter, the retired officer, the actor, the aristocratic lady, etc.,
we may go still further: the more trained observers can recognize
the merchant, the official, the butcher, the shoe-maker, the real
tramp, the Greek, the sexual pervert, etc. Hence follows an important
law—
that if a fact is once recognized correctly in its coarser
form, then the possibility must be granted that it is correct in its subtler
manifestations. The boundary between what is coarse and what
is not may not be drawn at any particular point. It varies with
the skill of the observer, with the character of the material before
him, and with the excellence of his instruments, so that nobody can
say where the possibility of progress in the matter ceases. Something
must be granted in all questions appertaining to this subject
of recognizable unit-characters and every layman pursues daily
certain activities based on their existence. When he speaks of
stupid and intelligent faces he is a physiognomist; he sees that
there are intellectual foreheads and microcephalic ones, and is thus
a craniologist; he observes the expression of fear and of joy, and so
observes the principles of imitation; he contemplates a fine and
elegant hand in contrast with a fat and mean hand, and therefore
assents to the effectiveness of chirognomy; he finds one hand-writing
scholarly and fluid, another heavy, ornate and unpleasant; so he is
dealing with the first principles of graphology;—all these observations
and inferences are nowhere denied, and nobody can say where
their attainable boundaries lie.
Hence, the only proper point of view to take is that from which
we set aside as too bold, all daring and undemonstrated assertions
on these matters. But we will equally beware of asserting without
further consideration that far-reaching statements are unjustified,
for we shall get very far by the use of keener and more careful observation,
richer material, and better instruments.
How fine, for example, are the observations made by Herbert
Spencer concerning the importance of the "timbre" of speech
in the light of the emotional state—no one had ever thought of
that before, or considered the possibilities of gaining anything of
importance from this single datum which has since yielded such a
rich collection of completely proved and correctly founded results.
Darwin knew well enough to make use of it for his own
purposes.[8]
He points out that the person who is quietly complaining of bad
treatment or is suffering a little, almost always speaks in a high tone
of voice; and that deep groans or high and piercing shrieks indicate
extreme pain. Now we lawyers can make just such observations
in great number. Any one of us who has had a few experiences,
can immediately recognize from the tone of voice with which a new
comer makes his requests just about what he wants. The accused,
for example, who by chance does not know why he has been called
to court, makes use of a questioning tone without really pronouncing
his question. Anybody who is seriously wounded, speaks hoarsely
and abruptly. The secret tone of voice of the querulous, and of such
people who speak evil of another when they are only half or not at
all convinced of it, gives them away. The voice of a denying criminal
has in hundreds of cases been proved through a large number of
physiological phenomena to do the same thing for him; the stimulation
of the nerves influences before all the characteristic snapping
movement of the mouth which alternates with the reflex tendency to
swallow. In addition it causes lapses in blood pressure and palpitation
of the heart by means of disturbances of the heart action,
and this shows clearly visible palpitation of the right carotid (well
within the breadth of hand under the ear in the middle of the right
side of the neck). That the left carotid does not show the palpitation
may be based on the fact that the right stands in much more
direct connection with the aorta. All this, taken together, causes
that so significant, lightly vibrating, cold and toneless voice, which
is so often to be perceived in criminals who deny their guilt. It
rarely deceives the expert.
But these various timbres of the voice especially contain a not
insignificant danger for the criminalist. Whoever once has devoted
himself to the study of them trusts them altogether too easily,
for even if he has identified them correctly hundreds of times, it
still may happen that he is completely deceived by a voice he holds
as "characteristically demonstrative." That timbres may deceive,
or simulations worthy of the name occur, I hardly believe. Such
deceptions are often attempted and begun, but they demand the
entire attention of the person who tries them, and that can be given
for only a short time. In the very instant that the matter he is
speaking of requires the attention of the speaker, his voice involuntarily
falls into that tone demanded by its physical determinants:
and the speaker significantly betrays himself through just this
alteration. We may conclude that an effective simulation is hardly
thinkable.
It must, however, be noticed that earlier mistaken observations
and incorrect inference at the present moment—substitutions and
similar mistakes—may easily mislead. As a corroborative fact, then,
the judgment of a voice would have great value; but as a means
in itself it is a thing too little studied and far from confirmed.
There is, however, another aspect of the matter which manifests
itself in an opposite way from voice and gesture. Lazarus calls
attention to the fact that the spectators at a fencing match can not
prevent themselves from imitative accompaniment of the actions of
the fencers, and that anybody who happens to have any swinging
object in his hand moves his hand here and there as they do.
Stricker[9]
makes similar observations concerning involuntary movements performed
while looking at drilling or marching soldiers. Many other
phenomena of the daily life—as, for example, keeping step with some
pedestrian near us, with the movement of a pitcher who with all
sorts of twistings of his body wants to guide the ball correctly when
it has already long ago left his hand; keeping time to music and
accompanying the rhythm of a wagon knocking on cobblestones;
even the enforcement of what is said through appropriate gestures
when people speak vivaciously—naturally belong to the same class.
So do nodding the head in agreement and shaking it in denial;
shrugging the shoulders with a declaration of ignorance. The
expression by word of mouth should have been enough and have
needed no reinforcement through conventional gestures, but the last
are spontaneously involuntary accompaniments.
On the other hand there is the converse fact that the voice may
be influenced through expression and gesture. If we fix an expression
on our features or bring our body into an attitude which involves
passional excitement we may be sure that we will be affected more
or less by the appropriate emotion. This statement, formulated by
Maudsley, is perfectly true and may be proved by anybody at any
moment. It presents itself to us as an effective corroboration of the
so well-known phenomenon of "talking-yourself-into-it." Suppose
you correctly imagine how a very angry man looks: frowning
brow, clenched fists, gritting teeth, hoarse, gasping voice, and suppose
you imitate. Then, even if you feel most harmless and order-loving,
you become quite angry though you keep up the imitation
only a little while. By means of the imitation of lively bodily
changes you may in the same way bring yourself into any conceivable
emotional condition, the outer expressions of which appear energetically.
It must have occurred to every one of us how often
prisoners present so well the excitement of passion that their earnestness
is actually believed; as for example, the anger of a guiltless
suspect or of an obviously needy person, of a man financially
ruined by his trusted servant, etc. Such scenes of passion happen
daily in every court-house and they are so excellently presented
that even an experienced judge believes in their reality and tells
himself that such a thing can not be imitated because the imitation
is altogether too hard to do and still harder to maintain. But in
reality the presentation is not so wonderful, and taken altogether,
is not at all skilful; whoever wants to
manifest
anger must make the
proper gestures (and that requires no art) and when he makes the
gestures the necessary conditions occur and these stimulate and cause
the correct manifestation of the later gestures, while these again
influence the voice. Thus without any essential mummery the comedy
plays itself out, self-sufficient, correct, convincing. Alarming oneself
is not performed by words, but by the reciprocal influence of word
and gesture, and the power of that influence is observable in the
large number of cases where, in the end, people themselves believe
what they have invented. If they are of delicate spiritual equilibrium
they even become hypochondriacs. Writing, and the reading
of writing, is to be considered in the same way as gesticulation; it
has the same alarming influence on voice and general appearance
as the other, so that it is relatively indifferent whether a man speaks
and acts or writes and thinks. This fact is well known to everybody
who has ever in his life written a really coarse letter.
Now this exciting gesticulation can be very easily observed,
but the observation must not come too late. If the witness is once
quite lost in it and sufficiently excited by the concomitant speeches
he will make his gestures well and naturally and the artificial and
untrue will not be discoverable. But this is not the case in the
beginning; then his gestures are actually not skilful, and at that
point a definite force of will and rather notable exaggerations are
observable; the gestures go further than the words, and that is a
matter not difficult to recognize. As soon as the recognition is
made it becomes necessary to examine whether a certain congruity
invariably manifests itself between word and gesture, inasmuch as
with many people the above-mentioned lack of congruity is habitual
and honest. This is particularly the case with people who are somewhat
theatrical and hence gesticulate too much. But if word and
gesture soon conform one to another, especially after a rather lively
presentation, you may be certain that the subject has skilfully
worked himself into his alarm or whatever it is he wanted to manifest.
Quite apart from the importance of seeing such a matter
clearly the interest of the work is a rich reward for the labor involved.
In close relation to these phenomena is the change of color to
which unfortunately great importance is often
assigned.
[10] In this
regard paling has received less general attention because it is more
rare and less suspicious. That it can not be simulated, as is frequently
asserted in discussions of simulation (especially of epilepsy),
is not true, inasmuch as there exists an especial physiological process
which succeeds in causing pallor artificially. In that experiment the
chest is very forcibly contracted, the glottis is closed and the muscles
used in inspiration are contracted. This matter has no practical
value for us, on the one hand, because the trick is always involved
with lively and obvious efforts, and on the other, because cases are
hardly thinkable in which a man will produce artificial pallor in the
court where it can not be of any use to him. The one possibility
of use is in the simulation of epilepsy, and in such a case the trick
can not be played because of the necessary falling to the ground.
Paling depends, as is well known, on the cramp of the muscles
of the veins, which contract and so cause a narrowing of their bore
which hinders the flow of blood. But such cramps happen only in
cases of considerable anger, fear, pain, trepidation, rage; in short,
in cases of excitement that nobody ever has reason to simulate.
Paling has no value in differentiation inasmuch as a man might grow
pale in the face through fear of being unmasked or in rage at unjust
suspicion.
The same thing is true about
blushing.[11] It consists in a sort of
transitory crippling of those nerves that end in the walls of small
arteries. This causes the relaxation of the muscle-fibers of the
blood vessels which are consequently filled in a greater degree
with blood. Blushing also may be voluntarily created by some
individuals. In that case the chest is fully expanded, the glottis
is closed and the muscles of expiration are contracted. But
this matter again has no particular value for us since the simulation
of a blush is at most of use only when a woman wants to appear
quite modest and moral. But for that effect artificial blushing
does not help, since it requires such intense effort as to be immediately
noticeable. Blushing by means of external assistance, e. g.,
inhaling certain chemicals, is a thing hardly anybody will want to
perform before the court.
With regard to guilt or innocence, blushing offers no evidence
whatever. There is a great troop of people who blush without any
reason for feeling guilty. The most instructive thing in this matter
is self-observation, and whoever recalls the cause of his own blushing
will value the phenomenon lightly enough. I myself belonged, not
only as a child, but also long after my student days, to those
unfortunates who grow fire-red quite without reason; I needed only
to hear of some shameful deed, of theft, robbery, murder, and I
would get so red that a spectator might believe that I was one of
the criminals. In my native city there was an old maid who had,
I knew even as a boy, remained single because of unrequited love
of my grandfather. She seemed to me a very poetical figure and
once when her really magnificent ugliness was discussed, I took up
her cause and declared her to be not so bad. My taste was laughed
at, and since then, whenever this lady or the street she lives in or
even her furs (she used to have pleasure in wearing costly furs)
were spoken of, I would blush. And her age may be estimated from
her calf-love. Now what has occurred to me, often painfully, happens
to numbers of people, and it is hence inconceivable why forensic
value is still frequently assigned to blushing. At the same time
there are a few cases in which blushing may be important.
The matter is interesting even though we know nothing about the
intrinsic inner process which leads to the influence on the nervous
filaments. Blushing occurs all the world over, and its occasion and
process is the same among savages as among
us.[12] The same events
may be observed whether we compare the flush of educated or
uneducated. There is the notion, which I believed for a long time,
that blushing occurs among educated people and is especially rare
among peasants, but that does not seem to be true. Working people,
especially those who are out in the open a good deal, have a tougher
pigmentation and a browner skin, so that their flush is less obvious.
But it occurs as often and under the same conditions as among others.
It might be said for the same reason that Gypsies never blush;
and of course, that the blush may be rarer among people lacking in
shame and a sense of honor is conceivable. Yet everybody who has
much to do with Gypsies asserts that the blush may be observed
among them.
Concerning the relation of the blush to age, Darwin says that
early childhood knows nothing about blushing. It happens in
youth more frequently than in old age, and oftener among women
than among men. Idiots blush seldom, blind people and hereditary
albinos, a great deal. The somatic process of blushing is, as Darwin
shows, quite remarkable. Almost always the blush is preceded
by a quick contraction of the eyelids as if to prevent the rise of the
blood in the eyes. After that, in most cases, the eyes are dropped,
even when the cause of blushing is anger or vexation; finally the
blush rises, in most cases irregularly and in spots, at last to cover
the skin uniformly. If you want to save the witness his blush you
can do it only at the beginning—during the movement of the eyes—
and only by taking no notice of it, by not looking at him, and going
right on with your remarks. This incidentally is valuable inasmuch
as many people are much confused by blushing and really do not
know what they are talking about while doing it. There is no third
thing which is the cause of the blush and of the confusion; the blush
itself is the cause of the confusion. This may be indubitably confirmed
by anybody who has the agreeable property of blushing and
therefore is of some experience in the matter. I should never dare
to make capital of any statement made during the blush. Friedreich
calls attention to the fact that people who are for the first time
subject to the procedure of the law courts blush and lose color more
easily than such as are accustomed to it, so that the unaccustomed
scene also contributes to the confusion.
Meynert
[13] states the matter
explicitly: "The blush always depends upon a far-reaching
association-process in which the complete saturation of the
contemporaneously-excited nervous elements constricts the orderly
movement of the mental process, inasmuch as here also the simplicity
of contemporaneously-occurring activities of the brain
determines the scope of the function of association." How convincing
this definition is becomes clear on considering the processes
in question. Let us think of some person accused of a crime to
whom the ground of accusation is presented for the first time, and to
whom the judge after that presents the skilfully constructed proof
of his guilt by means of individual bits of evidence. Now think of
the mass of thoughts here excited, even if the accused is innocent.
The deed itself is foreign to him, he must imagine that; should
any relation to it (e. g. presence at the place where the deed was
done, interest in it, ownership of the object, etc.) be present to his
mind, he must become clear concerning this relationship, while at
the same time the possibilities of excuse—alibi, ownership of the
thing, etc.—storm upon him. Then only does he consider the
particular reasons of suspicion which he must, in some degree,
incarnate and represent in their dangerous character, and for each of
which he must find a separate excuse. We have here some several
dozens of thought-series, which start their movement at the same
time and through each other. If at that time an especially dangerous
apparent proof is brought, and if the accused, recognizing
this danger, blushes with fear, the examiner thinks: "Now I have
caught the rascal, for he's blushing! Now let's go ahead quickly,
speed the examination and enter the confused answer in the protocol!
"And who believes the accused when, later on, he withdraws
the "confession" and asserts that he had said the thing because they
had mixed him up?
In this notion, "you blush, therefore you have lied; you did it!"
lie many sins the commission of which is begun at the time of admonishing
little children and ended with obtaining the "confessions"
of the murderous thief.
Finally, it is not to be forgotten that there are cases of blushing
which have nothing to do with psychical processes. Ludwig
Meyer[14]
calls it "artificial blushing" (better, "mechanically developed
blushing"), and narrates the case of "easily-irritated women who
could develop a blush with the least touch of friction, e. g., of the
face on a pillow, rubbing with the hand, etc.; and this blush could
not be distinguished from the ordinary blush." We may easily
consider that such lightly irritable women may be accused, come
before the court without being recognized as such, and, for example,
cover their faces with their hands and blush. Then the thing might
be called "evidential."
[[1]]
H. L. Helmholtz: Über die Weebselwirkungen der Naturkräfte.
Königsberg 1854.
[[2]]
A. Lehmann: Die körperliche Äusserungen psychologischer
Zustände.
Leipsig Pt. I, 1899. Pt. II, 1901.
[[3]]
H. Bergson: Le Rire. Paris 1900.
[[4]]
H. Spencer: Essays, Scientific, etc. 2d Series
[[5]]
Charles Bell: The Anatomy and Philosophy of Expression. London 1806
and 1847.
[[6]]
J. B. Friedreich: System der Gericht. Psych.
[[7]]
Cf. Näcke in Gross's Archiv, I, 200, and IX, 253.
[[8]]
C. Darwin: The Expression of the Emotions.
[[9]]
S. Stricker: Studien über die Bewegungsvorstellungen. Vienna 1882.
[[10]]
E. Claparède: L'obsession de la rougeur. Arch. de Psych. de la
Suisse
Romande, 1902, I, 307
[[11]]
Henle: Über das Erröten. Breslau 1882.
[[12]]
Th. Waitz: Anthropologie der Naturvölker (Pt. I). Leipzig 1859.
[[13]]
Th. Meynert: Psychiatry. Vienna 1884.
[[14]]
L. Meyer: Über künstliches Erröten. Westphals. Archiv, IV.
Section 12. (b) General Signs of Character.
Friedrich Gerstäcker, in one of his most delightful moods, says
somewhere that the best characteristicon of a man is how he
wears his hat. If he wears it perpendicular, he is honest, pedantic
and boresome. If he wears it tipped slightly, he belongs to the best
and most interesting people, is nimble-witted and pleasant. A
deeply tipped hat indicates frivolity and obstinate imperious nature.
A hat worn on the back of the head signifies improvidence, easiness,
conceit, sensuality and extravagance; the farther back the more
dangerous is the position of the wearer. The man who presses his
hat against his temples complains, is melancholy, and in a bad way.
It is now many years since I have read this exposition by the
much-traveled and experienced author, and I have thought countless times
how right he was, but also, how there may be numberless similar
marks of recognition which show as much as the manner of wearing
a hat. There are plenty of similar expositions to be known; one
man seeks to recognize the nature of others by their manner of
wearing and using shoes; the other by the manipulation of an umbrella;
and the prudent mother advises her son how the candidate
for bride behaves toward a groom lying on the floor, or how she eats
cheese—the extravagant one cuts the rind away thick, the miserly
one eats the rind, the right one cuts the rind away thin and carefully.
Many people judge families, hotel guests, and inhabitants of
a city, and not without reason, according to the comfort and cleanliness
of their privies.
Lazarus has rightly called to mind what is told by the pious
Chr. von Schmidt, concerning the clever boy who lies under a tree
and recognizes the condition of every passer-by according to what
he says. "What fine lumber,"—"Good-morning, carpenter,"—
"What magnificent bark,"—Good-morning, tanner,"—"What
beautiful branches,"—"Good-morning, painter." This significant
story shows us how easy it is with a little observation to perceive
things that might otherwise have been hidden. With what subtle
clearness it shows how effective is the egoism which makes each man
first of all, and in most cases exclusively, perceive what most
concerns him as most prominent! And in addition men so eagerly
and often present us the chance for the deepest insight into their
souls that we need only to open our eyes—seeing and interpreting
is so childishly easy! Each one of us experiences almost daily the
most instructive things; e. g. through the window of my study I
could look into a great garden in which a house was being built;
when the carpenters left in the evening they put two blocks at the
entrance and put a board on them crosswise. Later there came each
evening a gang of youngsters who found in this place a welcome
playground. That obstruction which they had to pass gave me an
opportunity to notice the expression of their characters. One ran
quickly and jumped easily over,—that one will progress easily and
quickly in his life. Another approached carefully, climbed slowly
up the board and as cautiously descended on the other side—
careful, thoughtful, and certain. The third climbed up and jumped
down—a deed purposeless, incidental, uninforming. The fourth
ran energetically to the obstruction, then stopped and crawled
boldly underneath—disgusting boy who nevertheless will have
carried his job ahead. Then, again, there came a fifth who jumped,—
but too low, remained hanging and tumbled; he got up, rubbed his
knee, went back, ran again and came over magnificently—and how
magnificently will he achieve all things in life, for he has will,
fearlessness, and courageous endurance!—he can't sink. Finally a
sixth came storming along—one step, and board and blocks fell
together crashing, but he proudly ran over the obstruction, and
those who came behind him made use of the open way. He is of
the people who go through life as path-finders; we get our great
men from among such.
Well, all this is just a game, and no one would dare to draw
conclusions concerning our so serious work from such observations
merely. But they can have a corroborative value if they are well
done, when large numbers, and not an isolated few, are brought
together, and when appropriate analogies are brought from appropriate
cases. Such studies, which have to be sought in the daily life
itself, permit easy development; if observations have been clearly
made, correctly apprehended, and if, especially, the proper notions
have been drawn from them, they are easily to be observed, stick
in the memory, and come willingly at the right moment. But they
must then serve only as indices, they must only suggest: "perhaps
the case is the same to-day." And that means a good deal; a point
of view for the taking of evidence is established, not, of course,
proof as such, or a bit of evidence, but a way of receiving it,—perhaps
a false one. But if one proceeds carefully along this way, it
shows its falseness immediately, and another presented by memory
shows us another way that is perhaps correct.
The most important thing in this matter is to get a general view
of the human specimen—and incidentally, nobody needs more to
do this than the criminalist. For most of us the person before us
is only "A, suspected of x." But our man is rather more than
that, and especially he was rather more before he became "A suspected
of x." Hence, the greatest mistake, and, unfortunately,
the commonest, committed by the judge, is his failure to discuss
with the prisoner his more or less necessary earlier life. Is it not
known that every deed is an outcome of the total character of the
doer? Is it not considered that deed and character are correlative
concepts, and that the character by means of which the deed is to
be established cannot be inferred from the deed alone? "Crime
is the product of the physiologically grounded psyche of the criminal
and his environing external conditions." (Liszt). Each particular
deed is thinkable only when a determinate character of the doer
is brought in relation with it—a certain character predisposes to
determinate deeds, another character makes them unthinkable and
unrelatable with this or that person. But who thinks to know the
character of a man without knowing his view of the world, and
who talks of their world-views with his criminals? "Whoever wants
to learn to know men," says
Hippel,
[1] "must judge them according
to their wishes," and it is the opinion of
Struve:
[2] "A man's belief
indicates his purpose." But who of us asks his criminals about their
wishes and beliefs?
If we grant the correctness of what we have said we gain the
conviction that we can proceed with approximate certainty and
conscientiousness only if we speak with the criminal, not alone
concerning the deed immediately in question, but also searchingly
concerning the important conditions of his inner life. So we may
as far as possible see clearly what he is according to general notions
and his particular relationships.
The same thing must also be done with regard to an important
witness, especially when much depends upon his way of judging,
of experiencing, of feeling, and of thinking, and when it is impossible
to discover these things otherwise. Of course such analyses
are often tiring and without result, but that, on the other hand, they
lay open with few words whole broadsides of physical conditions,
so that we need no longer doubt, is also a matter of course. Who
wants to leave unused a formula of Schopenhauer's: "We discover
what we are through what we do?" Nothing is easier than to discover
from some person important to us what he does, even though
the discovery develops merely as a simple conversation about what
he has done until now and what he did lately. And up to date we
have gotten at such courses of life only in the great cases; in cases
of murder or important political criminals, and then only at externals;
we have cared little about the essential deeds, the smaller
forms of activity which are always the significant ones. Suppose
we allow some man to speak about others, no matter whom, on
condition that he must know them well. He judges their deeds,
praises and condemns them, and thinks that he is talking about them
but is really talking about himself alone, for in each judgment of
the others he aims to justify and enhance himself; the things he
praises he does, what he finds fault with, he does not; or at least he
wishes people to believe that he does the former and avoids the
latter. And when he speaks unpleasantly about his friends he has
simply abandoned what he formerly had in common with them.
Then again he scolds at those who have gotten on and blames their
evil nature for it; but whoever looks more closely may perceive
that he had no gain in the same evil and therefore dislikes it. At
the same time, he cannot possibly suppress what he wishes and
what he needs. Now, whoever knows this fact, knows his motives
and to decide in view of these with regard to a crime is seldom
difficult. "Nos besoins vent nos forces"—but superficial needs
do not really excite us while what is an actual need does. Once
we are compelled, our power to achieve what we want grows astoundingly.
How we wonder at the great amount of power used up, in
the case of many criminals! If we know that a real need was behind
the crime, we need no longer wonder at the magnitude of the power.
The relation between the crime and the criminal is defined because
we have discovered his needs. To these needs a man's pleasures
belong also; every man, until the practically complete loss of vigor,
has as a rule a very obvious need for some kind of pleasure. It is
human nature not to be continuously a machine, to require relief and
pleasure.
The word pleasure must of course be used in the loosest way, for
one man finds his pleasure in sitting beside the stove or in the shadow,
while another speaks of pleasure only when he can bring some
change in his work. I consider it impossible not to understand a
man whose pleasures are known; his will, his power, his striving
and knowing, feeling and perceiving cannot be made clearer by
any other thing. Moreover, it happens that it is a man's pleasures
which bring him into court, and as he resists or falls into them
he reveals his character. The famous author of the "Imitation of
Christ," Thomas à Kempis, whose book is, saving the Bible, the
most wide-spread on earth, says: "Occasiones hominem fragilem
non faciunt, sea, qualis sit, ostendunt." That is a golden maxim
for the criminalist. Opportunity, the chance to taste, is close to
every man, countless times; is his greatest danger; for that reason
it was great wisdom in the Bible that called the devil, the Tempter.
A man's behavior with regard to the discovered or sought-out
opportunity exhibits his character wholly and completely. But
the chance to observe men face to face with opportunity is a rare
one, and that falling-off with which we are concerned is often the
outcome of such an opportunity. But at this point we ought not
longer to learn, but to know; and hence our duty to study the
pleasures of men, to know how they behave in the presence of their
opportunities.
There is another group of conditions through which you may
observe and judge men in general. The most important one is
to know yourself as well as possible, for accurate self-knowledge
leads to deep mistrust with regard to others, and only the man
suspicious with regard to others is insured, at least a little, against
mistakes. To pass from mistrust to the reception of something good
is not difficult, even in cases where the mistrust is well-founded and
the presupposition of excellent motives among our fellows is strongly
fought. Nevertheless, when something actually good is perceivable,
one is convinced by it and even made happy. But the converse is
not true, for anybody who is too trusting easily presupposes the
best at every opportunity, though he may have been deceived a
thousand times and is now deceived again. How it happens that
self-knowledge leads to suspicion of others we had better not investigate
too closely—it is a fact.
Every man is characterized by the way he behaves in regard to
his promises. I do not mean keeping or breaking a promise, because
nobody doubts that the honest man keeps it and the scoundrel
does not. I mean the manner in which a promise is
kept and the
degree in which it is kept. La
Roche-Foucauld[3]
says significantly:
"We promise according to our hopes, and perform according to our
fears." When in any given case promising and hopes and performance
and fears are compared, important considerations arise,—
especially in cases of complicity in crime.
When it is at all possible, and in most cases it is, one ought to
concern oneself with a man's style,—the handwriting of his soul.
What this consists of cannot be expressed in a definite way. The
style must simply be studied and tested with regard to its capacity
for being united with certain presupposed qualities. Everybody
knows that education, bringing-up, and intelligence are indubitably
expressed in style, but it may also be observed that style clearly
expresses softness or hardness of a character, kindness or cruelty,
determination or weakness, integrity or carelessness, and hundreds
of other qualities. Generally the purpose of studying style may be
achieved by keeping in mind some definite quality presupposed and
by asking oneself, while reading the manuscript of the person in
question, whether this quality fuses with the manuscript's form and
with the individual tendencies and relationships that occur in the
construction of the thought. One reading will of course not bring
you far, but if the reading is repeated and taken up anew, especially
as often as the writer is met with or as often as some new fact about
him is established, then it is almost impossible not to attain a fixed
and valuable result. One gets then significantly the sudden impression
that the thing to be proved, having the expression of which
the properties are to be established, rises out of the manuscript;
and when that happens the time has come not to dawdle with the
work. Repeated reading causes the picture above-mentioned to
come out more clearly and sharply; it is soon seen in what places
or directions of the manuscript that expression comes to light—
these places are grouped together, others are sought that more or
less imply it, and soon a standpoint for further consideration is
reached which naturally is not evidential by itself, but has, when
combined with numberless others, corroborative value.
Certain small apparently indifferent qualities and habits are
important. There are altogether too many of them to talk about;
but there are examples enough of the significance of what is said of
a man in this fashion: "this man is never late," "this man never
forgets," "this man invariably carries a pencil or a pocket knife,"
"this one is always perfumed," "this one always wears clean, carefully
brushed clothes,"—whoever has the least training may construct
out of such qualities the whole inner life of the individual.
Such observations may often be learned from simple people, especially
from old peasants. A great many years ago I had a case
which concerned a disappearance. It was supposed that the lost
man was murdered. Various examinations were made without
result, until, finally, I questioned an old and very intelligent peasant
who had known well the lost man. I asked the witness to describe
the nature of his friend very accurately, in order that I might draw
from his qualities, habits, etc., my inferences concerning his tendencies,
and hence concerning his possible location. The old peasant
supposed that everything had been said about the man in question
when he explained that he was a person who never owned a decent
tool. This was an excellent description, the value of which I completely
understood only when the murdered man came to life and I
learned to know him. He was a petty lumberman who used to
buy small wooded tracts in the high mountains for cutting, and
having cut them down would either bring the wood down to the
valley, or have it turned to charcoal. In the fact that he never
owned a decent tool, nor had one for his men, was established his
whole narrow point of view, his cramped miserliness, his disgusting
prudence, his constricted kindliness, qualities which permitted his
men to plague themselves uselessly with bad tools and which justified
altogether his lack of skill in the purchase of tools. So I thought
how the few words of the old, much-experienced peasant were confirmed
utterly—they told the whole story. Such men, indeed, who
say little but say it effectively, must be carefully attended to, and
everything must be done to develop and to understand what they
mean.
But the judge requires attention and appropriate conservation
of his own observations. Whoever observes the people he deals with
soon notices that there is probably not one among them that does
not possess some similar, apparently unessential quality like that
mentioned above. Among close acquaintances there is little difficulty
in establishing which of their characteristics belong to that
quality, and when series of such observations are brought together
it is not difficult to generalize and to abstract from them specific
rules. Then, in case of need, when the work is important, one
makes use of the appropriate rule with pleasure, and I might say,
with thanks for one's own efforts.
One essential and often useful symbol to show what a man makes
of himself, what he counts himself for, is his use of the word we.
Hartenstein[4] has
already called attention to the importance of
this circumstance, and Volkmar says: "The we has a
very various
scope, from the point of an accidental simultaneity of images in
the same sensation, representation or thought, to the almost complete
circle of the family we which breaks through the
I and even
does not exclude the most powerful antagonisms; hatred, just like
love, asserts its we." What is characteristic in
the word we is the
opposition of a larger or smaller group of which the I is a member,
to the rest of the universe. I say we when I mean
merely my wife
and myself, the inhabitants of my house, my family, those who
live in my street, in my ward, or in my city; I say
we assessors, we
central-Austrians, we Austrians, we Germans, we Europeans, we
inhabitants of the earth. I say we lawyers, we blonds, we Christians,
we mammals, we collaborators on a monthly, we old students'
society, we married men, we opponents of jury trial. But I also say
we when speaking of accidental relations, such as
being on the same
train, meeting on the same mountain peak, in the same hotel, at the
same concert, etc. In a word we defines all
relationships from the
narrowest and most important, most essential, to the most individual
and accidental. Conceivably the
we unites also
people who have
something evil in common, who use it a great deal among themselves,
and because of habit, in places where they would rather not have done
so. Therefore, if you pay attention you may hear some suspect
who denies his guilt, come out with a
we which
confesses his alliance
with people who do the things he claims
not to:
wepickpockets,
we
house-breakers,
we gamblers, inverts, etc.
It is so conceivable that man as a social animal seeks companionship
in so many directions that he feels better protected when he
has a comrade, when he can present in the place of his weak and
unprotected I the stronger
and bolder we; and hence the considerable
and varied use of the word. No one means that people are to be
caught with the word; it is merely to be used to bring clearness into
our work. Like every other honest instrument, it is an index to
the place of the man before us.
[[1]]
Th. G. von Hippel: Lebenläsufe nach aufsteigender Linie. Ed. v
Oettingen.
Leipzig 1880.
[[2]]
G. Struve: Das Seelenleben oder die Naturgeschichte des Menschen. Berlin
1869.
[[3]]
La Roche-Foucauld: Maximes et Refl'exions Morales.
[[4]]
Grundbegriffe der ethisehen Wissenschaft. Leipzig 1844.
Section 13. (c) Particular Character-signs.
It is a mistake to suppose that it is enough in most cases to study
that side of a man which is at the moment important—his dishonesty
only, his laziness, etc. That will naturally lead to merely
one-sided judgment and anyway be much harder than keeping the
whole man in eye and studying him as an entirety. Every individual
quality is merely a symptom of a whole nature, can be explained
only by the whole complex, and the good properties depend as much
on the bad ones as the bad on the good ones. At the very least the
quality and quantity of a good or bad characteristic shows the
influence of all the other good and bad characteristics. Kindliness
is influenced and partly created through weakness, indetermination,
too great susceptibility, a minimum acuteness, false constructiveness,
untrained capacity for inference; in the same way, again, the most
cruel hardness depends on properties which, taken in themselves,
are good: determination, energy, purposeful action, clear conception
of one's fellows, healthy egotism, etc. Every man is the result of
his nature and nurture, i. e. of countless individual conditions, and
every one of his expressions, again, is the result of all of these conditions.
If, therefore, he is to be judged, he must be judged in the
light of them all.
For this reason, all those indications that show us the man
as a whole are for us the most important, but also those others
are valuable which show him up on one side only. In the latter
case, however, they are to be considered only as an index which
never relieves us from the need further to study the nature of our
subject. The number of such individual indications is legion and
no one is able to count them up and ground them, but examples of
them may be indicated.
We ask, for example, what kind of man will give us the best and
most reliable information about the conduct and activity, the nature
and character, of an individual? We are told: that sort of person
who is usually asked for the information—his nearest friends and
acquaintances, and the authorities. Before all of these nobody
shows himself as he is, because the most honest man will show
himself before people in whose judgment he has an interest at least
as good as, if not better than he is—that is fundamental to the
general egoistic essence of humanity, which seeks at least to avoid
reducing its present welfare. Authorities who are asked to make
a statement concerning any person, can say reliably only how often
the man was punished or came otherwise in contact with the law
or themselves. But concerning his social characteristics the authorities
have nothing to say; they have got to investigate them and the
detectives have to bring an answer. Then the detectives are, at
most, simply people who have had the opportunity to watch and
interrogate the individuals in question,—the servants,
house-furnishers, porters, corner-loafers, etc. Why we do not question
the latter ourselves I cannot say; if we did we might know these
people on whom we depend for important information and might
put our questions according to the answers that we need. It is
a purely negative thing that an official declaration is nowadays
not unfrequently presented to us in the disgusting form of the
gossip of an old hag. But in itself the form of getting information
about people through servants and others of the same class is correct.
One has, however, to beware that it is not done simply because
the gossips are most easily found, but because people show their
weaknesses most readily before those whom they hold of no account.
The latter fact is well known, but not sufficiently studied. It is
of considerable importance. Let us then examine it more closely:
Nobody is ashamed to show himself before an animal as he is, to
do an evil thing, to commit a crime; the shame will increase very
little if instead of the animal a complete idiot is present, and if now
we suppose the intelligence and significance of this witness steadily
to increase, the shame of appearing before him as one is increases in
a like degree. So we will control ourselves most before people
whose judgment is of most importance to us. The Styrian, Peter
Rosegger, one of the best students of mankind, once told a first-rate
story of how the most intimate secrets of certain people became
common talk although all concerned assured him that nobody had
succeeded in getting knowledge of them. The news-agent was
finally discovered in the person of an old, humpy, quiet, woman,
who worked by the day in various homes and had found a place,
unobserved and apparently indifferent, in the corner of the
sitting-room. Nobody had told her any secrets, but things were allowed to
occur before her from which she might guess and put them together.
Nobody had watched this disinterested, ancient lady; she worked
like a machine; her thoughts, when she noted a quarrel or anxiety
or disagreement or joy, were indifferent to all concerned, and so
she discovered a great deal that was kept secret from more important
persons. This simple story is very significant—we are not to pay
attention to gossips but to keep in mind that the information of
persons is in the rule more important and more reliable when the
question under consideration is indifferent to them than when it
is important. We need only glance at our own situation in this
matter—what do we know about our servants? What their Christian
names are, because we have to call them; where they come from,
because we hear their pronunciation; how old they are, because
we see them; and those of their qualities that we make use of. But
what do we know of their family relationships, their past, their
plans, their joys or sorrows? The lady of the house knows perhaps
a little more because of her daily intercourse with them, but her
husband learns of it only in exceptional cases when he bothers
about things that are none of his business. Nor does madam know
much, as examination shows us daily. But what on the other hand
do the servants know about us? The relation between husband and
wife, the bringing-up of the children, the financial situation, the
relation with cousins, the house-friends, the especial pleasures, each
joy, each trouble that occurs, each hope, everything from the least
bodily pain to the very simplest secret of the toilette—they know
it all. What can be kept from them? The most restricted of them
are aware of it, and if they do not see more, it is not because of
our skill at hiding, but because of their stupidity. We observe that
in these cases there is not much that can be kept secret and hence
do not trouble to do so.
There is besides another reason for allowing subordinate or indifferent
people to see one's weaknesses. The reason is that we
hate those who are witnesses of a great weakness. Partly it is
shame, partly vexation at oneself, partly pure egoism, but it is
a fact that one's anger turns instinctively upon those who have
observed one's degradation through one's own weakness. This is
so frequently the case that the witness is to be the more relied on
the more the accused would seem to have preferred that the witness
had not seen him. Insignificant people are not taken as real witnesses;
they were there but they haven't perceived anything; and
by the time it comes to light that they see at least as well as anybody
else, it is too late. One will not go far wrong in explaining
the situation with the much varied epigram of Tacitus: "Figulus
odit figulum." It is, at least, through business-jealousy that one
porter hates another, and the reason for it lies in the fact that two
of a trade know each other's weaknesses, that one always knows
how the other tries to hide his lack of knowledge, how deceitful
fundamentally every human activity is, and how much trouble
everybody takes to make his own trade appear to the other as fine
as possible. If you know, however, that your neighbor is as wise as
you are, the latter becomes a troublesome witness in any disagreeable
matter, and if he is often thought of in this way, he comes to be
hated. Hence you must never be more cautious than when one
"figulus" gives evidence about another. Esprit de corps and
jealousy pull the truth with frightful force, this way and that, and
the picture becomes the more distorted because so-called esprit
de corps is nothing more than generalized selfishness.
Kant
[1] is
not saying enough when he says that the egoist is a person who
always tries to push his own
I forward and to make
it the chief
object of his own and of everybody else's attention. For the person
who merely seeks attention is only conceited; the egoist, however,
seeks his own advantage alone, even at the cost of other people,
and when he shows esprit de corps he desires the advantage of his
corps because he also has a share in that. In this sense one of a
trade has much to say about his fellow craftsmen, but because of
jealousy, says too little—in what direction, however, he is most
likely to turn depends on the nature of the case and the character
of the witness.
In most instances it will be possible to make certain distinctions
as to when objectively too much and subjectively too little is said.
That is to say, the craftsman will exaggerate with regard to all
general questions, but with regard to his special fellow jealousy
will establish her rights. An absolute distinction may never be
drawn, not even subjectively. Suppose that A has something to
say about his fellow craftsman B, and suppose that certain achievements
of B are to be valued. If now A has been working in the same
field as B he must not depreciate too much the value of B's work,
since otherwise his own work is in danger of the same low valuation.
Objectively the converse is true: for if A bulls the general efficiency
of his trade, it doesn't serve his conceit, since we find simply that the
competitor is in this way given too high a value. It would be inadvisable
to give particular examples from special trades, but everybody
who has before him one "figulus" after another, from the
lowest to the highest professions, and who considers the statements
they make about each other, will grant the correctness of our contention.
I do not, at this point, either, assert that the matter is the
same in each and every case, but that it is generally so is indubitable.
There is still another thing to be observed. A good many people
who are especially efficient in their trades desire to be known as
especially efficient in some other and remote circle. It is historic
that a certain regent was happy when his very modest flute-playing
was praised; a poet was pleased when his miserable drawings were
admired; a marshal wanted to hear no praise of his victories but
much of his very doubtful declamation. The case is the same among
lesser men. A craftsman wants to shine with some foolishness in
another craft, and "the philistine is happiest when he is considered
a devil of a fellow." The importance of this fact lies in the possibility
of error in conclusions drawn from what the subject himself
tries to present about his knowledge and power. With regard to
the past it leads even fundamentally honest persons to deception
and lying.
So for example a student who might have been the most solid
and harmless in his class later makes suggestions that he was the
wildest sport; the artist who tried to make his way during his
cubhood most bravely with the hard-earned money of his mother
is glad to have it known that he was guilty as a young man of
unmitigated nonsense; and the ancient dame who was once the most
modest of girls is tickled with the flattery of a story concerning her
magnificent flirtations. When such a matter is important for us it
must be received with great caution.
To this class of people who want to appear rather more interesting
than they are, either in their past or present, belong also those who
declare that everything is possible and who have led many a judge
into vexatious mistakes. This happens especially when an accused
person tries to explain away the suspicions against him by daring
statements concerning his great achievements (e. g.: in going back
to a certain place, or his feats of strength, etc.), and when witnesses
are asked if these are conceivable. One gets the impression in these
cases that the witnesses under consideration suppose that they
belittle themselves and their point of view if they think anything to
be impossible. They are easily recognized. They belong to the
worst class of promoters and inventors or their relations. If a man
is studying how to pay the national debt or to solve the social question
or to irrigate Sahara, or is inclined to discover a dirigible airship,
a perpetual-motion machine, or a panacea, or if he shows sympathy
for people so inclined, he is likely to consider everything
possible—and men of this sort are surprisingly numerous. They do
not, as a rule, carry their plans about in public, and hence have the
status of prudent persons, but they betray themselves by their
propensity for the impossible in all conceivable directions. If a man
is suspected to be one of them, and the matter is important enough,
he may be brought during the conversation to talk about some project
or invention. He will then show how his class begins to deal
with it, with what I might call a suspicious warmth. By that token
you know the class. They belong to that large group of people
who, without being abnormal, still have passed the line which divides
the perfectly trustworthy from those unreliable persons who, with
the best inclination to tell the truth, can render it only as it is distorted
by their clouded minds.
These people are not to be confused with those specific men of
power who, in the attempt to show what they can do, go further than
in truth they should. There are indeed persons of talent who are
efficient, and know it, whether for good or evil, and they happen to
belong both to the class of the accused and of the witness. The
former show this quality in confessing to more than they are guilty
of, or tell their story in such a way as to more clearly demonstrate
both their power and their conceit. So that it may happen that a
man takes upon himself a crime that he shares with three accomplices
or that he describes a simple larceny as one in which force had to
be used with regard to its object and even with regard to the object's
owner; or perhaps he describes his flight or his opponents' as much
more troublesome than these actually were or need have been.
The witness behaves in a similar fashion and shows his defense
against an attack for example, or his skill in discovery of his goods,
or his detection of the criminal in a much brighter light than really
belongs to it; he even may describe situations that were superfluous
in order to show what he can do. In this way the simplest fact is
often distorted. As suspects such people are particularly difficult
to deal with. Aside from the fact that they do more and actually
have done more than was necessary, they become unmanageable
and hard-mouthed through unjust accusations. Concerning these
people the statement made a hundred years ago by Ben
David
[2]
still holds: "Persecution turns wise people raw and foolish, and
kindly and well disposed ones cruel and evil-intentioned." There
are often well disposed natures who, after troubles, express themselves
in the manner described. It very frequently happens that
suspects, especially those under arrest, alter completely in the course
of time, become sullen, coarse, passionate, ill-natured, show themselves
defiant and resentful to even the best-willed approach, and
exhibit even a kind of courage in not offering any defense and in
keeping silent. Such phenomena require the most obvious caution,
for one is now dealing apparently with powerful fellows who have
received injustice. Whether they are quite guiltless, whether they
are being improperly dealt with, or for whatever reason the proper
approach has not been made, we must go back, to proceed in another
fashion, and absolutely keep in mind the possibility of their being
innocent in spite of serious evidence against them.
These people are mainly recognizable by their mode of life, their
habitual appearance, and its expression. Once that is known their
conduct in court is known. In the matter of individual features of
character, the form of life, the way of doing things is especially to
be observed. Many an effort, many a quality can be explained in
no other way. The simple declaration of Volkmar, "There are some
things that we want only because we had them once," explains to
the criminalist long series of phenomena that might otherwise have
remained unintelligible. Many a larceny, robbery, possibly murder,
many a crime springing from jealousy, many sexual offenses
become intelligible when one learns that the criminal had at one
time possessed the object for the sake of which he committed the
crime, and having lost it had tried with irresistible vigor to regain
it. What is extraordinary in the matter is the fact that considerable
time passes between the loss and the desire for recovery. It seems
as if the isolated moments of desire sum themselves up in the course
of time and then break out as the crime. In such cases the explaining
motive of the deed is never to be found except in the criminal's
past.
The same relationship exists in the cases of countless criminals
whose crimes seem at bottom due to apparently inconceivable
brutality. In all such cases, especially when the facts do not otherwise
make apparent the possible guilt of the suspect, the story of the
crime's development has to be studied. Gustav Strave asserts that
it is demonstrable that young men become surgeons out of pure
cruelty, out of desire to see people suffer pain and to cause pain.
A student of pharmacy became a hangman for the same reason and
a rich Dutchman paid the butchers for allowing him to kill oxen.
If, then, one is dealing with a crime which points to extraordinary
cruelty, how can one be certain about its motive and history without
knowing the history of the criminal?
This is the more necessary inasmuch as we may be easily deceived
through apparent motives. "Inasmuch as in most capital crimes
two or more motives work together, an ostensible and a concealed
one," says Kraus,[3] "each
criminal has at his command apparent
motives which encourage the crime." We know well enough how
frequently the thief excuses himself on the ground of his need, how
the criminal wants to appear as merely acting in self-defense during
robberies, and how often the sensualist, even when he has misbehaved
with a little child, still asserts that the child had seduced
him. In murder cases even, when the murderer has
confessed, we
frequently find that he tries to excuse himself. The woman who
poisons her husband, really because she wants to marry another,
tells her story in such a way as to make it appear that she killed
him because he was extraordinarily bad and that her deed simply
freed the world of a disgusting object. As a rule the psychological
aspect of such cases is made more difficult, by the reason that the
subject has in a greater or lesser degree convinced himself of the
truth of his statements and finally believes his reasons for excuse
altogether or in part. And if a man believes what he says, the proof
that the story is false is much harder to make, because psychological
arguments that might be used to prove falsehood are then of no
use. This is an important fact which compels us to draw a sharp
line between a person who is obviously lying and one who does
believe what he says. We have to discover the difference, inasmuch
as the self-developed conviction of the truth of a story is never so
deep rooted as the real conviction of truth. For that reason, the
person who has convinced himself of his truth artificially, watches
all doubts and objections with much greater care than a man who
has no doubt whatever in what he says. The former, moreover, does
not have a good conscience, and the proverb says truly, "a bad
conscience has a fine ear." The man knows that he is not dealing
correctly with the thing and hence he observes all objections, and
the fact that he does so observe, can not be easily overlooked by the
examining officer.
Once this fine hearing distinguishes the individual who really
believes in the motive he plausibly offers the court, there is another
indication (obviously quite apart from the general signs of deceit)
that marks him further, and this comes to light when one has him
speak about similar crimes of others in which the ostensible motive
actually was present. It is said rightly, that not he is old who no
longer commits youthful follies but he that no longer forgives them,
and so not merely he is bad who himself commits evil but also he who
excuses them in others. Of course, that an accused person should
defend the naked deed as it is described in the criminal law is not
likely for conceivable reasons—since certainly no robbery-suspect
will sing a paean about robbers, but certainly almost anybody who
has a better or a better-appearing motive for his crime, will protect
those who have been guided by a similar motive in other cases.
Every experiment shows this to be the case and then apparent
motives are easily enough recognized as such.
[[ id="n13.1"]]
Menschenkunde oder philosophische Anthropologie. Leipzig 1831. Ch.
Starke.
[[ id="n13.2"]]
Etwas zur Charakterisierung der Juden. 1793.
[[ id="n13.3"]]
A. Kraus: Die Psychologie des Verbrechens. Tübingen 1884.
(d) Somatic Character-Units.
Section 14. (1) General Considerations.
When we say that the inner condition of men implies some outer
expression, it must follow that there are series of phenomena which
especially mold the body in terms of the influence of a state of mind
on external appearance, or conversely, which are significant of the
influence of some physical uniqueness on the psychical state, or of
some other psycho physical condition. As an example of the first
kind one may cite the well known phenomenon that devotees always
make an impression rather specifically feminine. As an example of
the second kind is the fact demonstrated by
Gyurkovechky[1] that
impotents exhibit disagreeable characteristics. Such conditions
find their universalizing expression in the cruel but true maxim
"Beware of the marked one." The Bible was the first of all to
make mention of these evil stigmata. No one of course asserts that
the bearer of any bodily malformation is for that reason invested
with one or more evil qualities—"Non cum hoc, sed propter hoc."
It is a general quality of the untrained, and hence the majority of
men, that they shall greet the unfortunate who suffers from some
bodily malformation not with care and protection, but with scorn
and maltreatment. Such propensities belong, alas, not only to
adults, but also to children, who annoy their deformed playfellows
(whether expressly or whether because they are inconsiderate),
and continually call the unhappy child's attention to his deformity.
Hence, there follows in most cases from earliest youth, at first a
certain bitterness, then envy, unkindness, stifled rage against the
fortunate, joy in destruction, and all the other hateful similar qualities
however they may be named. In the course of time all of these
retained bitter impressions summate, and the qualities arising
from them become more acute, become habitual, and at last you
have a ready-made person "marked for evil." Add to this the
indubitable fact that the marked persons are considerably wiser
and better-instructed than the others. Whether this is so by accident
or is causally established is difficult to say; but inasmuch as
most of them are compelled just by their deformities to deprive
themselves of all common pleasures and to concern themselves with
their own affairs, once they have been fed to satiety with abuse,
scorn and heckling, the latter is the more likely. Under such
circumstances they have to think more, they learn more than the
others to train their wits, largely as means of defense against physical
attack. They often succeed by wit, but then, they can never
be brought into a state of good temper and lovableness when they
are required to defend themselves by means of sharp, biting and
destructive wit. Moreover, if the deformed is naturally not
well-disposed, other dormant evil tendencies develop in him, which
might never have realized themselves if he had had no need
of them for purposes of self-defense—lying, slander, intrigue,
persecution by means of unpermitted instruments, etc. All this
finally forms a determinate complex of phenomena which is undivorceably
bound in the eyes of the expert with every species of
deformity: the mistrusting of the deaf man, the menacing expression
of the blind, the indescribable and therefore extremely
characteristic smiling of the hump-back are not the only typical
phenomena of this kind.
All this is popularly known and is abnormally believed in, so
that we often discover that the deformed are more frequently
suspected of crime than normal people. Suspicion turns to them
especially when an unknown criminal has committed a crime the
accomplishment of which required a particularly evil nature and
where the deed of itself called forth general indignation. In that
case, once a deformed person is suspected, grounds of suspicion are not
difficult to find; a few collect more as a rolling ball does snow. After
that the sweet proverb: "Vox populi, vox dei," drives the unfortunate
fellow into a chaos of evidential grounds of suspicion
which may all be reduced to the fact that he has red hair or a hump.
Such events are frightfully frequent.[2]
[[ id="n14.1"]]
V. Gyurkovechky: Pathologie und Therapie der männlichen Impotenz.
Vienna, Leipzig 1889.
[[ id="n14.2"]]
Cf. Näcke in H. Gross's Archiv, I, 200; IX, 153.
Section 15. (2) Causes of Irritation.
Just as important as these phenomena are the somatic results
of psychic irritation. These latter clear up processes not to be
explained by words alone and often over-valued and falsely interpreted.
Irritations are important for two reasons: (1) as causes of
crime, and (2) as signs of identification in examination.
In regard to the first it is not necessary to show what crimes are
committed because of anger, jealousy, or rage, and how frequently
terror and fear lead to extremes otherwise inexplicable—these facts
are partly so well known, partly so very numerous and various,
that an exposition would be either superfluous or impossible. Only
those phenomena will be indicated which lie to some degree on the
borderland of the observed and hence may be overlooked. To this
class belong, for example, anger against the object, which serves
as explanation of a group of so-called malicious damages, such as
arson, etc. Everybody, even though not particularly lively, remembers
instances in which he fell into great and inexplicable rage against
an object when the latter set in his way some special difficulties
or caused him pain; and he remembers how he created considerable
ease for himself by flinging it aside, tearing it or smashing it to
pieces. When I was a student I owned a very old, thick Latin
lexicon, "Kirschii cornu copia," bound in wood covered with pigskin.
This respectable book flew to the ground whenever its master
was vexed, and never failed profoundly to reduce the inner stress.
This "Kirschius" was inherited from my great-grandfather and it
did not suffer much damage. When, however, some poor apprentice
tears the fence, on a nail of which his only coat got a bad tear, or
when a young peasant kills the dog that barks at him menacingly
and tries to get at his calf, then we come along with our "damages
according to so and so much," and the fellow hasn't done any more
than I have with my "Kirschius."
[1] In
the magnificent novel,
"Auch Einer," by F. T. Vischer, there is an excellent portrait of
the perversity of things; the author asserts that things rather frequently
hold ecumenical councils with the devil for the molestation
of mankind.
How far the perversity of the inanimate can lead I saw in a criminal
case in which a big isolated hay-stack was set on fire. A traveler was
going across the country and sought shelter against oncoming bad
weather. The very last minute before a heavy shower he reached
a hay-stack with a solid straw cover, crept into it, made himself
comfortable in the hay and enjoyed his good fortune. Then he fell
asleep, but soon woke again inasmuch as he, his clothes, and all
the hay around him was thoroughly soaked, for the roof just above
him was leaking. In frightful rage over this "evil perversity," he
set the stack on fire and it burned to the ground.
It may be said that the fact of the man's anger is as much a motive
as any other and should have no influence on the legal side of the
incident. Though this is quite true, we are bound to consider the
crime and the criminal as a unit and to judge them so. If under
such circumstances we can say that this unit is an outcome natural
to the character of mankind, and even if we say, perhaps, that we
might have behaved similarly under like circumstances, if we really
cannot find something absolutely evil in the deed, the criminal quality
of it is throughout reduced. Also, in such smaller cases the fundamental
concept of modern criminology comes clearly into the foreground:
"not the crime but the criminal is the object of punishment,
not the concept but the man is punished." (Liszt).
The fact of the presence of a significant irritation is important
for passing judgment, and renders it necessary to observe with the
most thorough certainty how this irritation comes about. This
is the more important inasmuch as it becomes possible to decide
whether the irritation is real or artificial and imitated. Otherwise,
however, the meaning of the irritation can be properly valued only
when its development can be held together step by step with its
causes. Suppose I let the suspect know the reason of suspicion
brought by his enemies, then if his anger sensibly increases with
the presentation of each new ground, it appears much more natural
and real than if the anger increased in inexplicable fashion with
regard to less important reasons for suspicion and developed more
slowly with regard to the more important ones.
The collective nature of somatic phenomena in the case of great
excitement has been much studied, especially among animals,
these being simpler and less artificial and therefore easier to understand,
and in the long run comparatively like men in the expression
of their emotions. Very many animals, according to Darwin, erect
their hair or feathers or quills in cases of anxiety, fear, or horror, and
nowadays, indeed, involuntarily, in order to exhibit themselves
as larger and more terrible. The same rising of the hair even to-day
plays a greater rôle among men than is generally supposed. Everybody
has either seen in others or discovered in himself that fear
and terror visibly raise the hair. I saw it with especial clearness
during an examination when the person under arrest suddenly
perceived with clearness, though he was otherwise altogether innocent,
in what great danger he stood of being taken for the real criminal.
That our hair rises in cases of fear and horror without being
visible is shown, I believe, in the well known movement of the hand
from forehead to crown. It may be supposed that the hair rises at
the roots invisibly but sensibly and thus causes a mild tickling and
pricking of the scalp which is reduced by smoothing the head with
the hand. This movement, then, is a form of involuntary scratching
to remove irritation. That such a characteristic movement is made
during examination may therefore be very significant under certain
circumstances. Inasmuch as the process is indubitably an influence
of the nerves upon the finer and thinner muscle-fibers, it
must have a certain resemblance to the process by which, as a
consequence of fear, horror, anxiety, or care, the hair more or less
suddenly turns white. Such occurrences are in comparatively large
numbers historical; G.
Pouchet[2] counts up cases in which hair
turned white suddenly, (among them one where it happened
while the poor sinner was being led to execution). Such cases do
not interest us because, even if the accused himself turned grey
over night, no evidence is afforded of guilt or innocence. Such an
occurrence can be evidential only when the hair changes color
demonstrably in the case of a witness. It may then be certainly
believed that he had experienced something terrible and aging.
But whether he had really experienced this, or merely believed
that he had experienced it, can as yet not be discovered, since the
belief and the actual event have the same mental and physical
result.
Properly to understand the other phenomena that are the result
of significant irritation, their matrix, their aboriginal source must
be studied. Spencer says that fear expresses itself in cries, in hiding,
sobbing and trembling, all of which accompany the discovery of
the really terrible; while the destructive passions manifest themselves
in tension of the muscles, gritting of the teeth, extending the
claws: all weaker forms of the activity of killing. All this, aboriginally
inherited from the animals, occurs in rather less intense degrees
in man, inclusive of baring the claws, for exactly this movement
may often be noticed when somebody is speaking with anger and
vexation about another person and at the same time extends and
contracts his fingers. Anybody who does this even mildly and
unnoticeably means harm to the person he is talking about. Darwin
indeed, in his acutely observing fashion, has also called attention
to this. He suggests that a man may hate another intensely, but
that so long as his anatomy is not affected he may not be said to be
enraged. This means clearly that the somatic manifestations of
inner excitement are so closely bound up with the latter that we
require the former whenever we want to say anything about the
latter. And it is true that we never say that a man was enraged
or only angry, if he remained physically calm, no matter how noisy
and explicit he might have been with words. This is evidence
enough of the importance of noticing bodily expression. "How
characteristic," says Volkmar[3] "is
the trembling and heavy breathing
of fear, the glowering glance of anger, the choking down of suppressed
vexation, the stifling of helpless rage, the leering glance
and jumping heart of envy." Darwin completes the description of
fear: The heart beats fast, the features pale, he feels cold but
sweats, the hair rises, the secretion of saliva stops, hence follows
frequent swallowing, the voice becomes hoarse, yawning begins,
the nostrils tremble, the pupils widen, the constrictor muscles
relax. Wild and very primitive people show this much more clearly
and tremble quite uncontrolled. The last may often be seen and
may indeed be established as a standard of culture and even of
character and may help to determine how far a man may prevent
the inner irritation from becoming externally noticeable. Especially
he who has much to do with Gypsies is aware how little these people
can control themselves. From this fact also spring the numerous
anecdotes concerning the wild rulers of uncultivated people, who
simply read the guilt of the suspect from his external behavior, or
even more frequently were able to select the criminal with undeceivable
acuteness from a number brought before them.
Bain
[4]
narrates that in India criminals are required to take rice in the
mouth and after awhile to spit it out. If it is dry the accused is held
to be guilty—fear has stopped the secretion of saliva—obstupui,
stetetuntque comae, et vox faucibus haesit.
Concerning the characteristic influence of timidity see Paul
Hartenberg.[5]
Especially self-revealing are the outbreaks of anger against oneself,
the more so because I believe them always to be evidence of
consciousness of guilt. At least, I have never yet seen an innocent
man fall into a paroxysm of rage against himself, nor have I
ever heard that others have observed it, and I would not be able
psychologically to explain such a thing should it happen. Inasmuch
as scenes of this kind can occur perceivably only in the most
externalized forms of anger, so such an explosion is elementary and
cannot possibly be confused with another. If a man wrings his
hands until they bleed, or digs his finger-nails into his forehead,
nobody will say that this is anger against himself; it is only an
attempt to do something to release stored-up energy, to bring it
to bear against somebody. People are visibly angry against themselves
only when they do such things to themselves as they might
do to other people; for example, beating, smashing, pulling the
hair, etc. This is particularly frequent among Orientals who are
more emotional than Europeans. So I saw a Gypsy run his head
against a wall, and a Jew throw himself on his knees, extend his
arms and box his ears with both hands so forcibly that the next
day his cheeks were swollen. But other races, if only they are
passionate enough, behave in a similar manner. I saw a woman,
for example, tear whole handfuls of hair from her head, a murdering
thief, guilty of more or fewer crimes, smash his head on the corner of
a window, and a seventeen year old murderer throw himself into a
ditch in the street, beat his head fiercely on the earth, and yell,
"Hang me! Pull my head off!"
The events in all these cases were significantly similar: the crime
was so skilfully committed as conceivably to prevent the discovery
of the criminal; the criminal denied the deed with the most glaring
impudence and fought with all his power against conviction—in
the moment, however, he realized that all was lost, he exerted his
boundless rage against himself who had been unable to oppose any
obstacle to conviction and who had not been cautious and sly enough
in the commission of the crime. Hence the development of the
fearful self-punishment, which could have no meaning if the victim
had felt innocent.
Such expressions of anger against oneself often finish with fainting.
The reason of the latter is much less exhaustion through paroxysms
of rage than the recognition and consciousness of one's own helplessness.
Reichenbach[6] once
examined the reason for the fainting
of people in difficult situations. It is nowadays explained as the
effect of the excretion of carbonic acid gas and of the generated
anthropotoxin; another explanation makes it a nervous phenomenon
in which the mere recognition that release is impossible causes
fainting, the loss of consciousness. For our needs either account of
this phenomenon will do equally. It is indifferent whether a man
notices that he cannot voluntarily change his condition in a physical
sense, or whether he notices that the evidence is so convincing that
he can not dodge it. The point is that if for one reason or another
he finds himself physically or legally in a bad hole, he faints, just
as people in novels or on the stage faint when there is no other
solution of the dramatic situation.
When anger does not lead to rage against oneself, the next lower
stage is laughter.[7] With
regard to this point, Darwin calls attention
to the fact that laughter often conceals other mental conditions
than those it essentially stands for—anger, rage, pain, perplexity,
modesty and shame; when it conceals anger it is anger against
oneself, a form of scorn. This same wooden, dry laughter is significant,
and when it arises from the perception that the accused no
longer sees his way out, it is not easily to be confused with another
form of laughter. One gets the impression that the laugher is trying
to tell himself, "That is what you get for being bad and foolish!"
[[ id="n15.1"]]
Cf. Bernhardi in H. Gross's Archiv, V, p. 40.
[[ id="n15.2"]]
Revue de deux Mondes, Jan. 1, 1872.
[[ id="n15.3"]]
v. Volkmar: Lehrbuch der Psychologie. Cöthen 1875.
[[ id="n15.4"]]
A. Bain: The Emotions and the Will. 1875.
[[ id="n15.5"]]
Les Timides et la Timidité. Paris 1901.
[[ id="n15.6"]]
K. von Reichenbach: Der sensitive Mensch. Cotta 1854.
[[ id="n15.7"]]
c. f. H. Bergson: Le Rire. Paris 1900.
Section 16. (3) Cruelty.
Under this caption must be placed certain conditions that may
under given circumstances be important. Although apparently
without any relations to each other they have the common property
of being external manifestations of mental processes.
In many cases they are explanations which may arise from the
observation of the mutative relations between cruelty, bloodthirstiness,
and sensuality. With regard to this older authors like
Mitchell,[1]
Blumroder,[2]
Friedreich,[3] have brought examples which
are still of no little worth. They speak of cases in which many
people, not alone men, use the irritation developed by greater or
lesser cruelty for sexual purposes: the torturing of animals, biting,
pinching, choking the partner, etc. Nowadays this is called
sadism.[4]
Certain girls narrate their fear of some of their visitors who make
them suffer unendurably, especially at the point of extreme passion,
by biting, pressing, and choking. This fact may have some value
in criminology. On the one hand, certain crimes can be explained
only by means of sexual cruelty, and on the other, knowledge of his
habits with this regard may, again, help toward the conviction of a
criminal. I recall only the case of Ballogh-Steiner in Vienna, a
case in which a prostitute was stifled. The police were at that time
hunting a man who was known in the quarter as "chicken-man,"
because he would always bring with him two fowls which he would
choke during the orgasm. It was rightly inferred that a man who
did that sort of thing was capable under similar circumstances of
killing a human being. Therefore it will be well, in the examination
of a person accused of a cruel crime, not to neglect the question of
his sexual habits; or better still, to be sure to inquire particularly
whether the whole situation of the crime was not sexual
in nature.[5]
In this connection, deeds that lead to cruelty and murder often
involve forms of epilepsy. It ought therefore always to be a practice
to consult a physician concerning the accused, for cruelty, lust,
and psychic disorders are often enough closely related. About this
matter Lombroso is famous for the wealth of material he presents.
[[ id="n16.1"]]
Mitchell: Über die Mitleidenschaft der Geschlechtsteile mit dem
Kopfe.
Vienna 1804.
[[ id="n16.2"]]
Blumröder: Über das Irresein. Leipzig 1836.
[[ id="n16.3"]]
J. B. Friedreich: Gerichtliche Psychologie. Regensburg 1832.
[[ id="n16.4"]]
Cf. Näcke. Gross's Archiv, XV. 114.
[[ id="n16.5"]]
Schrenck-Notzing: Ztschrft. f. Hypnotismus, VII, 121; VIII, 40, 275; IX,
98.
Section 17. (4) Nostalgia.
The question of home-sickness is of essential significance and
must not be undervalued. It has been much studied and the notion
has been reached that children mainly (in particular during the
period of puberty), and idiotic and weak persons, suffer much from
home-sickness, and try to combat the oppressive feeling of dejection
with powerful sense stimuli. Hence they are easily led to crime,
especially to arson. It is asserted that uneducated people in lonesome,
very isolated regions, such as mountain tops, great moors,
coast country, are particularly subject to nostalgia. This seems to
be true and is explained by the fact that educated people easily find
diversion from their sad thoughts and in some degree take a piece
of home with them in their more or less international culture. In
the same way it is conceivable that inhabitants of a region not particularly
individualized do not so easily notice differences. Especially
he who passes from one city to another readily finds himself, but
mountain and plain contain so much that is contrary that the feeling
of strangeness is overmastering. So then, if the home-sick person is
able, he tries to destroy his nostalgia through the noisiest and most
exciting pleasures; if he is not, he sets fire to a house or in case
of need, kills somebody—in short what he needs is explosive relief.
Such events are so numerous that they ought to have considerable
attention. Nostalgia should be kept in mind where no proper
motive for violence is to be found and where the suspect is a person
with the above-mentioned qualities. Then again, if one discovers
that the suspect is really suffering from home-sickness, from great
home-sickness for his local relations, one has a point from which the
criminal may be reached. As a rule such very pitiful individuals
are so less likely to deny their crime in the degree in which they feel
unhappy that their sorrow is not perceivably increased through
arrest. Besides that, the legal procedure to which they are subjected
is a not undesired, new and powerful stimulus to them.
When such nostalgiacs confess their deed they never, so far as
I know, confess its motive. Apparently they do not know the motive
and hence cannot explain the deed. As a rule one hears, "I don't
know why, I had to do it." Just where this begins to be abnormal,
must be decided by the physician, who must always be consulted
when nostalgia is the ground for a crime. Of course it is not impossible
that a criminal in order to excite pity should explain his
crime as the result of unconquerable home-sickness—but that
must always be untrue because, as we have shown, anybody who
acts out of home-sickness, does not know it and can not tell it.
Section 18. (5) Reflex Movements.
Reflex actions are also of greater significance than as a rule they
are supposed to be. According to
Lotze,[1] "reflex actions are not
limited to habitual and insignificant affairs of the daily life. Even
compounded series of actions which enclose the content even of a
crime may come to actuality in this way . . . in a single moment
in which the sufficient opposition of some other emotional condition,
the enduring intensity of emotion directed against an obstacle, or
the clearness of a moving series of ideas is lacking. The deed may
emerge from the image of itself without being caused or accompanied
by any resolve of the doer. Hearings of criminals are full of statements
which point to such a realization of their crimes, and these
are often considered self-exculpating inventions, inasmuch as people
fear from their truth a disturbance or upsetting of the notions
concerning adjudication and actionability. The mere recognition of
that psychological fact alters the conventional judgment but little;
the failure in these cases consists in not having prevented that
automatic transition of images into actions, a transition essentially
natural to our organism which ought, however, like so many other
things, to be subjected to power of the will." Reflex movements
require closer study.
[2] The
most numerous and generally known
are: dropping the eyelids, coughing, sneezing, swallowing, all
involuntary actions against approaching or falling bodies; then again
the patellar reflex and the kremaster reflex, etc. Other movements
of the same kind were once known and so often practiced that they
became involuntary.
[3] Hence, for
example, the foolish question how
a person believed to be disguised can be recognized as man or woman.
The well known answer is: let some small object fall on his lap;
the woman will spread her limbs apart because she is accustomed
to wear a dress in which she catches the object; the man will
bring his limbs together because he wears trousers and is able to catch
the object only in this way. There are so many such habitual
actions that it is difficult to say where actual reflexes end and habits
begin. They will be properly distinguished when the first are understood
as single detached movements and the last as a continuous,
perhaps even unconscious and long-enduring action. When I, for
example, while working, take a cigar, cut off the end, light it, smoke,
and later am absolutely unaware that I have done this, what has
occurred is certainly not a reflex but a habitual action. The latter
does not belong to this class in which are to be grouped only such
as practically bear a defensive character. As examples of how such
movements may have criminological significance only one's own
experience may be cited because it is so difficult to put oneself at
the point of view of another. I want to consider two such examples.
One evening I passed through an unfrequented street and came
upon an inn just at the moment that an intoxicated fellow was
thrown out, and directly upon me. At the very instant I hit the poor
fellow a hard blow on the ear. I regretted the deed immediately,
the more so as the assaulted man bemoaned his misfortune, "inside
they throw him out, outside they box his ears." Suppose that I
had at that time burst the man's ear-drum or otherwise damaged
him heavily. It would have been a criminal matter and I doubt
whether anybody would have believed that it was a "reflex action,"
though I was then, as to-day, convinced that the action was reflex.
I didn't in the least know what was going to happen to me and what I
should do. I simply noticed that something unfriendly was approaching
and I met it with a defensive action in the form of an uppercut
on the ear. What properly occurred I knew only when I heard
the blow and felt the concussion of my hand. Something similar
happened to me when I was a student. I had gone into the country
hunting before dawn, when some one hundred paces from the house,
right opposite me a great ball rolled down a narrow way. Without
knowing what it was or why I did it I hit at the ball heavily with an
alpenstock I carried in my hand, and the thing emerged as two
fighting tomcats with teeth fixed in each other. One of them was
my beloved possession, so that I keenly regretted the deed, but
even here I had not acted consciously; I had simply smashed away
because something unknown was approaching me. If I had then
done the greatest damage I could not have been held responsible—
if my explanation were allowed;
but
that it would have been allowed
I do not believe in this case, either.
A closer examination of reflex action requires consideration of
certain properties, which in themselves cannot easily have criminal
significance, but which tend to make that significance clearer. One
is the circumstance that there are reflexes which work while you
sleep. That we do not excrete during sleep depends on the fact that
the faeces pressing in the large intestine generates a reflexive action
of the constrictors of the rectum. They can be brought to relax only
through especially powerful pressure or through the voluntary
relaxation of one's own constrictors.
The second suggestive circumstance is the fact that even habitual
reflexes may under certain conditions, especially when a particularly
weighty different impression comes at the same
time, not
take place. It is a reflex, for example, to withdraw the hand when
it feels pain, in spite of the fact that one is so absorbed with another
matter as to be unaware of the whole process; but if interest in
this other matter is so sufficiently fixed as to make one forget, as
the saying goes, the whole outer world, the outer impression of pain
must have been very intense in order to awaken its proper reflex.
The attention may, however, not be disturbed at all and yet
the reflex may fail. If we suppose that a reflex action is one brought
about through the excitement of an afferent sensory nerve which
receives the stimulation and brings it to the center from which the
excitement is transferred to the motor series
(Landois
[4]), we exclude
the activity of the brain. But this exclusion deals only with conscious
activity and the direct transition through the reflex center
can happen successfully only because the brain has been consciously
at work innumerable times, so that it is coöperating in the later
cases also without our knowing it. When, however, the brain is
brought into play through some other particularly intense stimuli,
it is unable to contribute that unconscious coöperation and hence
the reflex action is not performed. On this point I have, I believe,
an instructive and evidential example. One of my maids opened
a match-box pasted with paper at the corner by tearing the paper
along the length of the box with her thumb-nail. Apparently the
box was over-filled or the action was too rapidly made, for the matches
flamed up explosively and the whole box was set on fire. What was
notable was the fact that the girl threw the box away neither consciously
nor instinctively; she shrieked with fright and kept the
box in her hand. At her cry my son rushed in
from
another room,
and only after he had shouted as loudly as possible, "Throw it
away, drop it," did she do so. She had kept the burning thing in
her hand long enough to permit my son to pass from one room into
another, and her wound was so serious that it needed medical treatment
for weeks. When asked why she kept the burning box in her
hand in spite of really very terrible pain she simply declared that
"she didn't think of it," though she added that when she was told
to throw the thing away it just occurred to her that that would be
the wisest of all things to do. What happened then was obviously
this: fear and pain so completely absorbed the activity of the brain
that it was not only impossible for it consciously to do the right
thing, it was even unable to assist in the unconscious execution of
the reflex.
This fact suggests that the sole activity of the spinal cord does
not suffice for reflexes, since if it did, those would occur even when
the brain is otherwise profoundly engaged. As they do not so
occur the brain also must be in play. Now this distinction is not
indifferent for us; for if we hold that the brain acts during reflexes
we have to grant the possibility of degrees in its action. Thus where
brain activity is in question, the problem of responsibility also arises,
and we must hold that wherever a reflex may be accepted as the
cause of a crime the subject of the degree of punishment must be
taken exceptionally into account. It is further to be noted that as
a matter of official consideration the problem of the presence of
reflexes ought to be studied, since it rarely occurs that a man says,
"It was purely a reflex action." He says, perhaps, "I don't know
how it happened," or, "I couldn't do otherwise," or he denies the
whole event because he really was not aware how it happened. That
the questions are here difficult, both with regard to the taking of
evidence, and with regard to the judgment of guilt, is obvious,—
and it is therefore indifferent whether we speak of deficiency in
inhibition-centers or of ill-will[5]
and malice.
[[ id="n18.1"]]
Lotze: Medizinische Psychologie. Leipzig 1852.
[[ id="n18.2"]]
Berzé in Gross's Archiv, I, 93.
[[ id="n18.3"]]
E. Schultze. Zeitschrift für Philosophie u. Pädagogie, VI, 1.
[[ id="n18.4"]]
L. Landois: Lehrbuch der Physiologie des Mensehen. Vienna 1892.
[[ id="n18.5"]]
Cf. H. Gross's Archiv, II, 140; III, 350; VII, 155; VIII, 198.
Section 19. (6) Dress.
It is easy to write a book on the significance of a man's clothes
as the expression of his inner state. It is said that the character
of a woman is to be known from her shoe, but actually the matter
reaches far beyond the shoe, to every bit of clothing, whether of
one sex or the other. The penologist has more opportunity than
any one else to observe how people dress, to take notes concerning
the wearer, and finally to correct his impressions by means of the
examination. In this matter one may lay down certain axioms. If
we see a man whose coat is so patched that the original material
is no longer visible but the coat nowhere shows a hole; if his shirt
is made of the very coarsest and equally patched material but is clean;
and if his shoes are very bad but are whole and well polished,
we should consider him and his wife as honest people, without ever
making an error. We certainly see very little wisdom in our modern
painfully attired "sports," we suspect the suggestively dressed
woman of some little disloyalty to her husband, and we certainly
expect no low inclinations from the lady dressed with intelligent,
simple respectability. If a man's general appearance is correct it
indicates refinement and attention to particular things. Anybody
who considers this question finds daily new information and new
and reliable inferences. Anyway, everybody has a different viewpoint
in this matter, a single specific detail being convincing to
one, to another only when taken in connection with something else,
and to a third when connected with still a third phenomenon. It
may be objected that at least detailed and prolonged observations
are necessary before inferences should be drawn from the way of
dressing, inasmuch as a passing inclination, economic conditions,
etc., may exert no little influence by compelling an individual to
a specific choice in dress. Such influence is not particularly deep.
A person subject to a particular inclination may be sufficiently
self-exhibiting under given circumstances, and that he was compelled
by his situation to dress in one way rather than another is
equally self-evident. Has anybody seen an honest farm hand
wearing a worn-out evening coat? He may wear a most threadbare,
out-worn sheep-skin, but a dress-coat he certainly would
not buy, even if he could get it cheap, nor would he take it as a
gift. He leaves such clothes to others whose shabby elegance shows
at a glance what they are. Consider how characteristic are the
clothes of discharged soldiers, of hunters, of officials, etc. Who
fails to recognize the dress of a real clerical, of democrats, of
conservative-aristocrats? Their dress is everywhere as well defined
as the clothing of Englishmen, Frenchmen, Germans, and Americans,
formed not by climatic conditions but by national character in a
specific and quite unalterable way. Conceit, carelessness, cleanliness,
greasiness, anxiety, indifference, respectability, the desire to
attract attention and to be original, all these and innumerable
similar and related qualities express themselves nowhere so powerfully
and indubitably as in the way people wear their clothes. And
not all the clothes together; many a time a single item of dress
betrays a character.
Section 20. (7) Physiognomy and Related Subjects.
The science of physiognomy belongs to those disciplines which
show a decided variability in their value. In classical times it
was set much store by, and Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Pythagoras
were keenly interested in its doctrines. Later on it was forgotten,
was studied in passing when Baptista Porta wrote a book
about human physiognomy, and finally, when the works of Lavater
and the closely related ones of Gall appeared, the science came for
a short time into the foreground. Lavater's well known
monograph
[1]
excited great attention in his day and brought its author
enthusiastic admiration. How much Goethe was interested in it is
indicated in the popular book by Von der Hellen and the exchange
of letters between Goethe and Lavater. If Lavater had not brought
the matter into relation with his mystical and apodictic manner, if
he had made more observations and fewer assertions, his fame would
have endured longer and he would have been of some use to the
science; as it was it soon slipped from people's minds and they
turned to the notorious phrenology of Gall. Gall, who to some
degree had worked with his friend Spurzheim, committed the same
error in his works
[2] as
Lavater, inasmuch as he lost himself in theories
without scientific basis, so that much that was indubitably correct
and indicative in his teaching was simply overlooked. His meaning
was twice validated, once when B. v.
Cotta
[3] and R. R.
Noel
[4]
studied it intensively and justly assigned him a considerable worth;
the second time when Lombroso and his school invented the doctrine
of criminal stigmata, the best of which rests on the postulates
of the much-scorned and only now studied Dr. Gall. The great
physiologist J. Müller declared: "Concerning the general possibility
of the principles of Gall's system no a priori objections can
be made." Only recently were the important problems of physiognomy,
if we except the remarkable work by
Schack,
[5] scientifically
dealt with. The most important and significant book is
Darwin's,
[6]
then the system of
Piderit
[7] and
Carus's "Symbolik,"
[8] all of them
being based upon the earlier fundamental work of the excellent
English anatomist and surgeon,
Bell.
[9] Other works of importance
are those of LeBrun, Reich, Mantegazza, Dr. Duchenne, Skraup,
Magnus, Gessmann, Schebest, Engel, Schneider, K. Michel, Wundt,
C. Lange, Giraudet, A. Mosso, A. Baer, Wiener, Lotze, Waitz,
Lelut, Monro, Heusinger, Herbart, Comte, Meynert, Goltz, Hughes,
Borée,
[10] etc.
The present status of physiognomies is, we must say, a
very subordinate one. Phrenology is related to physiognomies as
the bony support of the skull to its softer ones, and as a man's
physiognomy depends especially upon the conformation of his
skull, so physiognomies must deal with the forms of the skull. The
doctrine of the movement of physiognomy is mimicry. But physiognomics
concerns itself with the features of the face taken in themselves
and with the changes which accompany the alterations of consciousness,
whereas mimicry deals with the voluntary alterations of
expression and gesture which are supposed to externalize internal
conditions. Hence, mimicry interests primarily actors, orators,
and the ordinary comedians of life. Phrenology remains the research
of physicians, anthropologists and psychologists, so that
the science of physiognomy as important in itself is left to us lawyers.
Its value as a discipline is variously set. Generally it is asserted
that much, indeed, fails to be expressed by the face; that what
does show, shows according to no fixed rules; that hence, whatever
may be read in a face is derivable either instinctively by oneself
or not at all. Or, it may be urged, the matter can not be learned.
Such statements, as ways of disposing of things, occur regularly
wherever there is a good deal of work to do; people do not like to
bother with troublesome problems and therefore call them worthless.
But whoever is in earnest and is not averse to a little study
will get much benefit from intensive application to this discipline
in relation to his profession.
The right of physiognomies to the status of an independent science
is to some degree established in the oft-repeated dictum that whatever
is valid in its simplest outline must be capable of extension
and development. No man doubts that there are intelligent faces
and foolish ones, kind ones and cruel ones, and if this assertion is
admitted as it stands it must follow that still other faces may be
distinguished so that it is possible to read a certain number of spiritual
qualities from the face. And inasmuch as nobody can indicate the
point at which this reading of features must cease, the door is opened
to examination, observation and the collection of material. Then,
if one bewares of voluntary mistakes, of exaggeration and unfounded
assertion, if one builds only upon actual and carefully observed
facts, an important and well-grounded discipline must ensue.
The exceptionally acute psychiatrist Meynert
shows[11] how physiognomics
depends on irradiation and parallel images. He shows
what a large amount of material having physiognomical contents
we keep in mind. Completely valueless as are the fixed forms by
which mankind judges the voluntary acts of its individual members,
they point to the universal conclusion that it is proper to infer from
the voluntary acts of a person whose features correspond to those of
another the voluntary acts of the other. One of Hans Virchow's very
detailed physiognomical observations concerning the expression of
interest in the eyes by means of the pupil, has very considerable
physiognomical value. The pupil, he believes, is the gate through
which our glance passes into the inner life of our neighbor; the
psychical is already close at hand with the word "inner." How this
occurs, why rather this and not another muscle is innervated in the
development of a certain process, we do not know, but our ignorance
does not matter, since ultimately a man might split his head thinking
why we do not hear with our eyes and see with our ears. But to some
extent we have made observable progress in this matter. As far
back as 1840 J. Müller[12]
wrote: "The reasons are unknown why
various psychoses make use of different groups of nerves or why
certain facial muscles are related to certain passions."
Gratiolet
[13]
thought it necessary forty years ago to deny that muscles were
developed merely for the purpose of expression. Almost
contemporaneously Piderit knew that expressive muscular movements
refer partly to imaginary objects and partly to imaginary sense impressions.
In this fact lies the key to the meaning of all expressive
muscular movements. Darwin's epoch-making book on the expressions
of the emotions finally established the matter so completely
and firmly, that we may declare ourselves in possession of enough
material for our purpose to make it possible to carry our studies
further. The study of this book of Darwin's I believe absolutely
necessary to each criminalist—for he meets in every direction,
expositions and explanations that are related to cases he has already
experienced in practice or is sure to experience. I present here
only a few of Darwin's most important notes and observations in
order to demonstrate their utility for our purpose.
As subjects for study he recommends children because they
permit forms of expression to appear vigorously and without constraint;
lunatics, because they are subject to strong passions without
control; galvanized persons, in order to facilitate the muscles involved,
and finally, to establish the identity of expression among all
races of men and beasts. Of these objects only children are important
for our purpose. The others either are far removed from our
sphere of activity, or have only theoretic value. I should, however,
like to add to the subjects of observation another, viz., the simple
unstudied persons, peasants and such otherwise unspoiled individuals
whom we may believe innocent of all intention to play a comedy
with us. We can learn much from such people and from children.
And it is to be believed that in studying them we are studying not
a special class but are establishing a generally valid paradigm of
the whole of mankind. Children have the same features as adults
only clearer and simpler. For, suppose we consider any one of
Darwin's dicta,—e. g., that in the expression of anger and indignation
the eyes shine, respiration becomes more rapid and intense,
the nostrils are somewhat raised, the look misses the opponent,—
these so intensely characteristic indices occur equally in the child
and the adult. Neither shows more or fewer, and once we have
defined them in the child we have done it for the adult also. Once
the physiognomy of children and simple people has been studied,
the further study of different kinds of people is no longer difficult;
there is only the intentional and customary masking of expression
to look out for; for the rest, the already acquired principles, mutandis
mutatis, are to be used.
Darwin posits three general principles on which most expressions
and gestures are to be explained. They are briefly:
I. The principle of purposeful associated habits.
II. The principle of contradication.
III. The principle of the direct activity of the nervous system.
With regard to the first. When, in the course of a long series of
generations, any desire, experience, or disinclination, etc., has led
to some voluntary action, then, as often as the same or any analogous
associated experience is undergone, there will arise a tendency to
the realization of a similar action. This action may no longer have
any use but is inherited and generally becomes a mere reflex.
This becomes clearer when one notices how often habit facilitates
very complex action:—the habits of animals; the high steps of
horses; the pointing of pointers; the sucking of calves, etc. It is
difficult for us in falling to make opposite movements to stretching
out the arms, even in bed; we draw on our gloves unconsciously.
Gratiolet says: "Whoever energetically denies some point, etc.,
shuts his eyes; if he assents he nods and opens his eyes wide. Whoever
describes a terrible thing shuts his eyes and shakes his head;
whoever looks closely raises his eye-brows. In the attempt to
think the same thing is done or the eye-brows are contracted—
both make the glance keener. Thence follows the reflex
activity."
With regard to the second. Dogs who are quarrelling with cats assume
the appearance of battle—if they are kindly-minded they
do the opposite, although this serves no purpose. M.
Taylor[14] says,
that the gesture language of the Cistercians depends considerably on
antithesis; e. g., shrugging the shoulders is the opposite of firmness,
immovability.
With regard to the direct activity of the nervous system, examples
are paling, trembling (fear, terror, pain, cold, fever, horror,
joy), palpitation of the heart, blushing, perspiring, exertion of
strength, tears, pulling the hair, urinating, etc. With these subdivisions
it will be possible to find some thoroughfare and to classify
every phenomenon.
We want to discuss a few more particulars in the light of Darwin's
examples. He warns us, first of all, against
seeing
[15] certain muscle
movements as the result of emotional excitement, because they were
looked for. There are countless habits, especially among the movements
of the features, which happen accidentally or as the result
of some passing pain and which have no significance. Such movements
are often of the greatest clearness, and do not permit the
unexperienced observer to doubt that they have important meanings,
although they have no relation whatever to any emotional condition.
Even if it is agreed only to depend on changes of the whole face;
already established as having a definite meaning, there is still danger
of making mistakes, because well accredited facial conditions may
occur in another way (as matters of habit, nervous disturbances,
wounds, etc.). Hence in this matter, too, care and attention are
required; for if we make use of any one of the Darwinian norms, as,
for example, that the eyes are closed when we do not want to see a
thing or when we dislike it, we still must grant that there are people
to whom it has become habitual to close their eyes under other and
even opposed conditions.
We must grant that, with the exception of such cases, the phenomena
are significant during examinations, as when we show the
accused a very effective piece of evidence, (e. g.: a comparison of
hand-writings which is evidential,) and he closes his eyes. The
act is then characteristic and of importance, particularly when
his words are intended to contest the meaning of the object in question.
The contradiction between the movement of his eyes and
his words is then suggestive enough. The same occurs when the
accused is shown the various possibilities that lie before him—the
movement of the examination, the correlations and consequences.
If he finds them dangerous, he closes his eyes. So with witnesses
also; when one of them, e. g., deposes to more, and more harmfully,
than according to our own notion he can explain, he will close his
eyes, though perhaps for an instant only, if the inevitable consequences
of his deposition are expounded to him. If he closes his eyes
he has probably said too much, and the proper moment must not
be missed to appeal to his conscience and to prevent more exaggerated
and irresponsible assertions.
This form of closing the eyes is not to be confused with the
performances of persons who want to understand the importance of
their depositions and to collect their senses, or who desire to review
the story mentally and consider its certainty. These two forms of
closing the eyes are different: the first, which wants to shut out the
consequences of testimony, is much shorter; the latter longer,
because it requires a good deal of time to collect one's senses and
to consider a problem. The first, moreover, is accompanied by
a perceivable expression of fear, while the latter is manifest only by
its duration; what is most important is a characteristic contemporary
and perceivable defensive movement of the hand, and this
occurs only in the cases where the desire is to exclude. This movement
occurs even among very phlegmatic persons, and hence is
comparatively reliable; it is not made by people who want
undisturbedly to study a question and to that end shut their
eyes.
In a similar way there is significance in the sudden closing of the
mouth by either the accused or the witness. Resolution and the
shutting of the mouth are inseparable; it is as impossible to imagine
a vacillating, doubting person with lips closely pressed together,
as a firm and resolute person with open mouth. The reason implies
Darwin's first law: that of purposeful associated habits. When a
man firmly resolves upon some deed the resolution begins immediately
to express itself in movements which are closely dependent upon
bodily actions. Even when I suddenly resolve to face some
correctly-supposed disagreeable matter, or to think about some joyless thing,
a bodily movement, and indeed quite an energetic one, will ensue
upon the resolution—I may push my chair back, raise my elbows,
perhaps put my head quickly between my hands, push the chair
back again, and then begin to look or to think. Such actions, however,
require comparatively little bodily exertion; much more follows
on different types of resolutions—in short, a firm resolution requires
a series of movements immediately to follow its being made. And
if we are to move the muscles must be contracted. And it is, of
course, obvious that only those muscles can be set in action which
are, according to the immediate situation of the body, free to move.
If we are sitting down, for example, we can not easily make our feet
conform to the movement of a march forward; nor can we do much
with the thighs, hence the only muscles we can use are those of the
face and of the upper limbs. So then, the mouth is closed because
its muscles are contracted, and with equal significance the arms are
thrust outward sharply, the fist clenched, and the fore-arm bent.
Anybody may try the experiment for himself by going through the
actions enumerated and seeing whether he does not become filled
with a sense of resolution. It is to be especially observed, as has
already been indicated, that not only are mental states succeeded by
external movements, but imitated external movements of any
kind awaken, or at least plainly suggest, their correlated mental
states.
If, then, we observe in any person before us the signs of resolution
we may certainly suppose that they indicate a turn in what
he has said and what he is going to say. If they be observed in the
accused, then he has certainly resolved to pass from denial to confession,
or to stick to his denial, or to confess or keep back the names
of his accomplices, the rendezvous, etc. Inasmuch as in action
there is no other alternative than saying or not saying so, it
might be supposed that there is nothing important in the foregoing
statement; the point of importance lies, however, in the fact that
a definite resolution has been reached of which
the court is aware
and from which a departure will hardly be made. Therefore, what
follows upon the resolution so betrayed, we cannot properly perceive;
we know only that it in all likelihood consists of what succeeds
it, i. e. the accused either confesses to something, or has resolved
to say nothing. And that observation saves us additional
labor, for he will not easily depart from his resolution.
The case is analogous with regard to the witness who tells no
truth or only a part of the truth. He reveals the marks of resolution
upon deciding finally to tell the truth or to persist in his lying,
and so, whatever he does after the marks of resolution are noted,
we are saved unnecessary effort to make the man speak one way or
another.
It is particularly interesting to watch for such expressions of
resolution in jurymen, especially when the decision of guilt or innocence
is as difficult as it is full of serious consequences. This happens
not rarely and means that the juryman observed is clear in his
own mind as to how he is going to vote. Whatever testimony may
succeed this resolution is then indifferent. The resolved juryman
is so much the less to be converted, as he usually either pays no
more attention to the subsequent testimony, or hears it in such
prejudiced fashion that he sees everything in his own way. In
this case, however, it is not difficult to tell what the person in
question has decided upon. If the action we now know follows a very
damaging piece of testimony, the defendant is condemned thereby;
if it follows excusive testimony he is declared innocent. Anybody
who studies the matter may observe that these manifestations are
made by a very large number of jurymen with sufficient clearness
to make it possible to count the votes and predict the verdict. I
remember vividly in this regard a case that occurred many years
ago. Three men, a peasant and his two sons, were accused of having
killed an imbecile who was supposed to have boarded in their house.
The jury unanimously declared them guiltless, really because of
failure, in spite of much effort, to find the body of the victim. Later
a new witness appeared, the case was taken up again, and about a
year after the first trial, a second took place. The trial consumed
a good many days, in which the three defendants received a flood of
anonymous letters which called attention mostly to the fact that
there was in such and such a place an unknown imbecile woman
who might be identical with the ostensible murdered person. For
that reason the defendant appealed for a postponement of the trial
or immediate liberation. The prosecutor of the time fought the
appeal but held that so far as the case went (and it was pretty bad
for the prosecution), the action taken with regard to the appeal was
indifferent. "The mills of the gods grind slowly," he concluded
in his oration; "a year from now I shall appear before the jury."
The expression of this rock-bound conviction that the defendants
were guilty, on the part of a man who, because of his great talent,
had tremendous influence on juries, caused an astounding impression.
The instant he said it one could see in most of the jurymen
clearest signs of absolute resolution and the defendants were condemned
from that moment.
Correlated with the signs of resolution are those of astonishment.
"The hands are raised in the air," says Darwin, "and the palm is
laid on the mouth." In addition the eyebrows are regularly raised,
and people of not too great refinement beat their foreheads and
in many cases there occurs a slight, winding movement of the trunk,
generally toward the left. The reason is not difficult to find. We
are astonished when we learn something which causes an inevitable
change in the familiar course of events. When this occurs the hearer
finds it necessary, if events are simple, properly to get hold of it.
When I hear that a new Niebelungen manuscript has been discovered,
or a cure for leprosy, or that the South Pole has been
reached, I am astonished, but immediate conception on my part
is altogether superfluous. But that ancient time in which our
habitual movements came into being, and which has endured longer,
incomparably longer than our present civilization, knew nothing
whatever of these interests of the modern civilized human being.
What astonished people in those days were simple, external, and
absolutely direct novelties: that a flood was coming, that game was
near the camp, that inimical tribes had been observed, etc.—in
short, events that required immediate action. From this fact
spring our significant movements which must hence be perceivably
related to the beginning of some necessary action. We raise our
hands when we want to jump up; we elevate our eyebrows when we
look up, to see further into the distance; we slap our foreheads in
order to stimulate the muscles of our legs, dormant because of long
sitting; we lay the palms of our hands on our mouths and turn the
trunk because we discover in the course of life rather more disagreeable
than pleasant things and hence we try to keep them out and
to turn away from them. And astonishment is expressed by any
and all of these contradictory movements.
In law these stigmata are significant when the person under
examination ought to be astonished at what is told him but for one
reason or another does not want to show his astonishment. This
he may hide in words, but at least one significant gesture will
betray him and therefore be of considerable importance in the
case. So, suppose that we present some piece of evidence from
which we expect great results; if they do not come we may perhaps
have to take quite another view of the whole case. It is hence
important not to be fooled about the effect, and that can be
accomplished only through the observation of the witnesses' gestures,
these being much more rarely deceptive than words.
Scorn manifests itself in certain nasal and oral movements. The
nose is contracted and shows creases. In addition you may count
the so-called sniffing, spitting, blowing as if to drive something
away; folding the arms, and raising the shoulders. The action
seems to be related to the fact that among savage people, at least,
the representation of a worthless, low and despicable person is
brought into relation with the spread of a nasty odor: the Hindoo
still says of a man he scorns, "He is malodorous." That our ancestors
thought similarly, the movement of the nose, especially raising
it and blowing and sniffing, makes evident. In addition there is the
raising of the shoulders as if one wanted to carry the whole body
out of a disgusting atmosphere—the conduct, here, is briefly
the conduct of the proud. If something of the sort is observable
in the behavior of a witness it will, as a rule, imply something good
about him: the accused denies thereby his identity with the criminal,
or he has no other way of indicating the testimony of some damaging
witness as slander, or he marks the whole body of testimony, with
this gesture, as a web of lies.
The case is similar when a witness so conducts himself and expresses
scorn. He will do the latter when the defendant or a false
witness for the defense accuses him of slander, when indelicate motives
are ascribed to him, or earlier complicity with the criminal, etc.
The situations which give a man opportunity to show that he despises
anybody are generally such as are to the advantage of the scorner.
They are important legally because they not only show the scorner
in a good light but also indicate that the scorn must be studied
more closely. It is, of course, naturally true that scorn is to a great
degree simulated, and for that reason the gestures in question must
be attentively observed. Real scorn is to be distinguished from
artificial scorn almost always by the fact that the latter is attended
by unnecessary smiling. It is popularly and correctly held that
the smile is the weapon of the silent. That kind of smile appears,
however, only as defense against the less serious accusations, or
perhaps even more serious ones, but obviously never when evil
consequences attendant on serious accusations are involved. If
indubitable evil is in question, no really innocent person smiles,
for he scorns the person he knows to be lying and manifests other
gestures than the smile. Even the most confused individual who
is trying to conceal his stupidity behind a flat sort of laughter gives
this up when he is so slandered that he is compelled to scorn the
liar; only the simulator continues to smile. If, however, anybody
has practiced the manifestation of scorn he knows that he is not
to smile, but then his pose becomes theatrical and betrays itself
through its exaggeration.
Not far from scorn are defiance and spite. They are characterized
by baring the canine teeth and drawing together the face in a frown
when turning toward the person upon whom the defiance or spite is
directed. I believe that this image has got to be variously filled
out by the additional fact that the mouth is closed and the breath
several times forced sharply through the nostrils. This arises from
the combination of resolution and scorn, these being the probable
sources of defiance and spite. As was explained in the discussion
of resolution, the mouth is bound to close; spite and defiance are
not thinkable with open mouth. Scorn, moreover, demands, as we
have shown, this blowing, and if the blowing is to be done while
the mouth is closed it must be done through the nose.
Derision and depreciation show the same expressions as defiance
and spite, but in a lesser degree. They all give the penologist a
good deal to do, and those defendants who show defiance and spite
are not unjustly counted as the most difficult we have to deal with.
They require, above all, conscientious care and patience, just indeed
because not rarely there are innocents among them. This is
especially so when a person many times punished is accused another
time, perhaps principally because of his record. Then the bitterest
defiance and almost childish spite takes possession of him against
"persecuting" mankind, particularly if, for the nonce, he is innocent.
Such persons turn their spite upon the judge as the representative
of this injustice and believe they are doing their best by conducting
themselves in an insulting manner and speaking only a few
defiant words with the grimmest spite. Under such circumstances
it is not surprising that the inexperienced judge considers these
expressions as the consequences of a guilty conscience, and that the
spiteful person may blame himself for the results of his defiant
conduct. He therefore pays no more attention to the unfortunate.
How this situation may lead to an unjust sentence is obvious.
But whether the person in question is guilty or not guilty, it is the
undeniable duty of the judge to make especial efforts with such
persons, for defiance and spite are in most cases the result of
embitterment, and this again comes from the disgusting treatment
received at the hands of one's fellows. And it is the judge's duty
at least not to increase this guilt if he can not wipe it away. The
only, and apparently the simplest, way of dealing with such people
is the patient and earnest discussion of the case, the demonstration
that the judge is ready carefully to study all damaging facts, and
even a tendency to refer to evidence of innocence in hand, and a
not over-energetic discussion of the man's possible guilt. In most
cases this will not be useful at the beginning. The man must have
time to think the thing over, to conceive in the lonely night that it
is not altogether the world's plan to ruin him. Then when he begins
to recognize that he will only hurt himself by his spiteful silence
if he is again and again examined he will finally be amenable. Once
the ice is broken, even those accused who at the beginning showed
only spite and defiance, show themselves the most tractable and
honest. The thing needful above all is patience.
Real rage, unfortunately, is frequent. The body is carried erect
or thrown forward, the limbs become stiff, mouth and teeth closely
press together, the voice becomes very loud or dies away or grows
hoarse, the forehead is wrinkled and the pupil of the eye contracted;
in addition one should count the change of color, the flush or deep
pallor. An opportunity to simulate real rage is rare, and anyway
the characteristics are so significant that a mistake in recognition
can hardly be made. Darwin says that the conviction of one's own
guilt is from time to time expressed through a sparkling of the eyes,
and through an undefinable affectation. The last is well known
to every penologist and explicable in general psychological terms.
Whoever knows himself to be guiltless behaves according to his
condition, naturally and without constraint: hence the notion that
naïve people are such as represent matters as they are. They do
not find anything suspicious in them because they do not know
about suspicious matters. But persons who know themselves guilty
and try not to show it, must attain their end through artifice and
imitation, and when this is not well done the affectation is
obvious.
There is also something in the guilty sparkle of the eye. The
sparkle in the eyes of beauty, the glance of joy, of enthusiasm, of
rapture, is not so poetical as it seems, inasmuch as it is no more
than intensified secretion of tears. The latter gets its increase
through nervous excitation, so that the guilty sparkle should also
be of the same nature. This may be considered as in some degree
a flow of tears in its first stages.
An important gesture is that of resignation, which expresses
itself especially as folding the hands in one's lap. This is one of
the most obvious gestures, for "folding the hands in the lap" is
proverbial and means there is no more to be done. The gesture
signifies, therefore, "I'm not going to do any more, I can't, I won't."
Hence it must be granted that the condition of resignation and its
gesture can have no significance for our own important problem,
the problem of guilt, inasmuch as the innocent as well as the guilty
may become resigned, or may reach the limit at which he permits
everything to pass without his interference. In the essence and
expression of resignation there is the abandonment of everything
or of some particular thing, and in court, what is abandoned is the
hope to show innocence, and as the latter may be real as well as
merely pleaded, this gesture is a definite sign in certain cases. It
is to be noted among the relations and friends of a defendant who,
having done everything to save him, recognize that the evidence
of guilt is irrefutable. It is again to be noticed among courageous
lawyers who, having exerted all their art to save their clients, perceive
the failure of their efforts. And finally, the defendants show it, who
have clearly recognized the danger of their case. I believe that it is
not an empirical accident that the gesture of resignation is made
regularly by innocent persons. The guilty man who finds himself
caught catches at his head perhaps, looks toward heaven gritting
his teeth, rages against himself, or sinks into a dull apathy, but
the essential in resignation and all its accompanying movements
is foreign to him. Only that conforms to the idea of resignation
which indicates a surrender, the cession of some value that one
has a claim on—if a man has no claim to any given thing he can
not resign it. In the same way, a person without right to guiltlessness
and recognition, will instinctively not surrender it with
the emotion of resignation, but at most with despair or anger or
rage. And it is for this reason that the guilty do not exhibit gestures
of resignation.
The contraction of the brow occurs in other cases besides those
mentioned. Before all it occurs when anything is dealt with intensively,
increasing with the increase of the difficulty of the subject.
The aboriginal source of this gesture lies in the fact that
intensive activities involve the need of acuter vision, and this is
in some degree acquired by the contraction of the skin of the forehead
above the eyebrows; for vision is clarified in this way. Intensive
consideration on the part of a defendant or a witness, and
the establishment of its reality or simulation, are significant in
determining whether he himself believes the truth of what is about
to be explained. Let us suppose that the issue involves proving an
alibi on a certain definite, rather remote day, and the defendant
is required to think over his whereabouts on that day. If he is in
earnest with regard to the establishment of his alibi, i. e. if he really
was not there and did not do the thing, it will be important for
him to remember the day in question and to be able to name the
witnesses of his whereabouts then. Hence he will think intensively.
But if he has claimed an alibi dishonestly, as is frequent with criminals,
in order to make people conclude that nobody has the right
to demand where and for how long a time he was on such and such
a day, then there is no need of thinking closely about something
that has not happened. He exhibits in such cases a kind of thoughtfulness,
which is not, however, earnest and profound: and these
two adjectives describe real consideration. The
same observations
are to be made in regard to dishonest witnesses who, when pressed
to think hard, only simulate doing so. One is compelled at the very
least to look closely after the witness who simply imitates intensive
thinking without showing the signs proper to it. The suspicion of
false testimony is then justifiable.
A rather different matter is that blank expression of the eyes
which only shows that its possessor is completely lost in his thoughts
—this has nothing to do with sharp recollection and demands above
all things being let alone or the belief of being so. In this case no
distinguishing gestures are made, though the forehead, mouth or
chin may be handled, only, however, when embarrassment occurs—
i. e. when the man observes that he is being watched, or when he
discovers that he has forgotten the presence of other people. It is
supposed that this does not occur in court, but it does happen not
infrequently when, for example, the judge, after some long discussion
with the accused, is about to dictate what has been said. If
this takes rather a long time, it may chance that the witness is no
longer listening but is staring vacantly into the distance. He is
then reviewing his whole life or the development and consequences
of his deed. He is absorbed in a so-called intuitive thought, in the
reproduction of events. Intensive consideration requires the combination
of particulars and the making of inferences; hence the form
of thinking we have just been speaking of is merely spiritual sightseeing.
It is when this takes place that confessions are most easy
to get, if only the judge keeps his eyes properly open.
That contraction of the brow signifies a condition of disgust is
well known, but there is yet, as I believe, a still other use of this
contraction—i. e. its combination with a smile, indicating disbelief.
How this union occurred seems comparatively undiscoverable—
perhaps it results from the combination of the smile of
denial with the frown of sharp observation. But the gesture is,
in any event, reliable, and may not easily stand for anything but
disbelief and doubt. Hence it is always a mistake to believe that
anybody who makes that expression believes what he has heard.
If you test it experimentally you will find that when you make it
you say involuntarily to yourself: "Well now, that can't be true,"
or "Look here, that's a whopper!" or something like that. The
expression occurs most frequently in confronting witnesses with
defendants and especially witnesses with each other.
The close relation of the contraction of the brow with its early
stage, a slight elevation of the eyebrows, is manifest in the fact that
it occurs under embarrassment—not very regularly but almost
always upon the perception of something foreign and inexplicable,
or upon getting twisted in one's talk; in fact, upon all such conditions
which require greater physical and psychical clearness of vision,
and hence the shutting out of superfluous light. The expression
may be important on the face of a defendant who asserts,—e. g.—
that he does not understand an argument intended to prove his
guilt. If he is guilty he obviously knows what happened in the
commission of the crime and thereby the argument which reproduces
it, and even if he assures the court a hundred times that he does
not understand it, he is either trying to show himself innocent or
wants to gain time for his answer. If he is innocent it may be that
he really does not understand the argument because he is unaware
of the actual situation. Hence he will frown and listen attentively
at the very beginning of the argument. The guilty person perhaps
also aims to appear enormously attentive, but he does not contract
his brow, because he does not need to sharpen his glance; he knows
the facts accurately enough without it. It is important for the
penologist to know whether a man has in the course of his life undergone
much anxiety and trouble, or whether he has lived through it
carelessly. Concerning these matters Darwin points out that when
the inner ends of the eyebrows are raised certain muscles have to
be contracted (i. e. the circular ones which contract the eyebrows
and the pyramidal muscle of the nose, which serve both to pull
down and contract the eyelids). The contraction is accomplished
through the vigorous drawing together of the central bundle of
muscles at the brow. These muscles, by contracting, raise the inner
ends of the brow, and since the muscles which contract the eyebrows
bring them together at the same time, their inner ends are folded
in great lumpy creases. In this way short oblique, and short
perpendicular furrows are made. Now this, few people can do without
practice; many can never perform it voluntarily, and it is more
frequent among women and children than among men. It is important
to note that it is always a sign of spiritual pain, not physical.
And curiously enough it is as a rule related with drawing down the
corners of the mouth.
Further to study the movements of the features will require an
examination into the reasons for the action of these, and not other
muscles, as accompaniments of the psychical states. Piderit holds
it is due to the fact that the motor nerves which supply these muscles
rise right next to the purely psychical centers and hence these muscles
are the supports of the organs of sense. The latter is no doubt
correct, but the first statement is rather doubtful. In any event
it is evident that the features contain an exceptionally large number
of fine muscles with especially rich motor capacity, and hence move
together and in accordance with the psychical conditions. It may
be that the other muscles of the body have also a share in this but
that we fail to perceive the fact. Such movements, however, have
not been essential.
We may take it as a general rule that all joyous and uplifting emotions
(even astonishment) are succeeded by the raising of the skin
of the forehead, the nostrils, the eyes, the eyelids, while sad
and oppressing emotions have the contrary effect. This simple
and easy rule renders immediately intelligible many an otherwise
obscure expression which we find important but concerning the
meaning of which we are in doubt. The development of a movement
in any face goes, according to
Harless,[16] in this fashion: "The
superior motor nerve is the oculomotorius. The stimulation reaches
this one first—the mildest alteration of emotion betrays itself
most rapidly in the look, the movement and condition of the pupil
of the eye. If the impulse is stronger it strikes the roots of the
motor end of the trigeminus and the movement of the muscles of
mastication occur; then the intensified affection spreads through
the other features." Nobody will, of course, assert that even a
completely developed physiognomical science will help us over
all our difficulties, but with a little attention it can help us to a
considerable degree. This help we do need, as La Rochefoucauld
points out, with even contemporary correctness, "It is easier to
know men than to know a particular man."
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J. K. Lavater: Physiognomische Fragmente zur Beförderung des
Menschenkentniss und Mensehenliebe. Leipzig 1775.
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F. J. Gall: Introduction au Cours du Physiologie du Cerveau. Paris 1808.
Recherches sur la système nerveux. Paris 1809.
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B. v. Cotta: Geschichte u. Wesen der Phrenologie. Dresden 1838.
[[ id="n20.4"]]
R. R. Noel: Die materielle Grundlage des Seelenbens. Leipzig 1874.
[[ id="n20.5"]]
S. Sehack: Physiognomische Studien. Jena 1890.
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Darwin: Expression of the Emotions in Men and Animals.
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Th. Piderit: Wissenschaftliches System der Mimik und Physiognomik. Detmold
1867.
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Carus: Symbolik der Menschlichen Gestalt. Leipzig 1858.
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C. Bell: Anatomy and Philosophy of Expression. London 1847.
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Le Brun: Conferences sur l'Expression. 1820.
Reich: Die Gestalt des Menschen und deren Beziehung zum Seelenleben.
Heidelberg 1878.
P. Mantegazza. Physiognomik u. Mimik. Leipzig 1890.
Duchenne: Mechanismus des Menschlichen Physiognomie. 1862.
Skraup: Katechismus der Mimik. Leipzig 1892.
H. Magnus: Die Sprache der Augen.
Gessmann: Katechismus der Gesichtslesekunst. Berlin 1896.
A. Sehebest: Rede u. Geberde. Leipzig 1861.
Engel: Ideen zu einer Mimik. Berlin 1785.
G. Schneider: Die tierische Wille. 1880.
K. Michel: Die Geberdensprache. Köl 1886.
Wundt: Grundzüge, etc. Leipzig 1894.
C. Lange: Über Gemutsbewegungen. 1887.
Giraudet: Mimique, Physiognomie et Gestes. Paris 1895.
A. Mosso: Die Furcht. 1889.
D. A. Baer: Der Verbrecher. Leipzig 1893.
Wiener. Die geistige Welt.
Lotze. Medizinische Psychologie.
Th. Waitz. Anthropologie der Naturvölker. Leipzig 1877.
Lelut: Physiologie de la Pensée.
Monro: Remarks on Sanity.
C. F. Heusinger: Grundriss der physiologischen u. psychologischen
Anthropologie. Eisenach 1829.
Herbart: Psychologische Untersuchung. Göttingen 1839.
Comte: Systeme de Philosophie Positive. Paris 1824.
T. Meynert: Mechanik der Physiognomik. 1888.
F. Goltz: Über Moderne Phrenologie. Deutsche Rundschau Nov. -Dec.
1885.
H. Hughes: Die Mimik des Menschen auf Grund voluntarischer Psychologie
Frankfurt a. M. 1900.
A. Borée: Physiognom. Studien. Stuttgart 1899.
[[ id="n20.11"]]
Psychiatrie. Vienna 1884.
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J. Müller: Handbuch der Physiologie des Menschen. 1840.
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L. P. Gratiolet: De la Physiognomie et des Mouvements d'Expression. Paris
1865.
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Taylor: Early History of Mankind.
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J. Reid: The Muscular Sense. Journal of Mental Science, XLVII, 510.
[[ id="n20.16"]]
Wagner's Handwörterbuch, III, i.
Section 21. (8) The Hand.
The physiognomy of the hand stands close to that of the face in
significance and is in some relations of even greater importance,
because the expression of the hand permits of no, or very slight,
simulation. A hand may be rendered finer or coarser, may be
rendered light or dark, the nails may be cared for or allowed to
develop into claws. The appearance of the hand may be altered,
but not its physiognomy or character. Whoever creases his face
in the same way for a thousand times finally retains the creases and
receives from them a determinate expression even if this does not
reveal his inner state; but whoever does the same thing a thousand
times with his hand does not thereby impress on it a means of identification.
The frequent Tartuffian rolling of the eyes finally gives the
face a pious or at least pietistic expression, but fold your hands in
daily prayer for years and nobody would discover it from them. It
seems, however, of little use to know that human hands can not be
disguised, if they are little or not at all differentiated; but as it
happens they are, next to the face, the most extremely and profoundly
differentiated of human organs; and a general law teaches
us that different effects are produced by different causes, and that
from the former the latter may be inferred. If then we observe
the infinite variety of the human hand we have to infer an equally
infinite variety of influences, and inasmuch as we cannot trace these
influences any further we must conclude that they are to be explained
causally by the infinite variety of psychical states.
Whoever studies the hand psychologically gains in the course of
time a great deal of faith in what the hand tells him. And finally he
doubts it only when chirognomy conflicts with physiognomy. If in
such cases it is observed that the hand is more likely to be correct than
the face, and that inferences from the hand more rarely show themselves
to be false, one is reminded of the dictum of Aristotle, "The hand is
the organ of organs, the instrument of instruments in the human
body." If this is correct, the favored instrument must be in the closest
kind of relation with the psyche of the owner, but if this relation exists
there must be an interaction also. If the hand contained merely its
physical structure, Newton would never have said, "Other evidence
lacking, the thumb would convince me of God's existence."
How far one ought to establish fundamental propositions in this
matter, I can not easily say. Perhaps it would be scientifically most
correct to be satisfied for the time with collecting the carefully and
keenly observed material and getting the anatomists, who are already
in need of material for professional investigations, to take the matter
up; in collecting photographs of hands belonging to persons whose
characters are well known and in getting a sufficient number of
properly equipped persons to make the collection. If we had enough
material to draw fundamental principles from, much that has been
asserted by Bell, Carus, D'Arpentigny, Allen, Gessmann, Liersch,
Landsberg,[1] etc., might
be proved and tested. But their statements
are still subject to contradiction because their fundamental principles
are not sufficient for the development of a system. Probably
nobody will doubt some of the more common statements; all will
grant with Winkelmann that a beautiful hand is in keeping with a
beautiful soul; or with Balzac that people of considerable intellect
have handsome hands, or in calling the hand man's second face.
But when specific co-ordinations of the hand are made these meet
with much doubt. So for example,
Esser
[2] calls the
elementary
hand essentially a work hand, the
motor essentially a masculine
hand, having less soul and refinement of character than will and
purposefulness. So again the
sensitive hand implies generally a
sanguine character, and the
psychic hand presents itself as the
possession of beautiful souls and noble spirits.
However true this classification may be, the establishment and
description of the various significatory signs is very difficult, especially
because the forms named rarely appear in clear and sharply
defined subdivisions. The boundaries are fluid, like the characters
themselves, and where the properties of one group pass almost
directly into the other, both description and recognition are difficult.
If, then, we can not depend upon a systematic, and at present
remote treatment, we still may depend on well-founded observations
which appear as reliable presuppositions in the light of their frequent
repetition.
Not essentially psychological but of importance for the criminalist
are the inferences we may draw from Herbert Spencer's assertion
that people whose ancestors have worked with their hands possess
heavy hands. Conversely, people whose ancestors have not worked
hard with their hands possess small and fine hands. Hence the
small delicate hands of Jews, the frequent perfection of form and
invariable smallness of the hands of Gypsies, who have inherited
their hands from high-cast Hindoos, and the so-called racial hands
of real aristocrats. That hard work, even tumbling, piano playing,
etc., should alter the form of a hand is self-evident, since muscles
grow stronger with practice and the skin becomes coarser and drawn
through friction, sharp wind and insufficient care. As is well known,
physical properties are hereditary and observable in any study of
races; is it any wonder that a skilled glance at a man's hand
may uncover a number of facts concerning the circumstances of his
life? Nobody doubts that there are raw, low, sensual, fat hands.
And who does not know the suffering, spiritual, refined, and delicate
hand? Hands cannot of course be described and distinguished
according to fixed classification, and no doubt Hellenbach was
right when he said, "Who can discover the cause of the magic
charm which lies in one out of a hundred thousand equally beautiful
hands?"
And this is remarkable because we are not fooled through a well
cared for, fine and elegant hand. Everybody, I might say, knows
the convincing quality that may lie in the enormous leathery fist
of a peasant. For that, too, is often harmoniously constructed,
nicely articulated, appears peaceful and trustworthy. We feel that
we have here to do with a man who is honest, who presents himself
and his business as they are, who holds fast to whatever he once
gets hold of, and who understands and is accustomed to make his
words impressive. And we gain this conviction, not only through
the evidence of honest labor, performed through years, but also
through the stability and determination of the form of his hands.
On the other hand, how often are we filled with distrust at the sight
of a carefully tended, pink and white hand of an elegant gentleman—
whether because we dislike its condition or its shape, or because the
form of the nails recalls an unpleasant memory, or because there is
something wrong about the arrangement of the fingers, or because of
some unknown reason. We are warned, and without being hypnotised,
regularly discover that the warning is justified. Certain
properties are sure to express themselves: coldness, prudence, hardness,
calm consideration, greed, are just as indubitable in the hand
as kindness, frankness, gentleness, and honesty.
The enchantment of many a feminine hand is easily felt. The
surrender, the softness, the concession, the refinement and honesty
of many a woman is so clear and open that it streams out, so to
speak, and is perceivable by the senses.
To explain all this, to classify it scientifically and to arrange it
serially, would be, nowadays at least, an unscientific enterprise.
These phenomena pass from body to body and are as reliable as
inexplicable. Who has never observed them, and although his
attention has been called to them, still has failed to notice them,
need not consider them, but persons believing in them must be
warned against exaggeration and haste. The one advice that can
be given is to study the language of the hand before officially ignoring
it; not to decide immediately upon the value of the observations
one is supposed to have made, but to handle them cautiously and
to test them with later experiences. It is of especial interest to trace
the movement of the hand, especially the fingers. I do not mean
those movements which are external, and co-ordinate with the movements
of the arm; those belong to mimicry. I mean those that
begin at the wrist and therefore occur in the hand only. For the
study of those movements the hand of childhood is of little use,
being altogether too untrained, unskilled, and neutral. It shows
most clearly the movement of the desire to possess, of catching hold
and drawing toward oneself, generally toward the mouth, as does the
suckling child its mother's breast. This movement, Darwin has
observed even among kittens.
The masculine hand is generally too heavy and slow, clearly to
exhibit the more refined movements; these are fully developed only
in the feminine, particularly in the hands of vivacious, nervous, and
spiritually excitable women. The justice who observes them may
read more than he can in their owner's words. The hand lies in
the lap apparently inert, but the otherwise well concealed anger
slowly makes a fist of it, or the fingers bend characteristically forward
as if they wished to scratch somebody's eyes out. Or they
cramp together in deep pain, or the balls of the four other fingers
pass with pleasure over the ball of the thumb, or they move spasmodically,
nervously, impatiently and fearfully, or they open and
close with characteristic enjoyment like the paws of cats when the
latter feel quite spry.
Closer observation will show that toes reveal a great deal,
particularly
among women who wear rather fine shoes and hence can
move their feet with greater ease. In anger, when they cannot,
because it would be suggestive, stamp their feet, the women press
their toes closely to the ground. If they are embarrassed they turn
the sole of their shoe slightly inwards and make small curves with
the point on the ground. Impatience shows itself through alternating
and swinging pressure of heel and toe, repeated with increasing
rapidity; defiance and demand through raising the toes in such a
way that the sole is directly forward and the foot rests only on the
heel. Sensuality is always indicated when the foot is put forward
and the shin bone lightly stretched out, when all the toes are drawn
in toward the sole just as the cat does when she feels good. What
women do not say in words and do not express in their features
and do not indicate in the movement of their hands, they say with
their feet; the inner experience must express itself externally and
the foot most betrays it.
In conclusion it ought to be kept in mind that the hands of all
those people who claim to be hard workers but who really try to
live without work, i. e. thieves, gamblers, etc., ought to be carefully
examined. Concerning the value of graphology see my "Manual
for Examining Judges."
[[ id="n21.1"]]
C. Bell: The Human Hand. London 1865.
K. G. Carus: Über Grund u. Bedeutung der verschiedenen Hand. Stuttgart
1864.
D'Arpentigny: La Chirognomie. Paris 1843.
Allen. Manual of Cheirosophy. London 1885.
Gessman: Die Männerhand, Die Frauenhand, Die Kinderhand. Berlin
1892, 1893, 1894.
Liersch. Die linke Hand. Berlin 1893.
J. Landsberg: Die Wahrsagekunst aus der Menschlichen Gestalt. Berlin 1895.
[[ id="n21.2"]]
W. Esser: Psychologie. Münster 1854.