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.