the status and prestige of a profession is raised, the higher will be the standard of conduct of its members. The next consideration is that the very sanitary legislation which, by its very efficiency, limits the areas and narrows the numbers of epidemics and sporadic illnesses, also contributes to make the lot of the general practitioner a hard one, and frequently a hopeless one, and it is time that it dawned upon the Government that it is not good for the community that this should be so. An author writing very ably upon the subject recently* shows also how the increase of hospitals, dispensaries, and so forth, has contracted the field of work of the practitioner, and, nevertheless, how vain it is for the latter to call out about hospital abuse. He shows clearly that hospital provision is, and must continue to be, complementary to general practice; and, in these days, necessary, quite apart from questions of poverty of means and circumstances of those who take advantage of it. But when he discusses the bearings of hospital appointments and professional competitions an injustice is disclosed; for the latter must and do take place on strictly commercial lines, and are necessarily unfair as betwixt general practitioners who are, and those who are not, holders of these appointments. This unfairness and this unseemly and improper competition would all cease and determine with the establishment of a State Medical Service. At the same time the popular right to hospital treatment, and to free and accessible hospitals would not be interfered with, nor the status of hospital staffs.

In addition to these the sphere of work is about to be further contracted by the means about to be inaugurated for the prevention of consumptive ailments and the general tendency towards hospitalisation of all chronic ailments whatever. Then again ambulance aid and district nursing have largely narrowed the field of minor ailments. It was not possible for medical men who have qualified within the past 35 years to have foreseen all this, and so have had a fair chance of forecasting their opportunities of making a living by their profession alone. And I need hardly say that it is by his profession alone that it is desirable, in the interest of the public, that he ought to live, so as to maintain himself always

Dr. Jas. Erskine, M.A., M.B. "A Plea for a State Medical Service." Morgan, Sanchiehall Street Glasgow.

in good practical form and up to date in the sciences cognate to his work.

In the pamphlet alluded to an apt quotation is made from De Tocqueville of the aphorism, "that the masses of the people find their position the more intolerable the more it is improved"; in relation to the bettered condition of the masses at the present day, especially in respect of sanitation and hospital services. He shows how charitable support tends to promote professional rather than public interests; and indicates the evils attending the induced commercial practice of medicine upon the public, and reflexly upon the practitioners in lowered respect and prestige especially. He points out that popular instinct betrays a trend towards a national system in a multiplicity of schemes, of a provident kind, for purveying medical aid. So the limit of general practice is further narrowed and cheapened. As the hospital system increases at present, private practice decreases; under a national system the hospital would not compete, but would form the centre to which ambulance and district general practice would be directed to the mutual advantage and benefit of profession and public alike.

Unquestionably, if this subject is not ripe for legislation, if it is only squinted at by the political parties, it is richly deserving of the Royal Commission of Inquiry asked for by Dr. Erskine.

R. PARK, M.D

R

THE UNIVERSAL ILLUSION OF FREE WILL AND

CRIMINAL RESPONSIBILITY.

I.

ABOUT thirty years ago, thanks to the impulse given by Lombroso, a new science has been born and has developed considerably. Little by little criminal anthropology has seen the number of its adherents augment. A complete branch of new literature has sprung up. More than all others the Italians have been active in this new branch, for it is in Italy that this science was born. Under the instigation of the master, Lombroso, a pleiades of medical men and some jurists have devoted themselves to these studies, and numerous researches were undertaken in the different branches of criminal study. The name criminal anthropology continued to be employed, although the new science included much more than anthropology; and psychology, as well as criminal sociology, soon formed part of these studies.

Criminology, that is, the study of crime and of the criminal, was for the first time carried on methodically and on a more or less scientific basis. By this fact it entered into the sphere of scientific research. First in Italy, then in France, Germany, Russia, Belgium, the United States, and at last in England, there arose men of learning devoted to this science.

One of the causes, and that not the least, which led to the rapid development of scientific criminology was the audacity of the conclusions boldly announced by Lombroso and his disciples. They clashed with all the preconceived ideas. Consequently they attracted attention. Although very frequently false, or sometimes premature, these startling conclusions have had the signal merit of advancing the scientific study of criminals. It will be to Lombroso's lasting honour to have thus given a powerful impulse to studies fallen into oblivion. For, in fact, in this century some scientists had expressed some ideas, defended afterwards by the ( 258 )

Professor of Turin. He has drawn these studies into the light of day. He has made such deep research into this branch of science, hardly existing before him, that one may say he has created it. It gives me all the more pleasure to recognise the great importance of the teachings of Lombroso-whom with many other criminologists I esteem, notwithstanding that many of his deductions are false or exaggerated. I think he often is lacking in critical judgment.

In the course of the complete treatise on criminology which I am preparing, and to which this essay is intended as an introduction, I believe I shall have sufficient opportunity to show this to be the case. Whoever has read his works will have noticed immediately how insufficiently the mass of facts given have been elaborated or digested. Very frequently the facts noted are not verified. And too often, it has happened that their non-existence or their inaccuracy could be proved. Lombroso's disciples, principally the orthodox among them, have the same faults, but in a much less degree.

The student of criminological science quickly becomes aware that a basis is lacking in criminology. I mean a basis which permits of comparative study in Time and in Space. He sees that there is no definition of crime, or rather that there is a multitude of them, eminently differing from one another. Criminologists have not come to an understanding as to the definition of crime, that is, of the subject which they explore, and of which they treat. Already, in 1892, I remarked that the divergence in terminology arose often from the divergences in the conception of the criminals. And I then wrote what we may still maintain to-day :-

"The difference which exists between crime as considered scientifically and as considered juridically often gives rise to false systems propounded by superficial thinkers. In fact, nearly all criminologists, to establish their theories, base them upon the statistics drawn up by the various penitentiary and judicial administrations. Now necessarily these statistics include only judicially condemned criminals, and none of all the authors of anti-social acts, which the law does not recognise as crimes. Even the sociologist, who carefully examines social phenomena, can, without fear of being contradicted-for the proofs abound-affirm that numbers of judicial criminals do

* Crime et Criminalité, an article in the Almanach de la Question Sociale for 1893. Paris, 1892 in 8vo.

At that time I considered crime as an anti-social act, in accordance with Dr. Corre. I considered the two expressions synonomous.

not enter into these statistics at all, for the simple reason that they are not disturbed, but are often highly honoured. Hidden crime far exceeds prosecuted crime, but to my knowledge no criminologist, with the exception of Dr. Corre, has testified to this striking truth.* From this it results that the statistics have only a relative value, and that the learned deductions drawn from them are also only of very relative value. Criminologists in general to-day consider anti-social action is exceptional, when in reality it is the rule; and it cannot be otherwise, for all our social organisations tend to make it so. The honest man, as Professor Albrecht has said, considered anthropologically, is an anomaly. It is the criminal who is normal. The most casual observer can easily perceive that anti-social action is much more frequent than social action, and that consequently the anti-social man is quite the rule and the social man the exception. Taking one's stand upon sociological considerations one may say: The criminal is normal and the honest man an anomaly. I defy the refutation of this assertion if, by criminal, is meant the author of an injury to the community or to an individual.

"Evidently all anti-social acts are not of the same significance, they are not identical. They vary as greatly as their authors, and it is this variability which misleads the criminologists. In fact, they study only certain manifestations of anti-social action, those who in our present state of civilisation most offend the sentiments of the average human being. They forget to study the other manifestations of crime, manifestations far more serious than the preceding, though not appearing so, because the habit of seeing them perpetrated prevents us from perceiving how injurious they are. Everybody may convince himself of this by running through newspapers or reviews of every kind, or reading the works of sociologists of every shade of opinion. From this fact it appears that the generality of criminologists study only what I might describe as exceptional crime. Monstrous crimes interest them ; and they study their authors, deducting from this study anthropological and sociological considerations which they proceed to apply to the generality of criminals. Thus Lombroso has established his criminal human type, basing his conclusions upon the dozens, hundreds, or thousands of individuals, the judicial criminals, whom he has observed and measured in the prisons. Το obtain a standard of comparison he examined and measured so-called honest individuals.† Now what can prove that these judicially honest individuals were not anti-social in the highest degree? Evidently nothing. And as the observation of social phenomena shows the frequency of anti-social action, and consequently the great number of the authors of such action, we can maintain, without probable error, that a good many of the honest people, examined by Lombroso or his disciples, to serve as standards of comparison, could not so serve because they were themselves anti-social. The inhabitants of the prisons and convict stations for a profound analyst of society do not appear more anti-social than a great number of our free population. An alienist and criminologist, M. Marandon de Montyeul, has thus written:'Each of us bears in his brain a sleeping criminal proclivity, the awakening

Since the above was written, MM. Manouvrier and Debierre have noted the fact.

+ A list of these is formed from the soldiers who died at Solferino! Lombroso considered these as normal, honest subjects. The measurements of their skulls served him as a standard of comparison.