Reminiscences of Dr. Spurzheim and George Combe : and a review of the science of phrenology, from the period of its discovery by Dr. Gall, to the time of the visit of George Combe to the United States, 1838, 1840 / by Nahum Capen.

  • Capen, Nahum, 1804-1886.
Date:
1881
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Reminiscences of Dr. Spurzheim and George Combe : and a review of the science of phrenology, from the period of its discovery by Dr. Gall, to the time of the visit of George Combe to the United States, 1838, 1840 / by Nahum Capen. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    the devil, than it can rest content with the explanation of insanity as a possession by the devil. The few and imper- fect investigations of the persona] and family histories of criminals which have yet been made, are sufllcient to ex- cite some serious reflections. One fact which is brought strongly out by these inquiries is that crime is often hered- itary; that just as a man may inherit the stamp of the bodily features and characters of his parents, so he may also inherit the impress of theh evil passions and propensi- ties; of the true thief as of the true poet it may be indeed said that he is born, not made. That is what observation of the phenomena of hereditary would lead us to expect; and although certain theologians, who are prone to square the order of nature to their notions of what it should be, may repel such doctrine as the heritage of an immoral in place of a moral sense, they will in the end find it impos- sible in this matter, as they have done in other matters, to contend against facts. To add to their misfortunes, many criminals are not only begotten and conceived, and bred in crime, but they are instructed in it from their youth up- wards, so that their original criminal instincts acquire a power which no subsequent effort to produce reformation will ever counteract. All persons who have made criminals their study, rec- ognize a distinct criminal class of beings, who herd to- gether in our large cities in a thieves' quarter, giving them- selves up to intemperance, rioting in debauchery, without regard to marriage ties or the bars of consanguinity, and propagating a criminal population of degenerate beings. For it is furthermore a matter of observation that this criminal class constitutes a degenerate or morbid variety of mankind, marked by peculiar low physical and mental characteristics. They are, it has been said, as distinctly marked off from the honest and well-bred operatives, as ''black-faced sheep are from other breeds, so that an ex- perienced detective officer or prison official could pick theiir- out from any promiscuous assembly at church or market.