Criminal Psychology by Hans Gross (best book recommendations .TXT) 📕

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 [1] Cf. Bernhardi in H. Gross’s Archiv, V, p. 40.

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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 r<o^>le 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[1] 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 [1] Revue de deux Mondes, Jan. 1, 1872.

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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[1] “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 [1] v. Volkmar: Lehrbuch der Psychologie. C<o:>then 1875.

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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[1]

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.[2]

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 [1] A. Bain: The Emotions and the Will. 1875.

[2] Les Timides et la Timidit<e’>. Paris 1901.

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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[1] 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