tramp, the Greek, the s.e.xual pervert, etc. Hence follows an important law-that if a fact is once recognized correctly in its coa.r.s.er form, then the possibility must be granted that it is correct in its subtler manifestations. The boundary between what is coa.r.s.e 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 n.o.body 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 a.s.sents 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 n.o.body 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 a.s.sertions on these matters. But we will equally beware of a.s.serting 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.[1] 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
[1] C. Darwin: The Expression of the Emotions.
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 p.r.o.nouncing his question. Anybody who is seriously wounded, speaks hoa.r.s.ely 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-subst.i.tutions 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[1] 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 cla.s.s. 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 att.i.tude which involves pa.s.sional 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, hoa.r.s.e, 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 pa.s.sion 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 pa.s.sion happen
[1] S. Stricker: Studien ber die Bewegungsvorstellungen. Vienna 1882. 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 coa.r.s.e 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 a.s.signed.[1] 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 a.s.serted 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 n.o.body 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.[2] 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 a.s.sistance, 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
[1] E. Claparde: L"obsession de la rougeur. Arch. de Psych. de la Suisse Romande, 1902, I, 307 [2] Henle: ber das Errten. Breslau 1882. 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 a.s.signed 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.[1] 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 a.s.serts 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
[1] Th. Waitz: Anthropologie der Naturvlker (Pt. I). Leipzig 1859. 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[1] states the matter explicitly: "The blush always depends upon a far-reaching a.s.sociation- 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 a.s.sociation." 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 ma.s.s 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
[1] Th. Meynert: Psychiatry. Vienna 1884.
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 a.s.serts 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[1] 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."
Section 12. (b) General Signs of Character.
Friedrich Gerst
[1] L. Meyer: ber knstliches Errten. Westphals. Archiv, IV. 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 pa.s.ser-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 pa.s.s 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 a.n.a.logies 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, n.o.body 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 a.n.a.lyses 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
[1] Th. G. von Hippel: Lebenl
[2] G. Struve: Das Seelenleben oder die Naturgeschichte des Menschen. Berlin 1869.
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
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 pa.s.s 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 n.o.body 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[1] 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 ma.n.u.script of the person in question, whether this quality fuses with the ma.n.u.script"s form and with the individual tendencies and relationships that occur in the
[1] La Roche-Foucauld: Maximes et Reflexions Morales.
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 ma.n.u.script; 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 ma.n.u.script 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[1] has already called attention to the importance of this circ.u.mstance, 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, a.s.serts 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 a.s.sessors, 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
[1] Grundbegriffe der ethisehen Wissensehaft. Leipzig 1844.
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: *we pickpockets, *we house-breakers, *we gamblers, inverts, etc.