the embryo a
predisposition to crime. Dr Magnan likewise refuses his assent to this
theory.

It may be rather daring to suggest a theory which would reconcile the
differences between these eminent men: but as the facts presented by
each side are indisputable, some such reconciliation must exist.
Possibly if we interpret Lombroso's phrase, "inherited tendency towards
crime" or "predisposition towards crime" in the same way as we interpret
the term ("predisposition towards disease") when speaking of tubercular
persons (or, as Mercier speaks of the insane), that is as persons, who
in a given favourable environment, are more likely to commit crime than
persons without that inherited tendency, we may find these theories to
be more in accord with one another. Lombroso insists that there must be
an inherited tendency, Manouvrier insists that there must be
environment. As in the case of tubercular persons (of tubercular
ancestry) these two causes are complementary, may it not be also the
case with criminals of criminal ancestry? The INHERITED IMMORAL
IDEA seems to be really what Manouvrier rejects. A vicious
conception of life which makes the man inevitably, incurably, and
irresistibly a criminal, is apparently the interpretation he puts on
Lombroso's theory. But from Lombroso's works and speeches, the
interpretation does not appear to be at all a necessary one. The
transmission of a disordered nervous system with its consequences, as
one cause, the "hypnotic influence of circumstances" as another cause,
and these two causes acting sometimes separately and sometimes
conjointly, will very possibly account for the phenomena Lombroso
observes. A most important factor, and one which cannot be disregarded,
compels the acceptance of some such theory. This factor is the success
resulting from reformatory effort. It is not only Lombroso and
Manouvrier that need to be reconciled, but Lombroso, Manouvrier and
Brockway. This latter gentleman is the founder of the famous Elmira
Reformatory which has reformed 82 per cent. of 12,000 felons which have
been committed to it for treatment.

We come then to this conclusion that heredity plays an important part in
the production of the criminal; but that there are other very important
factors which are often confused with it and when separated from it
reduce the popular estimate of its influence to the scientific one,
which is considerably the lesser one. Furthermore, as a consequence of
this