On the witness stand; essays on psychology and crime

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ON THE WITNESS

STAxND

HUGO MUNSTERBEBG

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Cornell University Library
KF 9660.M94

On the witness stand; essays on psycholog

3 1924 020 165 936

The original of tliis book is in
tine Cornell University Library.

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ON THE WITNESS STAND.

ON THE WITNESS STAND

ESSAYS ON PSYCHOLOGY AND CRIME

BY
HUGO MUNSTERBERG

PBOFEBSOB OF PSYCHOLOGY
HAEVABD UNIVERSITY

NEW YORK

THE MCCLURB COMPANY

MCMVIII

Copyright, 1908, hy The McClure Company

Published, March, 1908

'B77?5f

Copyright, 1907, 1908, by Th'e S. S. McClure Company

Copyright, 1908, by The International Magazine Company

Copyright, 1908, by The Bobbs-Merrill Company

TO

MY COLLABORATORS IN THE

HARVARD PSYCHOLOGICAL LABORATORY

KDWIN BISSEL HOLT

AND

ROBERT MEARNS YERKES

CONTENTS

PAGE

Introduction 3

Illusions , 13

The Memory of the Witness S7

The Detection of Crime 71

The Traces op Emotions 111

Untrue Confessions 135

'i

Suggestions in Court 173

Hypnotism and Crime 201

The Prevention of Crime 251

INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION

Theee are about fifty psychological laboratories
in the United States alone. The average educated
man has hitherto not noticed this. If he chances
to hear of such places, he fancies that they serve
for mental healing, or telepathic mysteries, or
spiritistic performances. What else can a lab-
oratory have to do with the mind? Has not the
soul been for two thousand years the domain of
the philosopher? What has psychology to do with
electric batteries and intricate machines? Too
often have I read such questions in the faces of
visiting friends who came to the Harvard Psycho-
logical Laboratory in Emerson Hall and found,
with surprise, twenty-seven rooms overspun with
electric wires and filled with chronoscopes and
kymographs and tachistoscopes and ergographs,
and a mechanic busy at his work.

The development of this new science could re-
main unnoticed because it was such a rapid one,
surprising in its extent even to those who started
[3]-

INTRODUCTION
it. When, as a young student, I went to the Uni-
versity of Leipzig in the eighties of the last cen-
tury, the little psychological laboratory there,
founded by Professor Wundt, was stiU the only
one in the world. No Western country college
would to-day be satisfied with those poor little
rooms in which the master of the craft made his
experiments with his few students. But since that
time the Leipzig workshop has been steadily grow-
ing, and every year has seen the foundation of
new institutes by the pupils of Wundt, and later
by their pupils. The first German laboratory out-
side of Leipzig was the one which I founded in
Freiburg just twenty years ago. At about the
same time Stanley Hall and Cattell brought the
work from Leipzig over the ocean. To-day there
exists hardly a university which has not opened a
workshop for this youngest of the natural sci-
ences.

But more brilliant than the external expansion
has been the inner growth. If the new science
started in poor quarters, it was stiU more modest
at the beginning in its outlook toward the work.
Experimental psychology did not even start with
[4J

INTRODUCTION
experiments of its own; it rather took its prob-
lems at first from the neighbouring sciences.
There was the physiologist or the phj'sician
who made careful experiments on the functions of
the eye and the ear and the skin and the muscles,
and who got in this way somewhat as by-products
interesting experimental results on seeing and
hearing and touching and acting ; and yet all these
by-products evidently had psychological impor-
tance. Or there was the physicist who had to make
experiments to find out how far our human senses
can furnish us an exact knowledge of the outer
world; and again his results could not but be of
importance for the psychology of perception. Or
there was perhaps the astronomer who was bothered
with his " personal equation," as he was alarmed
to find that it took different astronomers different
times to register the passing of a star. The
astronomers had, therefore, in the interest of their
calculations, to make experiments to find out with
what rapidity an impression is noticed and re-
acted upon. But this again was an experimental
result which evidently concerned, first of all, the
student of mental life.

[5]

INTRODUCTION
Li this way all kinds of scientists who cared
little for psychology had gathered the most vari-
ous psychological results with experimental meth-
ods, and the psychologists saw that they could
not afford to ignore such results of natural sci-
ence. It would not do to go on claiming, for in-
stance, that thought is quick as lightning when
the experiments of the astronomers had proved
that even the simplest mental act is a slow process,
the time of which can be measured. Experimental
psychology, therefore, started with an effort to
repeat on its own account and from its own point
of view those researches which others had per-
formed. But it seemed evident that this kind of
work would never yield more than some little facts
in the periphery of mental life — borderland facts
between mind and body. No one dreamed of the
possibility of carrying such experimental method
to the higher problems of inner life which seemed
the exclusive region of the philosophising psychol-
ogist. But as soon as experimental psychology
began to work in its own workshops, it was most
natural to carry the new method persistently to
new and ever new groups of problems. The tools
[6]

INTRODUCTION
of experiment were now systematically used for
the study of memory and the connection of ideas,
then of attention and of imagination, of space
perception and time sense; slowly they became di-
rected to the problems of feeling and emotion, of
impulse and volition, of imitation and reasoning.
Groups of mental functions which yesterday
seemed beyond the reach of experiniental labora-
tory methods, to-day appear quite accessible. It
may be said that there is now hardly a corner
of mental life into which experimental psychology
has not thrown its searchlight.

It may seem strange that this whole wonderful
development should have gone on in complete de-
tachment from the problems of practical life.
Considering that perception and memory, feeling
and emotion, attention and volition, and so on, are
the chief factors, of our daily life, entering into
every one of our enjoyments and duties, experi-
ences and professions, it seems astonishing that
no path led from the seclusion of the psycho-
logical workshop to the market-place of the
world.

Of course this separation was no disadvantage
[7]

INTRODUCTION
to psychology. It is never a gain when a science
begins too early to look aside to practical needs.
The longer a discipline can develop itself under
the single influence, the search for pure truth, the
more solid wiU be its foundations. But now experi-
mental psychology has reached a stage at which
it seems natural and sound to give attention also
to its possible service for the practical needs of
life.

This must not be misunderstood. To make
psychology serviceable cannot mean simply to pick
up some bits of theoretical psychology and to
throw them down before the public. Just this has
sometimes been done by amateurish hands and
with disastrous results. Undigested psychological
knowledge has been in the past recklessly forced
on helpless schoolteachers, and in educational
meetings the blackboards were at one time filled
with drawings of ganglion cells and tables of
reaction-times. No warning against such " yellow
psychology " can be serious enough.

If experimental psychology is to enter into its
period of practical service, it cannot be a question
of simply using the ready-made results for ends
[8]

I NTRODUCTION
which were not in view during the experiments.
What is needed is to adjust research to the prac-
tical problems themselves and thus, for instance,
when education is in question, to start psycholog-
ical experiments directly from educational prob-
lems. Applied Psychology will then become an in-
dependent experimental science which stands re-
lated to the ordinary experimental psychology as
engineering to physics.

The time for such Applied Psychology is surely
near, and work has been started from most various
sides. Those fields of practical life which come
first in question may be said to be education, med-
icine, art, economics, and law. The educator will
certainly not resist the suggestion that systematic
' experiments on memory or attention, for instance,
can be useful for his pedagogical eff^orts. The
physician to-day doubts still less that he can be
aided in the understanding of nervous and mental
diseases, or in the understanding of pain and of
mental factors in treatment, by the psychological
studies of the laboratory. It is also not diflicult
to convince the artist that his instinctive creation
may well be supplemented by the psychologist's
[9]

INTRODUCTION
study of colour and form, of rhythm and har-
mony, of suggestion and aesthetic emotion. And
even the business world begins to understand that
the effectiveness of economic life depends in a
thousand forms on factors for which the student
of psychology is a real specialist. His experiments
can indicate best how the energies of mill-hands
can reach the best results, and how advertisements
ought to be shaped, and what belongs to ideal
salesmanship. And experience shows that the pol-
itician who wants to know and to master minds,
the naturalist who needs to use his mind in the
service of discovery, the officer who wants to keep
up discipline, and the minister who wants to
open minds to inspiration — all are ready to see
that certain chapters of Applied Psychology are
sources of help and strength for them. The law-
yer alone is obdurate.

The lawyer and the judge and the juryman are
sure that they do not need the experimental psy-
chologist. They do not wish to see that in this
field preeminently applied experimental psychol-
ogy has made strong strides, led by Binet, Stem,
Lipmann, Jung, Wertheimer, Gross, Sommer,
[10]

INTRODUCTION
AschafFenburg, and other scholars. They go on
thinking that their legal instinct and their com-
mon sense supplies them with all that is needed
and somewhat more; and if the time is ever to
come when even the jurist is to show some conces-
sion to the spirit of modern psychology, public
opinion will have to exert some pressure. Just in
the line of the law it therefore seems necessary not
to rely simply on the technical statements of
scholarly treatises, but to carry the discussion in
the most popular form possible before the wider
tribunal of the general reader.

With this aim in niind — ^while working at a
treatise on " Applied Psychology," which Is to
cover the whole ground with technical detail-^— I
have written the following popular sketches, which
select only a few problems in which psychology
and law come in contact. They deal essentially
with the mind of the witness on the witness stand ;
only the last, on the prevention of crime, takes
another direction. I have not touched so far the
psychology of the attorney, of the judge, or of
the jury — problems which lend themselves to very
interesting experimental treatment. Even the psy-
[11]

INTRODUCTION
chology of the witness is treated in no way ex-
haustively; my only purpose is to turn the
attention of serious men to an absurdly neglected
field which demands the full attention of the
social community.

[12]

ILLUSIONS

ILLUSIONS

There had been an automobile accident. Before
the court one of the witnesses, who had sworn to
tell " the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,"
declared that the entire road was dry and dusty ;
the other swore that it had rained and the road
was muddy. The one said that the automobile was
running very slowly ; the other, that he had never
seen an automobile rushing more rapidly. The first
swore that there were only two or three people on
the village road ; the other, that a large number of
men, women, and children were passing by. Both
witnesses were highly respectable gentlemen,
neither of whom had the slightest interest in
changing the facts as he remembered them.

I find among my notes another case, where every-
thing depended upon the time which had passed
between a whistle signal from the street and the
noise of an explosion. It was of the greatest im-
portance for the court to know whether the time
was long enough to walk a certain distance for
[15]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
which at least half a minute was needed. Of two
unbiassed witnesses, one swore that the time was
less than ten seconds; the other, that it was more
than one minute. Again, there was a case where
it was essential to find out whether at a certain
riot the number of guests in the hall was larger
than the forty who had been invited to attend.
There were witnesses who insisted that there could
not have been more than twenty persons present,
and others who were sure that they saw more than
one hundred. In a case of poisoning, some mem-
bers of the family testified that the beverage had a
disagreeable, sour taste, others, that it was taste-
less, and others, that it was sweet. In some Bowery
wrangle, one witness was quite certain that a
rowdy had taken a beer-mug and kept it in his
fist while he beat with it the skuU of his comrade ;
while others saw that the two were separated by
a long table, and that the assailant used the mug
as a missile, throwing it a distance of six or eight
feet. In another trial, one witness noticed at the
sea-shore in moonlight a woman with a child, while
another witness was not less sure that it was a man
with a dog. And only recently passengers in a
[16]

ILLUSIONS
train which passed a courtyard were sure, and
swore, that they had taken in at a glance the dis-
tinct picture of a man whipping a child ; one swore
that he had a clean-shaven face, a hat, and was
standing, while another swore that he had a full
beard, no hat, and was sitting on a bench. The
other day two most reliable expert shorthand
writers felt sure that they had heard the utter-
ances which they wrote down, and yet the records
differed widely in important points.

There is no need of heaping up such illustra-
tions from actual cases, as everyone who remem-
bers the last half-dozen murder trials of his city
knows with what regularity these differences in
reports of witnesses occur. We may abstract from
all cases which demand technical knowledge; we
want to speak here only of direct observations
and of impressions which do not need any special
acquaintance with the matter. Wherever real
professional knowledge is needed, the door is, of
course, open to every variety of opinion, and one
famous expert may conscientiously contradict the
other. No, we speak here only of those impres-
sions for which every layman is prepared and
[17]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
where there can be no difference of opinion. We
further abstract entirely from all cases of inten-
tional deception; the witness who lies offers no
psychological interest for the student of illusions.
And we exclude aU questions of mental disease.
Thus there remain the unintentional mistakes of
the sound mind, — and the psychologist must ask
at once. Are they all of the same order? Is it
enough to label them simply as illusions of
memory.

To make memory responsible is indeed the rou-
tine way. It is generally taken for granted that
we all perceive our surroundings imiformly. In
case there were only twenty men in the hall, no
one could have seen one hundred. In case the road
was muddy, no one can have seen it dusty. In case
the man was shaved, no one can have seen the
beard. If there is still disagreement, it must have
crept in through the trickery of memory. The
perception must be correct; its later reproduc-
tion may be false. But do we reaUy aU perceive
the same thing, and does it have the same mean-
ing to us in our immediated absorption of the sur-
rounding world.'' Is the court suflSciently aware of
[18]

ILLUSIONS
the great differences between men's perceptions,
and does the court take suflBcient trouble^ to ex-
amine the capacities and habits with which the wit-
ness moves through the world which he believes he
observes? Of course some kind of a " common-
sense" consideration has entered, consciously or
unconsciously, into hundreds of judicial decisions,
inasmuch as the contradictory evidence has to be
sifted. The judges have on such occasions more or
less boldly philosophised or psychologised on
their own account ; but to consult the psychological
authorities was out of the question. Legal theorists
have even proudly boasted of the fact that the
judges always found their way without psycho-
logical advice, and yet the records of such cases,
for instance, in railroad damages, quickly show
that the psychological inspirations of the bench
are often directly the opposite of demonstrable
facts. To be sure, the judge may bolster up the
case with preceding decisions, but even if the old
decision was justified, is such an amateur psy-
chologist prepared to decide whether the mental
situation is really the same in the new case? Such
judicial self-help was unavoidable as long as the
[19]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
psychology of earlier times was hazy and vague,
but all that has changed with the exact character
of the new psychology.

The study of these powers no longer lies -out-
side of the realm of science. The progress of ex-
perimental psychology makes it an absurd in-
congruity that the State should devote its fullest
energy to the clearing up of all the physical hap-
penings, but should never ask the psychological
expert to determine the value of that factor which
becomes most influential — ^the mind of the witness.
The demand that the memory of the witness should
be tested with the methods of modem psychology
has been raised sometimes, but it seems necessary
to add that the study of his perceptive judgment
will have to find its way into the court-room, too.

Last winter I made, quite by the way, a little
experiment with the students of my regular psy-
chology course in Harvard. Several himdred
young men, mostly between twenty and twenty-
three, took part. It was a test of a very trivia]
sort. I asked them simply, without any theoretical
introduction, at the beginning of an ordinary lec-
ture, to write down careful answers to a number
[20]

ILLl^SIONS
of questions referring to that which they would
see or hear. I urged them to do it as conscien-
tiously and carefully as possible, and the hundreds
of answers which I received showed clearly that
every one had done his best. I shall confine my re-
port to the first hundred papers taken up at
random. At first I showed them a large sheet of
white cardboard on which fifty little black squares
were pasted in irregular order. I exposed it for
five seconds, and asked them how many black spots
were on the sheet. The answers varied between
twenty-five and two hundred. The answer, over
one hundred, was more frequent than that of below
fifty. Only three felt unable to give a definite re-
ply. Then I showed a cardboard which contained
only twenty such spots. This time the replies ran
up to seventy and down to ten. We had here
highly trained, careful observers, whose attention
was concentrated on the material, and who had
full time for quiet scrutiny. Yet in both cases
there were some who believed that they saw seven
or eight times more points than some others saw;
and yet we should be disinclined to believe in the
sincerity of two witnesses, of whom one felt sure
[21]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
that he saw two hundred persons in a hall in which
the other found only twenty-five.

My next question referred to the perception of
time. I asked the students to give the number of
seconds which passed between two loud clicks. I
separated the two clicks at first by ten seconds,
and in a further experiment by three seconds.
When the distance was ten, the answers varied
between half a second and sixty seconds, a good
number judging forty-five seconds as the right
time. The one who called it half a second was a
Chinese, while all those whose judgments ranged
from one second to sixty seconds were average
Americans. When the objective time was three
seconds, the answers varied between half a second
and fifteen seconds. I emphasise that these large
fluctuations showed themselves in spite of the fact
that the students knew beforehand that they were
to estimate the time interval. The variations would
probably have been still greater if the question
had been put to them after hearing the sound
without, previous information ; and yet a district
attorney hopes for a reliable reply when he in-
quires of a witness, perhaps of a cabman, how
[22]

ILLUSIONS
much time passed by between a cry and the shoot-
ing in the cab.

In my third experiment I wanted to find out
how rapidity is estimated. I had on the platform
a large clock with a white dial over which one
black pointer moved once around in five seconds.
The end of the black pointer, which had the form
of an arrow, moved over the edge of the dial with
a velocity of ten centimeters in one second; that
is, in one second the arrow moved through a space
of about a finger's length. Now, I made this clock
go for a whole minute, and asked the observers to
watch carefully the rapidity of the arrow, and to
describe, either in figures or by comparisons with
moving objects, the speed with which that arrow
moved along. Most men preferred comparisons
with other objects. The list begins as follows: man
walking slowly ; - accommodation-train ; bicycle-
rider; funeral cortege in a city street; trotting
dog ; faster than trot of man ; electric car ; ex-
press train ; goldfish In water ; fastest automobile
speed ; very slowly, like a snail ; lively spider ; and
so on. Would It seem possible that university stu-
dents, trained in observation, could watch a move-
[23]

ox THE WITNESS STAND
ment constantly through a whole minute, and yet
disagree whether it moved as slowly as a snail or
as rapidly as an express-train. And yet it is evi-
dent that the form of the experiment excluded
every possible mistake of memory and excluded
every suggestive influence. The observation was
made deliberately and without haste.

Those who judged in figures showed not less
variation. The list begins: one revolution in two
seconds ; one revolution in forty-five seconds ; three
inches a second ; twelve feet a second ; thirty sec-
onds to the hundred yards; seven miles an hour;
fifteen miles an hour ; forty miles an hour ; and so
on. In reality the arrow would have moved in an
hour about a third of a mile. Not a few of the
judgments, therefore, multiplied the speed by more
than one hundred.

In my next test I asked the class to describe
the sound they would hear and to say from what
source it came. The sound which I produced was
the tone of a large tuning-fork, which I struck
with a little hammer below the desk, invisibly to
the students. Among the hundred students whose
papers I examined for this record were exactly
[24]

ILLUSIONS
two who recognised it as a tuning-fork tone. All
the other judgments took it for a bell, or an
organ-pipe, or a muffled gong, or a brazen instru-
ment, or a horn, or a 'cello string, or a violin, and
so on. Or they compared it with as different noises
as the growl of a lion, a steam whistle, a fog-horn,
a fly-wheel, a human song, and what not. The de-
scription, on the other hand, called it: soft, mel-
low, humming, deep, dull, solemn, resonant, pene-
trating, full, rumbling, clear, low ; but then again,
rough, sharp, whistling, and so on. Again I insist
that every one knew beforehand that he was to
observe the tone, which I announced by a signal.
How much more would the judgments have differed
if the tone had come in unexpectedly!' — a tone
which even now appeared so soft to some and so
rough to others — like a bell to one and like a
whistle to his neighbour.

I turn to a few experiments in which I showed
several sheets of white cardboard, of which each
contained a variety of dark and light ink-spots in
a somewhat fantastic arrangement. Each of these
cards was shown for two seconds, and it was sug-
gested that these rough ink-drawings represented
[25]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
something in the outer world. Immediately after
seeing one, the students were to write down what
the drawing represented. In some cases the sub-
jects remained sceptical and declared that those
spots did not represent anything, but were merely
blots of ink. In the larger number the suggestion
was effective, and a definite object was recognised.
The list of answers for one picture begins : soldiers
in a valley ; grapes ; a palace ; river-bank ; Jap-
anese landscape; foliage; rabbit; woodland scene;
town with towers; rising storm; shore of lake;
garden; flags; men in landscape; hair in curling-
papers ; china plate ; war picture ; country square ;
lake in a jimgle; trees with stone wall; clouds;
harvest scene; elephant; map; lake with castle in
background ; trees ; and so on. The list of votes
for the next picture, which had finer details,
started with : spider ; landscape ; turtle ; butterfly ;
woman's head ; bunch of war-flags ; ballet-dancers ;
crowd of people ; cactus plant ; skunk going down
a log; centipede; boat on pond; crow's nest;
beetle; flower; island; and so forth. There are
hardly any repetitions, with the exception that the
vague term " landscape " occurs often. Of course,
[26]

ILLUSIONS
we know, since the days of Hamlet and Polonius,
that a cloud can look like a camel and like a whale.
And yet such an abundance of variations was
hardly to be foreseen.

My next question did not refer to immediate
perception, but to a memory image so vividly at
every one's disposal that I assumed a right to sub-
stitute it directly for a perception. I asked my
men to compare the apparent size of the full moon
to that of some object held in the hand at arm's
length. I explained the question carefully, and
said that they were to describe an object just large
enough, when seen at arm's length, to cover the
whole full moon. My list of answers begins as fol-
lows: quarter of a dollar; fair-sized canteloupe;
at the horizon, large dinner plate, overhead, des-
sert-plate ; my watch ; six inches in diameter ; silver
dollar ; hundred times as large as my watch ; man's
head; fifty-cent piece; nine inches in diameter;
grape-fruit; carriage-wheel; butter-plate; or-
ange ; ten feet ; two inches ; one-cent piece ; school-
room clock; a pea; soup-plate; fountain-pen;
lemon-pie ; palm of the hand ; three feet in diam-
eter: enough to show, again, the overwhelming
[27]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
manifoldness of the impressions received. To the
surprise of my readers, perhaps, it may be added
at once that the only man who was right was the
one who compared it to a pea. It is most probable
that the results would not have been different if I
had asked the question on a moonlight night with
the full moon overhead. The substitution of the
memory image for the immediate perception can
hardly have impaired the correctness of the judg-
ments. If in any court the size of a distant object
were to be given by witnesses, and one man de-
clared it appeared as large as a pea at arm's dis-
tance, and the second as large as a lemon-pie and
the third ten feet in diameter, it would hardly be
fair to form an objective judgment till the psy-
chologist had found out which mental factors
were entering into that estimate.

There were many more experiments in the list;
but as I want to avoid all technicality, I refer to
only two more, which are somewhat related. First,
I showed to the men some pairs of coloured paper
squares, and they had ample time to write down
which of the two appeared to them darker. At first
it was a red and a blue ; then a blue and a green ;
[28]

ILLUSIONS
and finally a blue and a grey. My interest was en-
gaged entirely with the last pair. The grey was
objectively far lighter than the dark blue, and any
one with an unbiassed mind who looked at those
two squares of paper could have not the slightest
doubt that the blue was darker. Yet about one-
fifth of the men wrote that the grey was darker.
Now, let us keep this in mind in looking over
the last experiment, which I want to report. I
stood on the platform behind a low desk and
begged the men to watch and to describe every-
thing which I was going to do from one given
signal to another. As soon as the signal was given,
I lifted with my right hand a little revolving wheel
with a colour-disk and made it run and change its
color, and all the time, while I kept the little in-
strument at the height of my head, I turned my
eyes eagerly toward it. While this was going on,
up to the closing signal, I took with my left hand,
at first, a pencil from my vest-pocket and wrote
something at the desk ; then I took my watch out
and laid it on the table; then I took a silver cig-
arette-box from my pocket, opened it, took a
cigarette out of it, closed it with a loud click, and
[29]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
returned it to mj pocket ; and then came the end-
ing signal. The results showed that eighteen of
the hundred had not noticed anything of all that
I was doing with my left hand. Pencil and watch
and cigarettes had simply not existed for them.
The mere fact that I myself seemed to give all my
attention to the colour-wheel had evidently inhib-
ited in them the impressions of the dther side. Yet
I had made my movements of the left arm so osten-
tatiously, and I had beforehand so earnestly in-
sisted that they ought to watch every single move-
ment, that I hardly expected to make any one
overlook the larger part of my actions. It showed
that the medium, famous for her slate tricks, was
right when she asserted that as soon as she suc-
ceeded in turning the attention of her client to
the slate in her hand, he would not notice if an
elephant should pass behind her through the room.
But the chief iuterest belongs to the surprising
fact that of those eighteen men, fourteen were the
same who, in the foregoing experiment, judged
the light grey to be darker than the dark blue.
That coincidence was, of course, not chance. In
the case of the darkness experiment the mere idea
[30]

ILLUSIONS
of greyness gave to their suggestible minds the
belief that the colourless grey must be darker than
any colour. They evidently did not judge at all
from the optical impression, but entirely from
their conception of grey as darkness. The coinci-
dence, therefore, proved clearly how very quickly
a little experiment such as this with a piece of blue
and grey paper, which can be performed in a few
seconds, can pick out for us those minds which
are probably unfit to report, whether an action
has been performed in their presence or not.
Whatever they expect to see they do see; and if
the attention is turned in one direction, they are
blind and deaf and idiotic in the other.

Enough of my class-room experiments. Might
they not indeed work as a warning against the
blind confidence in the observations of the average
normal man, and might they not reinforce the de-
mand for a more careful study of the individual
diff'erences between those on the witness stand? Of
course, such study would be one-sided if the psy-
chologist were only to emphasise the varieties of
men and the diff'erences by which one man's judg-
ment and observation may be counted on to throw
[31]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
out an opposite report from that of another man.
No, the psychologist in the court-room should cer-
tainly give not less attention to the analysis of
those illusions which are common to all men and
of which as yet common sense knows too little. The
jurymen and the judge do not discriminate,
whether the witness teUs that he saw in late twi-
light a woman in a red gown or one in a blue gown.
They are not expected to know that such a faint
light would still allow the blue colour sensation to
come in, while the red colour sensation would have
disappeared.

They are not obliged to know what directions
of sound are mixed up by all of us and what are
discriminated; they do not know, perhaps, that
we can never be in doubt whether we heard on the
country road a cry from the right or from the
left, but we may be utterly imable to say whether
we heard it from in front or from behind. They
have no reason to know that the victim of a crime
may have been utterly unable to perceive that he
was stabbed with a pointed dagger; he may have
felt it like a duU blow. We hear the witnesses talk-
ing about the taste of poisoned liquids, and there
[-32]

ILLUSIONS

is probably no one in the jury-box who knows
enough of physiological psychology to be aware
that the same substance may taste quite differently
on different parts of the. tongue. We may hear
quarrelling parties in a civil suit testify as to the
size and length and form of a field as it appeared
to them, and yet there is no one to remind the
court that the same distance inust appear quite
differently under a hundred different conditions.
The judge listens, perhaps, to a description of
things which the witness has secretly seen through
the keyhole of the door; he does not understand
why all the judgments as to the size of objects
and their place are probably erroneous under such
circumstances. The witness may be sure of having
felt something wet, and yet he may have felt only
some smooth, cold metal. In short, every chapter
and sub-chapter of sense psychology may help to
clear up the chaos and the confusion which prevail
in the observation of witnesses.

But, as we have insisted, it is never a question
of pure sense perception. Associations, judg-
ments, suggestions, penetrate into every one of
our observations. We know from the drawings of
[33]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
children how they believe that they see all that they
know really exists ; and so do we ourselves believe
that we perceive at least all that we expect. I re-
member some experiments in my laboratory where
I showed printed words with an instantaneous il-
lumination. Whenever I spoke a sentence before-
hand, I was able to influence the seeing of the
word. The printed word was courage: I said
something about the university life, and the sub-
ject read the word as college. The printed word
was Philistines: I, apparently without intention,
had said something about colonial policy, and
my subject read Philippines. In this way, of
course, the fraudulent advertisement makes us
overlook some essential element which may change
the meaning of the offer entirely. Experimental
psychology has at last cleared the ground, and to
ignore this whole science and to be satisfied with
the primitive psychology of common sense seems
really out of order when crime and punishment
are in question and the analysis of the mind of the
witness might change the whole aspect of the case.
It is enough if we have to suffer from these
mental varieties in our daily life; at least the
[34]

ILLUSIONS
court-room ought to come nearer to the truth, and
ought to show the way. The other organs of so-
ciety may then slowly follow. It may be that, ulti-
mately, even the newspapers may learn then from
the legal practice, and may take care that their
witnesses be examined, too, as to their capacity of
observation. Those experiments described from
my class-room recommend at least mildness of
judgment when we compare the newspaper reports
with each other. Since I saw that my own students
do not know whether a point moves with the slow-
ness of a snail or with the rapidity of an express-
train ; whether a time interval is half a second or a
whole minute ; whether there are twenty-five points
or two hundred; whether a tone comes from a
whistle, a gong, or a violin ; whether the moon Is
small as a pea or large as a man, — I am not sur-
prised any more when I read the reports of the
papers.

I had occasion recently to make an address on
peace in New York before a large gathering, to
which there was an unexpected and somewhat
spirited reply. The reporters sat immediately in
front of the platform. One man wrote that the
[S5]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
audience was so surprised by my speech that it
received it in complete silence ; another wrote that
I was constantly interrupted by loud applause,
and that at the end of my address the applause
continued for minutes. The one wrote that during
my opponent's speech I was constantly smiling;
the other noticed that my face remained grave and
without a smile. The one said that I grew purple-
red from excitement; and the other found that
I grew white like chalk. The one told us that my
critic, while speaking, walked up and down the
large stage; and the other, that he stood all the
while at my side and patted me in a fatherly way
on the shoulder. And Mr. Dooley finally heard
that before I made my speech on peace I was in-
troduced as the Professor from the Harvard War
School — ^but it may be that Mr. Dooley was not
himself present.

[36]

THE MEMORY OF THE WITNESS

THE MEMORY OF THE WITNESS

Last summer I had to face a jury as witness in a
trial. While I was with my family at the seashore
my city house had been burglarised and I was
called upon to give an account of my findings
against the culprit whom they had caught with a
part of the booty. I reported under oath that the
burglars had entered through a cellar window,
and then described what rooms they had visited.
To prove, in answer to a direct question, that they
had been there at night, I told that I had found
drops of candle wax on the second floor. To show
that they intended to return, I reported that they
had left a large mantel clock, packed in wrapping
paper, on the dining-room table. Finally, as to
the amount of clothes which they had taken, I
asserted that the burglars did not get more than
a specified list which I had given the police.

Only a few days later I found that every one
of these statements was wrong. They had not en-
tered through the window, but had broken the
[39]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
lock of the cellar door; the clock was not packed
by them in wrapping paper, but in a tablecloth;
the candle droppings were not on the second floor,
but in the attic; the list of lost garments was to
be increased by seven more pieces ; and while my
story under oath spoke always of two burglars,
I do not know that there was more than one. How
did all those mistakes occur? I have no right to
excuse myself on the plea of a bad memory. Dur-
ing the last eighteen years I have delivered about
three thousand university lectures. For those
three thousand coherent addresses I had not once
a single written or printed line or any notes what-
ever on the platform ; and yet there has never been
a moment when I have had to stop for a name or
for the connection of the thought. My memory
serves me therefore rather generously. I stood
there, also, without prejudice against the defend-
ant. Inasmuch as he expects to spend the next
twelve years at a place of residence where he wiU
have little chance to read my writings, I may con-
fess frankly that I liked the man. I was thus un-
der the most favourable conditions for speaking
the whole truth and nothing but the truth, and, as
[40]

THE MEMORY OF THE WITNESS
there is probably no need for the assurance of my
best intentions, I felt myself somewhat alarmed in
seeing how many illusions had come in.

Of course, I had not made any careful examina-
tion of the house. I had rushed in from the sea-
shore as soon as the police notified me. In the fear
that valuable contents of the house might have
been destroyed or plundered. When I saw that
they had treated me mildly, inasmuch as they had
started in the wine cellar and had forgotten under
its genial influence, on the whole, what they had
come for, I had taken only a superficial survey.
That a clock was lying on the table, packed ready
to be taken away, had impressed itself clearly on
my memory; but that it was packed in a table-
cloth had made evidently too slight an impression
on my consciousness. My imagination gradually
substituted the more usual method of packing with
wrapping paper, and I was ready to take an oath
on it until I went back later, at the end of the
summer vacation. In the same way I got a vivid
image of the candle droppings on the floor, but as,
at the moment of the perception, no interest was
attached to the peculiar place where I saw them,
[41]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
I slowly substituted in my memory the second floo
for the attic, knowing surely from strewn paper
and other disorder that they had ransacked bot
places. As to the clothes, I had simply forgottei
that I had put several suits in a remote wardrobe
only later did I find it empty. My other tw
blunders clearly arose under the influence of sug
gestion. The police and every one about the hous
had always taken as a matter of course that th
entrance was made by a cellar window, as it woul
have been much more difficult to use the lockei
doors. I had thus never examined the other hy
pothesis, and yet it was found later that they dii
succeed in removing the lock of a door. Ani
finally, my whole story under oath referred to tw^
burglars, without any doubt at the moment. Th
fact is, they had caught the gentleman in questioi
when he, a few days later, plundered anothe
house. He then shot a policeman, but was ar
rested, and in his room they found a jacket witl
my name written in it by the tailor. That alon
gave a hint that my house also had been entered
but from the first moment he insisted that ther
had been two in this burglary and that the othe
[42]

THE MEMORY OF THE WITNESS
man had the remainder of the booty. The other
has not been found, and he probably still wears my
badges; but I never heard any doubt as to his
existence, and thus, in mere imitation, I never
doubted that there was a companion, in spite of
the fact that every part of the performance might
just as well have been carried out by one man
alone; and, after all, it is not impossible that he
should lie as well as shoot and steal.

In this way, in spite of my best intentions, in
spite of good memory and calm mood, a whole
series of confusions, of illusions, of forgetting,
of wrong conclusions, and of yielding to sug-
gestions were mingled with what I had to report
under oath, and my only consolation is the fact
that in a thousand courts at a thousand places all
over the world, witnesses every day affirm by oath
in exactly the same way much worse mixtures of
truth and untruth, combinations of memory and
of illusion, of knowledge and of suggestion, of
experience and wrong conclusions. Not one of my
mistakes was of the slightest consequence. But is
it probable that this is always so? Is it not more
natural to suppose that every day errors creep
[43]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
into the work of justice through wrong evidence
which has the outer marks of truth and trust-
worthiness? Of course, judge and jury and, later,
the newspaper reader try their best to weigh the
evidence. Not every sworn statement is accepted
as absolute reality. Contradictions between wit-
nesses are too faipiliar. But the instinctive doubt
refers primarily to veracity. The public in the
main suspects that the witness lies, while taking
for granted that if he is normal and conscious of
responsibility he may forget a thing, but it would
not believe that he could remember the wrong
thing. The confidence in the reliabiUty of memory
is so general that the suspicion of memory illu-
sions evidently plays a small role in the mind of
the juryman, and even the cross-examining lawyer
is mostly dominated by the idea that a false state-
ment is the product of intentional falsehood.

All this is a popular illusion against which mod-
em psychology must seriously protest. Justice
would less often miscarry if all who are to weigh
evidence were more conscious of the treachery of
human memory. Yes, it can be said that, while the
court makes the fullest use of all the modem sci-
[44 J

THE MEMORY'OF THE WITNESS
entlfic methods when, for instance, a drop of dried
_ blood is to be examined in a murder case, the same
court is completely satisfied with the most unsci-
entific arid haphazard methods of common preju-
dice and ignorance when a mental product, espe-
cially the memory report of a witness, is to be ex-
amined. No juryman would be expected to follow
his general impressions in the question as to
whether the blood on the murderer's shirt is human
or animal. But he is expected to make up his mind
as to whether the memory ideas of a witness are
objective reproductions of earlier experience or are
mixed up with associations and suggestions. The
court proceeds as if the physiological chemistry
of blood examination had made wonderful prog-
ress, while experimental psychology, with its ef-
forts to analyse the mental faculties, still stood
where it stood two thousand years ago.

The fact is that experimental psychology has
not only in general experienced a wonderful
progress during the last decades, but has also
given in recent years an unusual amount of atten-
tion to just those problems which are involved on
the witness stand. It is perhaps no exaggeration
[45]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
to say that a new special science has even grown
up which deals exclusively with the reliability of
memory. It started in Germany and has had there
for some years even a magazine of its own. But
many investigations in France and the United
States tended from the start in the same direction,
and the work spread rapidly over the psycholog-
ical laboratories of the world. Rich material has
been gathered, and yet practical jurisprudence is,
on the whole, stiU unaware of it; and while the
alienist is always a welcome guest in the court
room, the psychologist is stiU a stranger there.
The Court would rather listen for whole days to
the " science " of the handwriting experts than
allow a witness to be examined with regard to his
memory and his power of perception, his attention
and his associations, his volition and his suggesti-
bility, with methods which are in accord with the
exact work of experimental psychology. It is so
much easier everywhere to be satisfied with sharp
demarcation lines and to listen only to a yes or no ;
the man is sane or insane, and if he is sane, he
speaks the truth or he lies. The psychologist
would upset this satisfaction completely.
[46]

THE MEMORY OF THE WITNESS
The administration of an oath is partly respon-
sible for the wrong valuation of the evidence. Its
seriousness and solemnity suggest that the condi-
tions for complete truth are given if the witness is
ready not to lie. We are too easily inclined to con-
fuse the idea of truth in a subjective and in an
objective sense. A German proverb says, " Chil-
dren and fools speak the truth," and with it goes
the old " In vino Veritas." Of course, no one -can
suppose that children, fools, and tipsy men have
a deeper insight into true relations than the sober
and grown-up remainder of mankind. What is
meant is only that all the motives are lacking
which, in our social turmoil, may lead others to the
intentional hiding of the truth. Children do not
suppress the truth, because they are naive; the
fools do not suppress it, because they are reckless ;
and the mind under the influence of wine does not
suppress it, because the suppressing mechanism
of inhibition is temporarily paralysed by alcohol.
The subjective truth may thus be secured, and yet
the idle talk of the drunkard and the child and the
fool may be objectively untrue from beginning to
end. It is in this way only that the oath by its re-
[47]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
ligious background and by its connection with
threatened punishment can work for truth. It can
and will remove to a high degree the intention to
hide the truth, but it may be an open question to
what degree it can increase the objective truthful-
ness.

Of course, everyone knows that the oath helps
in at least one more direction in curbing misstate-
ments. It not only suppresses the intentional lie,
but it focusses the attention on the details of the
statement. It excludes the careless, hasty, chance
recollection, and stirs the deliberate attention of
the witness. He feels the duty of putting his best
will into the effort to reproduce the whole truth
and nothing but the truth. No psychologist will
deny this effect. He will ask only whether the in-
tention alone is sufficient for success and whether
the memory is really improved in every respect by
increased attention. We are not always sure that
our fimctions run best when we concentrate our
effort on them and turn the full light of attention
on the details. We may speak fluently, but the
moment we begin to give attention to the special
movements of our lips and of our tongue in speak-
[48]

THE MEMORY OP THE WITNESS
ing and make a special effort to produce the move-
ments correctly, we are badly hampered. Is it so
sure that our memory works faultlessly simply
because we earnestly want it to behave well? We
may try hard to think of a name and it will not
appear in consciousness; and when we have
thought of somethng else for a long time, the de-
sired name suddenly slips into our mind. May it
not be in a similar way that the effort for correct
recollection under oath may prove powerless to a
degree which public opinion underestimates.'' And
no subjective feeling of certainty can be an ob-
jective criterion for the desired truth.

A few years ago a painful scene occurred in
Berlin, in the University Seminary of Professor
von Liszt, the famous criminologist. The Pro-
fessor had spoken about a book. One of the older
students suddenly shouts, " I wanted to throw
light on the matter from the standpoint of Chris-
tian morality ! " Another student throws in, " I
cannot stand that ! " The first starts up, ex-
claiming, " You have insulted me ! " The second
clenches his fist and cries, " If you say another

word " The first draws a revolver. The sec-

[49]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
ond rushes madly upon him. The Professor steps
between them and, as he grasps the man's arm, the
revolver goes off. General uproar. In that mo-
ment Professor Liszt secures order and asks a part
of the students to write an exact account of all
that has happened. The whole had been a comedy,
carefully planned and rehearsed by the three
actors for the purpose of studying the exactitude
of observation and recollection. Those who did
not write the report at once were, part of them,
asked to write it the next day or a week later ; and
others had to depose their oTsservations under
cross-examination. The whole objective perform-
ance was cut up into fourteen little parts which
referred partly to actions, partly to words. As
mistakes there were counted the omissions, the
wrong additions and the alterations. The smallest
number of mistakes gave twenty-six per cent, of
erroneous statements; the largest was eighty per
cent. The reports with reference to the second
half of the performance, which was more strongly
emotional, gave an average of fifteen per cent,
more mistakes than those of the first half. Words
were put into the mouths of men who had been
[50]

THE MEMORY OF THE WITNESS
silent spectators during the whole short episode;
actions were attributed to the chief participants
of which not the slightest trace existed ; and essen-
tial parts of the tragi-comedy were completely
eliminated from the memory of a number of wit-
nesses.

This dramatic psychological experiment of six
years ago opened up a long series of similar tests
in a variety of places, with a steady eflFort to im-
prove the conditions. The most essential condition
remained, of course, always the complete naivete
of the witnesses, as the slightest suspicion on
their part would destroy the value of the experi-
ment. It seems desirable even that the writing of
the protocol should still be done in a state of be-
lief. There was, for instance, two years ago in
Gottingen a meeting of a scientific association,
made up of jurists, psychologists, and physicians,
all, therefore, men well trained in careful observa-
tion. Somewhere in the same street there was that
evening a public festivity of the carnival. Sud-
denly, in the midst of the scholarly meeting, the
doors open, a clown in highly coloured costume
rushes in in mad excitement, and a negro with a
[51]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
revolver in hand follows him. In the middle of the
hall first the one, then the other, shouts wild
phrases ; then the one falls to the ground, the other
jumps on him; then a shot, and suddenly both
are out of the room. The whole affair took less
than twenty seconds. All were completely taken
by surprise, and no one, with the exception of the
President, had the slighest idea that every word
and action had been rehearsed beforehand, or
that photographs had been taken of the scene.
It seemed most natural that the President should
beg the members to write down individually an
exact report, inasmuch as he felt sure that the
matter would come before the courts. Of the
forty reports handed in, there was only one whose
omissions were calculated as amounting to less
than twenty per cent, of the characteristic acts;
fourteen had twenty to forty per cent, of the
facts omitted; twelve omitted forty to fifty per
cent., and thirteen stUl more than fifty per cent.
But besides the omissions there were only six
among the forty which did not contain positively
wrong statements; in twenty-four papers up to
ten per cent, of the statements were free inven-
[52]

THE MEMORY OF THE WITNESS
tions, and in ten answers — that is, in one-fourth
of the papers, — more than ten per cent, of
the statements were absolutely false, in spite of
the fact that they all came from scientifically
trained observers. Only four persons, for in-
stance, among forty noticed that the negro had
nothing on his head ; the others gave him a derby,
or a high hat, and so on. In addition to this, a
red suit, a brown one, a striped one, a coffee-
coloured jacket, shirt sleeves, and similar cos-
tumes were invented for him. He wore in reality
white trousers and a black jacket with a large red
necktie. The scientific commission which reported
the details of the inquiry came to the general
statement that the majority of the observers omit-
ted or falsified about half of the processes which
occurred completely in their field of vision. As was
to be expected, the judgment as to the time dura-
tion of the act varied between a few seconds and
several minutes.

It is not necessary to tell more of these dra-
matic experiments, which have recently become
the fashion and almost a sport, and which will still
have to be continued with a great variety of con-
[53 1

ON T.HE WITNESS STAND
ditions if the psychological laws involved are
really to be cleared up. There are many points,
for instance, in which the results seem stiU contra-
dictory. In some cases it was shown that the mis-
takes made after a week were hardly more frequent
than those made after a day. Other experiments
seemed to indicate that the number of mistakes
steadily increases with the length of time which
has elapsed. Again, some experiments suggest
that the memory of the two sexes is not essentially
diiferent, while the majority of the tests seems to
speak for very considerable difference. Experi-
ments with school children, especially, seem to
show that the girls have a better memory than the
boys as far as omissions are concerned; they for-
get less. But they have a worse memory than the
boys as far as correctness is concerned ; they unin-
tentionally falsify more.

We may consider here still another point which
is more directly connected with our purpose, A
well-known psychologist showed three pictures,
rich in detail, but well adapted to the interest of
children, to a large number of boys and girls.
They looked at each picture for fifteen seconds
[54]

THE MEMORY OF THE WITNESS
and then wrote a full report of everything they
could remember. After that they were asked to
underline those parts of their reports of which
they felt so absolutely certain that they would be
ready to take an oath before court on the under-
lined words. The young people put forth their
best efforts, and yet the results showed that there
were almost as many mistakes in the underlined
sentences as in the rest. This experiment has been
often repeated and the results make clear that
this happens in a smaller and yet still surprising
degree in the case of adults also. The grown-up
students of my laboratory commit this kind of
perjury all the time.

Subtler experiments which were carried on in
my laboratory for a long time showed that this
subjective feeling of certainty can not only ob-
tain in different degrees, but has, with different
individuals, quite different mental structure and
meaning. We found that there were, above all,
two distinct classes. For one of those types cer-
tainty in the recollection of an experience would
rest very largely upon the vividness of the image.
For the other type it would depend upon the
[55]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
congruity of an image with other previously ac-
cepted images ; that is, on the absence of conflicts,
when the experience judged about is imagined as
part of a wide setting of past experiences. But
the most surprising result of those studies was
perhaps that the feeling of certainty stands in no
definite relation to the attention with which the
objects are observed. If we turn our attention
with strongest effort to certain parts of a complex
impression, we may yet feel in our recollection
more certain about those parts of which we
hardly took notice than about those to which we
devoted our attention. The correlations between
attention, recollection, and feeling of certainty
become the more complex the more we carefully
study them. Not only the self-made psychology of
the average juryman, but also the scanty psy-
chological statements which judge and attorney
find in the large compendiums on Evidence fall to
pieces if a careful examination approaches the
mental facts.

The sources of error begin, of course, before
the recollection sets in. The observation itself
may be defective and illusory ; wrong associations
[561

THE MEMORY OF THE WITNESS
may make it imperfect; judgments may misinter-
pret the experiehce ; and suggestive influences may
falsify the data of the senses. Everyone knows
the almost unlimited individual differences in the
power of correct observation and judgment.
Everyone knows that there are persons who, under
favourable conditions, see what they are expected
to see. The prestidigitateurs, the fakirs, the spirit-
ualists could not play their tricks if they could
not rely on associations and suggestions, and it
would not be so diflScult to read proofs if we did
not usually see the letters which we expect. But
we can abstract here from the distortions which
enter into the perception itself; we have discussed
them before. The mistakes of recollection alone
are now the object of our inquiry and we may
throw light on them from still another side.

Many of us remember minutes in which we
passed through an experience with a distinct
land almost uncanny feeling of having passed
through it once before. The words which we
hear, the actions which we see, we remember ex-
actly that we experienced them a long time ago.
The case is rare with men, but with women ex-
[57]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
tremely frequent, and there are few women who
do not know the state. An idea is there distinctly
coupled with the feeling of remembrance and
recognition, and yet it is only an associated sensa-
tion, resulting from fatigue or excitement, and
without the slightest objective basis in the past.
The psychologist feels no difficulty in explaining
it, but it ought to stand as a great warning signal
before the minds of those who believe that the
feeling of certainty in -recollection secures objec-
tive truth. There is no" new principle involved, of
course, when the ideas which stream into con-
sciousness spring from one's own imagination in-
stead of being produced by the outer impressions
of our, surroundings. Any Imaginative thought
may slip into our consciousness and may carry
with It In the same way that curious feeling that
It is merely the repetition of something we hav6
experienced before.

A striking Illustration Is well known to those
who have ever taken the trouble to approach
the depressing literature of modem mysticism.
There we find an abundance of cases reported
which seem to prove that either prophetic for-
158]

THE MEMORY OF THE WITNESS
tune tellers or inspired dreams have anticipated
the real future of a man's life with the subtlest de-
tails and with the most uncanny foresight. But as
soon as we examine these wonderful stories, we find
that the coincidences are surprising only in those
cases in which the dreams and the prophecies have
been written down after the realisation. When-
ever the visions were given to the protocol before-
hand, the percentage of true reaUsations remains
completely within the narrow limits of chance coin-
cidents and natural probability. In other words,
there cannot be any doubt that the reports of such
prophecies which are communicated after having
been realised are falsified. That does not reflect in
the least on the subjective veracity; our satisfied
client of the clever fortune teller would feel ready
to take oath to his illusions of memory; but illu-
sions they remain. He also, in most cases, feels
sure that he told the dream to the whole family
the next morning exactly as it happened; only
when it is possible to call the members of the fam-
ily to a scientific witness stand, does it become
evident that the essentials of the dream varied in
all directions from the real later occurrence. The
[59]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
real present occurrence completely transforms the
reminiscences of the past prophecy and every hap-
pening is apperceived with the illusory overtone of
having been foreseen.

We must always keep in mind that a content of
consciousness is in itself independent of its rela-
tion to the past and has thus in itself no mark
which can indicate whether it was experienced once
before or not. The feeling of belonging to our
past life may associate itself thus just as well with
a perfectly new idea of our imagination as with a
real reproduction of an earlier state of mind. As
a matter of course, the opposite can thus happen,
too ; that is, an earlier experience may come to our
memory stripped of every reference to the past,
standing before our mind like a completely new
product of imagination. To point again to an
apparently mysterious experience: the crystal
gazer feels in his half hypnotic state a free play
of inspired imagination, and yet in reality he ex-
periences only a stirring up of the deeper layers
of memory pictures. They rush to his mind with-
out any reference to their past origin, picturing a
timeless truth which Is surprisingly correct only
[60]

THE MEMORY'OF THE WITNESS
because it is the result of a sharpened memory.
Yes, we fill the blanks of our perceptions con-
stantly with bits of reproduced memory material
and take those reproductions for immediate im-
pressions. In short, we never know from the ma-
terial itself whether we remember, perceive, or
imagine, and in the borderland regions there
must result plenty of confusion which cannot al-
ways remain without dangerous consequences in
the court-room.

Still another phenomenon is fairly familiar to
everyone, and only the courts have not yet dis-
covered it. There are different types of memory,
which in a very crude and superficial classification
might be grouped as visual, acoustical, and mo-
tor types. There are persons who can repro-
duce a landscape or a painting in full vivid col-
ours and with sharp outlines throughout the field,
while they would be unable to hear internally a
melody or the sound of a voice. There are others
with whom every tune can easily resound in recol-
lection and who can hardly read a letter of a
friend without hearing his voice in every word,
while they are utterly unable to awake an optical
[61]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
image. There are others again whose sensorial
reproduction is poor in both respects; they feel
intentions of movement, as of speaking, of writ-
ing, of acting, whenever they reconstruct past ex-
perience. In reality the number of types is much
larger. Scores of memory variations can be dis-
criminated. Let your friends describe how they
have before their minds yesterday's dinner table
and the conversation around it, and there will not
be two whose memory shows the same scheme and
method. Now we should not ask a short-sighted
man for the slight visual details of a far distant
scene, yet it cannot be safer to ask a man of the
acoustical memory type for strictly optical recol-
lections. No one on the witness stand is to-day
examined to ascertain in what directions his mem-
ory is probably trustworthy and reliable; he may
be asked what he has seen, what he has heard,
what he as spoken, how he has acted, and yet
even a most superficial test might show that the
mechanism of his memory would be excellent for
one of these four groups of questions and utterly
useless for the others, however solemnly he might
keep his oath.

[62]

THE MEMORY OP THE WITNESS
The courts will have to learn, sooner or later,
that the individual differences of men can be tested
to-day by the methods of experimental psychology
far beyond anything which common sense and
social experience suggest. Modern law welcomes,
for instance, for identification of criminals all the
discoveries of anatomists and physiologists as to
the individual differences; even the different play
of lines in the thumb is carefully registered in
wax. But no one asks for the striking differences
as to those mental details which the psychological
experiments on memory and attention, on feeling
and imagination, on perception and discrimina-
tion, on judgment and suggestion, on emotion and
volition, have brought out In the last decade.
Other sciences are less slow to learn. It has been
found, for instance, that the psychological speech
impulse has for every individual a special char-
acter as to intonation and melody. At once the
philologists came and made the most brillistnt use
of this psychological discovery. They have taken,
for instance, whole epic texts and examined those
lines as to which it was doubtful whether they be-
longed originally to the poem or were later in-
[63]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
terpolations. Wherever the speech intonation
agreed with that of the whole song, they acknowl-
edged the authentic origin, and where it did not
agree they recognised an interpolation of the
text. Yet the lawyers might learn endlessly more
from the psychologists about individual differ-
ences than the philologians have done. They must
only understand that the working of the mental
mechanism in a personality depends on the con-
stant cooperation of simple and elementary func-
tions which the modern laboratory experiment can
isolate and test. If those simplest elements are
imderstood, their complex combination becomes
necessary; just as the whole of a geometrical
curve becomes necessary as soon as its analytical
formula is understood for the smallest part.

But the psychological assistance ought not to
be confined to the discrimination of memory types
and other individual differences. The experimen-
talist cannot forget how abundant are the new
facts of memory variations which have come oUt
of experiments on attention and inhibition. We
know and can test with the subtlest means the
waves of fluctuating attention through which
[64]

THE MEMORY OP THE WITNESS
ideas become reinforced and weakened. We know,
above all, the inhibitory influences which result
from excitements and emotions which ^may com-
pletely change the products of an otherwise faith-
ful memory.

A concrete illustration may indicate the method
of the experimenters. The judge has to make up
his mind as soon as there is any doubt on which
side the evidence on an issue of fact preponder-
ates. If it can be presupposed that both sides in-
tend to speak the truth he is ready to consider
that the one side had, perhaps, a more frequent
opportunity to watch the facts in question, the
other side, perhaps, saw them more recently ; the
one saw them, perhaps, under especially impress-
ive circumstances, the other, perhaps, with fur-
ther knowledge of the whole situation, and so on.
Of course, his buckram-bound volumes of old de-
cisions guide him, but those decisions report
again only that the one or the other judge, rely-
ing on his common-sense, thought recency more
weighty than frequency, or frequency more im-
portant than impressiveness, or perhaps the op-
posite. It is the same way in which common-
[65]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
sense tells a man what kind of diet is most nour-
ishing. Yet what responsible physician would
ignore the painstaking experiments of the phys-
iological laboratory, determining exactly the
quantitative results as to the nourishing value
of eggs or milk or meat or bread? The judges
ignore the fact that with the same accuracy
their common-sense can be transformed into care-
ful measurements the results of which may widely
differ from haphazard opinion. The psycholo-
gist, of course, has to reduce the complex facts
to simple principles and elements. An investiga-
tion, devoted to this problem of the relative ef-
fectiveness of recency, frequency, and vividness
was carried on in my psychological laboratory.
Here we used simple pairs of coloured papers and
printed figures, or colours and words, or words
and figures, or colours and forms, and so on. A
series of ten such pairs may be exposed success-
ively in a lighted field, each time one colour and
one figure of two digits. But one pair, perhaps
the third, is repeated as the seventh, and thus im-
presses itself by its frequency; another pair, per-
haps the fifth, comes with impressive vividness,
166]

THE MEMORY OF THE WITNESS
from the fact that instead of two digits, sud-
denly three are used. The last pair has, of course,
the advantage in that it sticks to the mind from
its position at the end ; it remains the most recent,
which is not inhibited by any following pair.
After a pause the colours are shown again and
every one of the subjects has to write down the
figures together with which he believes himself to
have seen the particular colours. Is the vivid
pair, or the frequently repeated pair, or the re-
cent pair better remembered.'' Of course, the ex-
periment was made under most different conditions,
with different pauses, different material, different
length of the series, different influences, different
distribution, different subjects, but after some
years of work, facts showed themselves which
can stand as facts. The relative value of the
various conditions for exact recollection became
really measurable. They may and must be cor-
rected by further experiments, but they are raised
from the first above the level of the chance opinions
of the lawyer-psychologist.

All this remains entirely within the limits of the
normal healthy individuality. Nothing of aU that
[67]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
we have mentioned belongs to the domain of the
physician. Where the alienist has to speak, that
is, where pathological amnesia destroys the mem-
ory of the witness, or where hallucinations of
disease, or fixed ideas deprive the witness's remem-
brance of their value, there the psychologist is not
needed. It is in normal mental life and its border-
land regions that the progress of psychological
science cannot be further ignored. No railroad
or ship company would appoint to a responsible
post in its service men whose eyesight had not
been tested for colour blindness. There may be
only one among thirty or forty who cannot dis-
tinguish at a distance the red from the green
lantern. Yet if he slips into the service without
being tested, his slight defect, which does not dis-
turb him in practical life and which he may never
have noticed if he was not just picking red straw-
berries among green leaves, may be sufficient to
bring about the most disastrous wrecking of two
trains or the most horrible collision of steamers.
In the life of justice trains are wrecked and ships
are colliding too often, simply because the law
does not care to examine the mental colour blind-
[68]

THE MEMORY OP THE WITNESS
ness of the witness's memory. And yet we have
not even touched one factor which, more than any-
thing else, devastates memory and plays havoc
with our best intended recollections: that is, the
power of suggestion.

[69]

THE DETECTION OF CRIME

THE DETECTION OF CRIME

As old as the. history of crime is the history of
cruelties exercised, in the service of justice, for
the discovery of criminal facts. Man has the
power to hide his knowledge and his memories by
silence and by lies, and the infliction of physical
and mental pain has always seemed the quickest
way to untie the tongue and to force the confes-
sion of truth. Through thousands of years, in
every land on the globe, accomplices have been
named, crimes have been acknowledged, secrets
have been given up, under threats and tortures
which overwhelmed the will to resist. The imag-
ination of the Orient invented more dastardly tor-
tures than that of the Occident ; the mediaeval In-
quisition brought the system to perhaps fuller
perfection than later centuries; and to-day the
fortresses of Russia are said to witness tortures
which would be impossible in non-Slavic lands.
And, although the forms have changed, can there
be any doubt that even in the United States bru-
[73]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
tality is still a favourite method of undermining
the mental resistance of the accused? There are
no longer any thumb-screws, but the lower orders
of the police have still uncounted means to make
the prisoner's life uncomfortable and perhaps in-
tolerable, and to break down his energy. A rat
put secretly into a woman's cell may exhaust her
nervous system and her inner strength till she
is unable to stick to her story. The dazzling light
and the cold-water hose and the secret blow seem
still to serve, even if nine-tenths of the newspaper
stories of the " third degree " are exaggerated.
Worst of all are the brutal shocks given with
fiendish cruelty to the terrified imagination of the
suspect.

Decent public opinion stands firmly against
such barbarism ; and this opposition springs not
only from sentimental horror and from aesthetic
disgust: stronger, perhaps, than either of these
is the instinctive conviction that the method is
ineffective in bringing out the real truth. At all
times, innocent men have been accused by the tor-
tured ones, crimes which were never committed
have been confessed, infamous lies have been in-
[74]

THE DETECTION OF CRIME
vented, to satisfy the demands of the torturers.
Under pain and fear a man may make any ad-
mission which will relieve his suffering, and, still
more misleading, his mind may lose the power to
discriminate between illusion and real memory.
Enlightened juries have begun to understand how
the ends of justice are frustrated by such methods.
Only recently an American jury, according to the
newspapers, acquitted a suspect who, after a pre-
vious denial, confessed with full detail to having
murdered a girl whose slain body had been found.
The detectives had taken the shabby young man
to the undertaking-rooms, led him to the side of
the coffin, suddenly whipped back the sheet, ex-
posing the white bruised face, and abruptly de-
manded, " When did you see her? " He sank on
his knees and put his hands over his face; but
they dragged him to his feet and ordered him to
place his right hand on the forehead of the body.
Shuddering, he obeyed, and the next moment
again collapsed. The detectives pulled him again
to his feet, and fired at him question after ques-
tion, forcing him to stroke the girl's hair and
cheeks; and, evidently without control of his
[75]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
mind, he affirmed all that his torturers asked, and,
in his half -demented state, even added details to
his untrue story.

The clean conscience of a modern nation re-
jects every such brutal scheme in the search of
truth, and yet is painfully aware that the ac-
credited means for unveiling the facts are too
often insufficient. The more complex the ma-
chinery of our social Ufe, the easier it seems to
cover the traces of crime and to hide the outrage
by lies and deception. Under these circumstances,
it is surprising and seems unjustifiable that law-
yers and laymen alike should not have given any
attention, so far, to the methods of measurement
of association which experimental psychology has
developed in recent years. Of course, the same
holds true of many other methods of the psycho-
logical laboratory — ^methods in the study of
memory and attention, feeling and will, percep-
tion and judgment, suggestion and emotion. In
every one of these fields the psychological experi-
ment could be made helpful to the purposes of
court and law. But it is the study and measure-
ment of associations which have particular value
[76]

THE DETECTION OF CRIME
in those realms where the barbarisms of the third
degree were formerly in use. The chronoscope of
the modern psychologist has become, and will be-
come more and more, for the student of crime
what the microscope is for the student of disease.
It makes visible that which remains otherwise in-
visible, and shows minute facts which allow a clear
diagnosis. The physician needs his magnifier to
find out whether there are tubercles in the sputum :
the legal psychologist may in the future use his
mental microscope to make sure whether there are
lies in the mind of the suspect.

The study of the association of ideas has at-
tracted the students of the human mind since the
day of Aristotle ; but only in the last century have
we come to inquire systematically into the laws
and causes of these mental connections. Of course,
every one knows that our memory ideas link them-
selves with our impressions — that a face reminds
us of a name, or a name of a face ; that one word
calls another to mind ; that even smell or taste may
wake in us manifold associations. But out of such
commonplaces grew a whole systematic science,
and the school of associationists began to explain
[771

ON THE WITNESS STAND
our entire mental life as essentially the interplay
of such associations. There are the outer associa-
tions of time and place, where one thing reminds
us of another together with which we experienced
it. There are inner associations, where one thing
awakens in our minds something else which has
similarity to it, or to which it is related as a part
to the whole or the whole to a part, and so on.
The word " dog " may call up in my mind, per-
haps, the memory-picture of a particular dog, or
the name of that dog, or the idea of a house in
which I saw it; or it may bring up the super-
ordinated idea, " animal," or the subordinated,
" terrier," or the coordinated, " cat," or the part,
" tail " ; or perhaps it may suggest to me the
German translation for dog, or a painting with
dogs in it: there are no end of possibilities. But
the psychologists were not satisfied with grouping
the various cases; their chief aim was to deter-
mine the conditions under which they arise, the
influence which the frequency or the recency or
the vividness or the combination of special experi-
ences has on the choice of the resulting idea.
In the last few decades, then, has arisen the new
[78]

THE DETECTION OF CRIME
science, experimental psychology, which, like
physics and chemistry, has its own workshops,
wherein mental facts are brought under experi-
mental test in the same way as in the natural
sciences. With the application of experimental
methods, the study of association took at once a
new turn. In the laboratory we are not confined
to the chance material which daily life offers; we
can prepare and control the situation. For in-
stance, I may use a list of one hundred substan-
tives, and read one after the other to my subject,
and ask him to give me the first word which enters
his mind. I receive thus one hundred associations
which are independent of any intentional selection,
showing just the paths of least resistance in the
mind of my man. I may use them, for instance, to
make statistics as to their character: if the outer
associations prevail, I have a type of mind before
me other than in the case of a preponderance of
inner associations ; if the superordinations prevail,
I have an mteUect other than if the subordinations
were in the majority. Or I may study the influ-
ences of preceding impressions. Perhaps I read to
my man a story or showed him some pictures
[791

ON THE WITNESS STAND
before I gave him the one hundred words for
association; the effect of that recent experience
will show itself at once. In this way the variations
are endless.

But one aspect dominates in importance: I can
measure the time of this connection of ideas. Sup-
pose that both my subject and I have little elec-
trical instruments between the lips, which, by the
least movement of speaking, make or break an
electric current passing through an electric clock-
work whose index moves around a dial ten times -
in every second. One revolution of the index thus
means the tenth part of a second, and, as the
whole dial is divided into one hundred parts,
every division indicates the thousandth part of a
second. My index stands quietly till I move my
lips to make, for instance, the word " dog." In
that moment the electric current causes the poin-
ter to revolve. My subject, as soon as he hears
the word, is to speak out as quickly as possible
the first association which comes to his mind. He
perhaps shouts " cat," and the movement of his
lips breaks the current, stops the pointer, and
thus allows me to read from the clockwork in
[80]

THE DETECTION OF CRIME
thousandth parts of a second the time which
passed between my speaking the word and his
naming the association. Of course, this time in-
cludes not only the time for the process of asso-
ciation, but also the time for the hearing of the
word, for the understanding, for the impulse of
speaking, and so on. But all these smaller periods
I can easily determine. I may find out how long
it takes if my subject does not associate anything,
but simply repeats the word I give him. If the
mere repetition of the word " dog " takes him
825 thousandths of a second, while the bringing
up of the word " cat " took 975 thousandths, I
conclude that the difference of 650 thousandths
was necessary for the process of associating
" cat " and " dog."

In this way, during the last twenty years, there
has developed an exact and subtle study of mental
associations, and through such very careful ob-
servation of the time-differences between associa-
tions a deep insight has been won into the whole
mental mechanism. The slightest changes of our
psychical connections can be discovered and
traced by these slight variations of time, which
[81]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
are, of course, entirely unnoticeable so long as no
exact measurements are introduced. The last few
years have finally brought the latest step : the the-
oretical studies have been made useful to practical
life. Like many other branches of experimental
psychology, the doctrine of association has be-
come adjusted to the practical problems of educa-
tion, of medicine, of art, of commerce, and of law.
It is the last which chiefly concerns us here — a
kind of investigation which began in Germany and
has since been developed here and abroad.

For instance, our purpose may be to find out
whether a suspected person has really participated
in a certain crime. He declares that he is innocent,
that he was not present when the outrage oc-
curred, and that he is not even familiar with the
locality. An innocent man will not object to our
proposing a series of one hundred associations to
demonstrate his innocence. A guilty man, of
course, will not object, either, as a declination
would indicate a fear of betraying himself; he
cannot refuse, and yet affirm his innocence.
Moreover, he will feel sure that no questions can
bring out any facts which he wants to keep hidden
[82 J

THE DETECTION OF CRIME
in his soul; he will be on the lookout. As long as
nothing more is demanded than that he speak the
first word which comes to his mind, when another
word is spoken to him, there is indeed no legal
and no practical reason for declining, as long as
innocence is professed. Such an experiment will
at once become interesting in three different direc-
tions as soon as we mix into our list of one hun-
dred words a number, perhaps thirty, which stand
in more or less close connection to the crime in
question — ^words which refer to the details of the
locality, or to the persons present at the crime, or
to the probable motive, or to the professed alibi,
and so on. The first direction of our Interest is
toward the choice of the associations. Of course,
every one believes that he would be sure to admit
only harmless words to his lips ; but the conditions
of the experiment quickly destroy that feeling of
safety. As soon as a dangerous association rushes
to the consciousness, it tries to push its way out.
It may, indeed, need some skill to discover the
psychical influence, as the suspected person may
have self-control enough not to give away the
dangerous idea directly; but the suppressed idea
[83]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
remains in consciousness, and taints the next asso-
ciation, or perhaps the next but one, without his
knowledge.

He has, perhaps, slain a woman in her room,
and yet protests that he has never been in her
house. By the side of her body was a cage with a
canary-bird. I therefore mix into my list of words
also " bird." His mind is full of the gruesome
memory of his heinous deed. The word " bird,"
therefore, at once awakens the association
" canary-bird " in his consciousness ; yet he is
immediately aware that this would be suspicious,
and he succeeds, before the dangerous word comes
to his lips, in substituting the harmless word
" sparrow." Yet my next word, or perhaps my
second or third next, is " colour," and his prompt
association is " yellow " : the canary-bird is still
in his mind, and shows its betraying influence.
The preparaton of the list of words to be called
thus needs psychological judgment and insight if
a man with quick self-control is to be trapped. In
most cases, however, there is hardly any need of
relying on the next and following words, as the
primary associations for the critical words un-
[84]

THE DETECTION OF CRIME
veil themselves for important evidence directly
enough-
Yet not only the first associations are interest-
ing. There is interest in another direction in the
associations which result from a second and a
third repetition of the series. Perhaps after half
an hour, I go once more through the whole list.
The subject gives once more his hundred replies.
An analysis of the results will show that most of
the words which he now gives are the same which
he gave the first time ; pronouncing the words has
merely accentuated his tendency to associate them
in. the same connection as before. If it was
" house " — " window " first, then it wDl probably
be " house " — " window " again. But a number of
associations have been changed, and a careful
analysis will show that these are first of all the
suspicious ones. Those words which by their con-
nection with the crime stir up deep emotional com-
plexes of Ideas will throw ever new associations
into consciousness, while the indifferent ones will
link themselves in a superficial way without
change. To a certain degree, this variation of the
dangerous associations is reinforced by the inten-
[85]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
tional effort of the suspected. He does not feel
satisfied with his first words, and hopes that other
words may better hide his real thoughts, not know-
ing that just this change is to betray him.

But most important is the third direction of
inquiry: more characteristic than the choice and
the constancy of the associations is their involun-
tary retardation by emotional Influence. A word
which stirs emotional memories will show an asso-
ciation-time twice or three times as long as a
commonplace Idea. It may be said at once that It
Is not ordinarily necessary, even for legal pur-
poses, that the described measurement be In thou-
sandths of a second ; the differences of time which
betray a bad conscience or a guilty knowledge of
certain facts are large enough to be easily meas-
ured In hundredths or even in tenths of a second ;
though measurements for the theoretical purposes
of psychology require, indeed, a division of the
second Into a thousand parts. In the following
legal division I shall, therefore, refer to differ-
ences In tenths of a second only.

The absolute time of associations is, of course,
quite different for different persons; to link
[86]

THE DETECTION OF CRIME
familiar ideas like " chair "— " table " or " black "
— " white " may take for the slow type more than
a full second, while the alert mind may not need
more than half a second. Thus we begin by finding
the average for each individual, and all our inter-
est goes into the deviations from this average.
That a certain association should take one and a
half seconds would be a very suspicious retarda-
tion for the quick mind which normally associates
in three quarters, while it would be quite normal
for the slow thinker. And here, again, it may be
mentioned that the retardation is not always con-
fined to the dangerous association alone, but often
comes in a still more pregnant way in the follow-
ing or the next following association, which on
the surface looks entirely harmless. The emotional
shock has perturbed the working of the mechan-
ism, and the path for all associations is blocked.
The analysis of these secondary time-retardations
is the factor which demands the greatest psycho-
logical skill. A few illustrations from practical
life may make the whole method clearer.

An educated young man of eighteen lived in the
house of an uncle. The old gentleman went to con-
[87]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
suit a nerve specialist in regard to some slight
nervous trouble of the younger friend. On that
occasion he confided his recent suspicion that the
young man might be a thief. Money had repeat-
edly been taken from a drawer and from a trunk ;
until lately he had had suspicions only of the
servants ; he had notified the police, and detectives
had watched them. He was most anxious to find
out whether his new suspicion was true, as he
wanted, in that case, to keep the matter out of
court, in the interest of the family. The physi-
cian, Dr. Jung, in Zurich, arranged that the young
man come for an examination of his nerves. He
then proposed to him a list of a hundred associa-
tions as part of the medical inspection. The
physician said " head," the patient associated
"nose"; then " green "—" blue," "water"—
« air," " long " — " short," « five " — " six,"
" wool " — " cloth," and so on, the average time
of these commonplace connections being 1.6 sec-
onds. But there were thirty-seven dangerous
words scattered among the hundred — words that
had to do with the things in the room from which
the money was abstracted, or with the theft and
[88]

THE DETECTION OF CRIME
its punishment, or with some possible motives.
There appeared, for instance, the word " thief."
The association " burglar " seemed quite natural,
but it took the boy suddenly 4.6 seconds to reach
it. In the same way " police " — " theft " took 3.6
seconds, " jail " — " penitentiary " 4.2 seconds. In
other cases the dangerous word itself came with
normal automatic quickness, but the emotional dis-
turbance became evident in the retardation of the
next word. For instance, " key " — " false key "
took only 1.6 seconds, but the following trivial
association " stupid " — " clever " grew to 3.0 sec-
onds. " Crime " — " theft " came again promptly
in 1.8, but the inner shock was so strong that the
commonplace word " cook " was entirely inhibited
and did not produce an association at all in 20
seconds. In the same way " bread '" — ^" water "
rushed forward in 1.6 seconds, but this charac-
teristic choice, the supposed diet of the jail,
stopped the associative mechanism again for the
following trivial word. It would lead too far to go
further into the analysis of the case, but it may
be added that a repetition of the same series
showed the characteristic variations in the region
[89]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
of the suspicious words. While " crime " had
brought " theft " the first time, it was the second
time replaced by " murder " ; " discover " brought
the first time " wrong," the second time " grasp."
In the harmless words there was hardly any
change at all. But, finally, a subtle analysis of the
selection of words and of the retardations pointed
to sufficient details to make a clear diagnosis. The
physician told the young man that he had stolen;
the boy protested vehemently. Then the physi-
cian gave him the subtle points unveiled by the
associations — ^how he had bought a watch with
the money and had given presents to his sister;
and the boy confessed everything, and was saved
from jail by the early discovery. The brutalities
of the third degree would hardly have yielded
such a complete result, nor the technicalities of
legal evidence, either.

Of course, this case is that of a highly sensitive
mind with the strong feelings of a bad conscience.
A professional tough criminal would not show
such intense emotions, and hence not such iong
retardations, if he were as unsuspicious and un-
aware of the purposes of the experiment as that
[90]

THE DETECTION OF CRIME
boy was. But what would be the situation of such
a trained criminal who had no conscience and who
knew beforehand that the experiment was to
determine whether or not he lied or spoke the
truth?

In that case, another group of facts is to be
considered. We might expect from such a subject
very little lengthening of the simple association-
time by emotion, but instead of it a considerable
lengthening by conscious effort to avoid suspicious
and dangerous associations, provided that he were
anxious to hide the damaging truth. As soon as a
critical word were offered, he would be on the look-
out not to betray the first word which came over
the threshold of consciousness, but to make sure
first that it was harmless, and to replace it if it
were dangerous. Experiment shows that such
watching and conscious sanctioning takes time,
and the replacing of the unfit word by a fitting
word brings still larger loss of time; nobody is
able to look out for the harmlessness of his asso-
ciations and yet to associate them with the average
quickness with which the commonplace ideas are
brought forth. If the dangerous words show
[91J

ON THE WITNESS STAND
association-times of unusual shortness, it is neces-
sary to suppose that the subject of the experiment
makes no effort to suppress the truth; the short
time proves that he lets the ideas go as they will,
without his sifting, sanctioning, and retouching.
Even the best bluffer will thus be trapped in his
effort to conceal anything, by time-differences
which he himself cannot notice.

As an illustration of a case of such a type, I
may speak of experiments that I carried on re-
cently for several days in a Western penitentiary
with a self-confessed multi-murderer. He played
the star witness in a trial against a man whom his
confession accused as an accomplice. It made
hardly a difference whether the view of the prose-
cution or the view of the defence was taken: seen
from any side, the witness offered a psychological
problem of unusual interest. And its importance
did not decrease when it was found out, through
the verdict of the jury, that the defendant was
innocent and had no connection with the crimes
of the witness. No side doubted at any time that
,this was one of the most persistent murderers of
modem time, and no side could deny that he was,
[92]

THE DETECTION OP CRIME
during the trial, an imperturbable witness with
the mildest manners, with quiet serenity, and with
the appearance of a man who has found his peace
in God.

The first problem for the psychologist was
whether the confession of the witness was a chain
of conscious lies or whether he himself reaUy be-
lieved what he told the court. No outer evidence
was fit to settle this question of his mental attitude,
and It seemed thus interesting to study whether It
might be possible to decide It by the association
method.

I had the good chance to see the murderer at
once on the witness stand. As my seat was at the
small table of the attorneys for the prosecution, I
had him only a few feet from me for careful ob-
servation. I cannot deny that my Impression on
that first morning was very unfavourable. His
profile, especially the jaw, appeared to me most
brutal and vulgar ; I also saw at once the deforma-
tion of the ear, the Irregularity in the movements
of the eyes, and the abnormal lower lip. That this
was the profile of a murderer seemed to me not
Improbable, but that this man had become a sin-
[93]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
cere religious convert seemed to me quite incredi-
ble. Yet, I did not consult my antipathies ; I had
to rely on my experiments, which I started the
following day. This is, of course, not the place
to set down a scientific report of the nearly one
hundred groups of tests and experiments which
were completed ; they belong in scholarly archives.
Most of them referred to the memory, the atten-
tion, the feelings, the will, the judgment, and the
suggestibility. Our interest here belongs only to
the association experiments and to some related
tests. Thus the report here covers only a small
section of the case, and ignores entirely every-
thing which does not refer to the subjective
veracity.

I told the witness directly that I had come to
examine his mind and find out what was really at
the bottom of his heart. He at once declared him-
self perfectly ready to undergo any test. If he
thought that he, the experienced poker-player,
could easily hide' his inmost mind and could deceive
me with cant and lies, I turned the tables on him
quickly. I began with some simple psychological
tricks with which every student of psychology is
[94]

THE DETECTION OF CRIME
familiar, but which were naturally unknown and
somewhat uncanny to the witness. For instance, I
covered one of his eyes and asked him to fixate
with the other eye a little cross on the table, and
to watch at the same time a cent piece which I
moved at the side of the cross. Suddenly I told
him that he would not see the cent any more —
indeed, it had disappeared; and as he did not
know that we all have a blind spot at the entrance-
place of the optical nerve in the retina, he was
much struck by my foreknowledge of such a defect
in his eye. Or, I showed him the drawing of a stair
which he saw as such; observing his eye move-
ments, I told him that he now did not see the stair
any more, but an overhanging wall, and again he
was astonished at my knowing everything in his
soul. In a similar way, I used some tactual illu-
sions, and soon he was entirely imder the spell
of the belief that I had some special scientific
powers.

Then I began with a real experiment. I told him

that I should call at first fifty words, and each

time, when he heard a word, he was to name to

me as quickly as possible the first thing which

[95]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
came to his mind on the hearing of the word. I
asked him not to choose the words intentionally,
but to let them go without any reflection ; I added
that I should learn all from the ideas which he
would bring up. My first word was " river," he
associated " water " ; then " ox," he said " yoke " ;
" mountain," he said " hill " ; " tobacco," he said
" pipe." All the interest thus seemed to belong to
the choice of the words, and he saw that I wrote
his answers down. But the fact is that I did some-
thing else also; I measured in fractions of a sec-
ond the time between my calling the word and his
giving a reply. Between his hearing of the word
" river " and his speaking the word " water,"
eight-tenths of a second passed ; between " ox " —
" yoke," six-tenths ; between " tobacco " — " pipe,"
eight-tenths. On the whole, seven to eight-tenths
of a second was the very short standard time for
those associations which represented familiar
ideas.

Now, there were mixed in among the fifty words

many which had direct relation to his criminal

career and to his professed religious conversion —

for instance, the words confession, revolver, re-

196]

THE DETECTION OP CRIME
ligion, heaven, jury, death, Bible, pardon, rail-
road, blood, jail, prayer, and some names of his
victims and of his alleged accomplices. Let us not
forget that he was fully under the belief that I
had a special power to discover from his spoken
words the real tendencies of his miad. If he had
had anything to hide, he would have been con-
stantly on the lookout that no treacherous word
should slip in. If a word like " confession " or
something similar were called among harmless
ones, he would never shout at once the first word
which came to his mind, but would have watched
that no dangerous secret, perhaps " confession "
— "humbug," came out and betrayed him. He
would have quickly suppressed the word before it
was spoken — and yet, however quickly he might
have done it, it would have taken at least one or
two seconds more; and he would have used the
longer time the more freely, as he had no reason
to suspect that time played any part in the experi-
ment.

But the results show the very remarkable fact
that the dangerous words brought, on the whole,
no retardation of the associative process. After
[97]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
" tobacco " — " pipe " came with the same prompt-
ness " confession " — " truth," again in eight-
tenths of a second, a time entirely insufficient for
any inner deliberation or sanction or choice or
correction: it is a time which just allows the
speaking of the first idea which arises in the mind.
" Heaven " — " God " took, again, less than a sec-
ond, and so " religion "—« truth," "blood"—
" knife," " governor " — " executive," " witness "
—"stand," "minister" — "pulpit," "mine-
owner " — •" mine " ; only " pardon " — ■" peace,"
" death " — " end," and similar more abstract
words took about one and a half seconds, a time
which is stiU too short for real inhibition and
second thought. Even the names of his accom-
plices and of his victims awoke associations in
less than nine-tenths of a second. The fact that
these associations were produced by the witness in
the minimum time, which made deliberation im-
possible, while he was convinced that the words
would unveil his real mind, is strong evidence
indeed that this man did not want consciously to
hide anything, and that he himself really believed
his confession.

[98]

THE DETECTION OF CRIME
If these experiments had been made with him
before his confession, he would have stumbled over
every third word, and many of his associations
would have taken three seconds or more. He would
have been unable, in spite of best efforts, to over-
come the fear of betraying himself, and this fear
would have retarded the associations in a way
which would have trapped him unmistakably. But
not only the short time, the choice of the associa-
tions also indicated clearly that, in an almost in-
credible manner, a mild, indifferent serenity had
taken hold of his mind, and that his criminal life
was of no concern to him any more. I gave him,
for instance, the name of a city in which, accord-
ing to his confession, he had been last to poison
a victim and to dynamite his house ; but in his mind
the place did not connect itself any more with
murder; in less than a second his mind joined it
with " ocean."

It is evident from the association-times that no
real emotion accompanied any of his memories of
crime. He did not have and did not simulate a bad
conscience. The emotional retardation of suspi-
cious associations, characteristic of the average
199]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
criminal, was, as expected, entirely lacking in this
wholesale murderer. That does not mean that he
lacks feeling ; my experiments showed the opposite.
To be sure, his sensitiveness for pain was, as with
most criminals, much below the average. A deep
pin-prick did not produce any reaction, and his
whole touch sense was obtuse, while his eyes and
ears were very sharp. But, in spite of this lack of
organic pain, — ^he has never been ill, — ^he is sensi-
tive to the immediate perception of suffering in
others. Simulation is excluded: I measured the in-
voluntary reactions. He really shivers at the
thought of hurting others. I have no reason for
doubting that he had this mental sensitiveness
always; and that is no contradiction to the fact
that he was spreading pain all around. Nearly all
his crimes were performed in an impersonal way;
he did not see the victims. He manufactured in-
fernal machines, laid dynamite in the mines and
bombs under gates, and thought of the suffering
of the victims as little as the manufacturer of
children's toys may think of the happiness of the
little ones. He assured me that in those fifteen
years of heinous deeds he never struck any one
[100]

THE DETECTION OF CRIME
personally with his fist; that would have gone
against his nerves. He exhibited tender feeling in
all directions; he selected, for instance, very deli-
cate colour combinations as those which he liked
best among many which I showed him. His fa-
vourite colour seemed to be dark blue; any showy
or loud dressing is disagreeable to him. He asserts,
even, that he rarely drank any strong drinks : one
glass of beer made him sleepy.

Yet his emotional Ufe is simply dead — ^the small
figures of his association-times would otherwise be
quite impossible. And it may be added that even if
his religious conversion is genuine, his so-called
reUgion lacks also every sound and deep feeling;
it is thoroughly utilitarian ; he serves God because
he win reward him after death.

The association experiments thus completely
fxilfilled their purpose: they gave a definite reply
to a definite question which could hardly be an-
swered by other methods of evidence. The asso-
ciation experiments proved that the murderer did
not try to hide anything. Of course, this was only
the first problem to be solved in the case. From
this state of subjective truthfulness which inter-
[101 ]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
ests the psychologist to the proof of objective
truth which interests the court is still a very long
way. It would have been possible, for instance,
that all this was pseudo-religious auto-suggestion,
or that it was a systematic illusion brought forth
by the suggestions of detectives and lawyers, or
that the witness was hypnotised, or that his mind
was diseased. The experimental inquiry had to
study all those and other possibilities ; they formed
the chief part of my experiments, but they do not
belong here, as they have no relation to the method
of association-measurement, which was the only
concern of this discussion.

Of course, the theoretical importance of the
method is independent of the practical importance
of the cases in which it is applied. Multi-murderers
are rare ; but the simplest case of wrong-doing
may demonstrate the success of the method just
as well. No sharper contrast could be "possible
than that between the brutal criminal with his
dynamite bombs and the lovely little girl with her
chocolate bonbons whom I had seen a short time
before. She was anemic and neurasthenic, and
could not concentrate her attention on her work
[102]

THE DETECTION OF CRIME
for her college examinations. She came to me for
psychological advice. I asked her many questions
as to her habits of life. Among other things, she
assured me that she took wholesome and plentiful
meals and was not allowed to buy sweets. Then
I began some psychological experiments, and,
among other tests, I started, at first rather aim-
lessly, with trivial associations. Her average asso-
ciation-time was slow, nearly 2 seconds. Very soon
the word " money " brought the answer " candy,"
and it came with the quickness of 1.4 seconds.
There was nothing remarkable in this. But the
next word, " apron," harmless in itself, was 6
seconds in finding its association, and, further-
more, the association which resulted was " apron "
— " chocolate." Both the retardation and the in-
appropriateness of this indicated that the fore-
going pair had left an emotional shock, and the
choice of the word " chocolate " showed that the
disturbance resulted from the intrusion of the
word " candy." The word " apron " had evidently
no power at all compared with those associations
which were produced by the candy-emotion.

I took this as a clue, and after twenty indiffer-
[103]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
ent words which slowly restored her cabnness of
mind, I returned to the problem of sweets. Of
course, she was now warned, and was evidently on
the lookout. The result was that when I threw in
the word " candy " again, she needed 4.6 seconds,
and the outcome was the naive association
" never." This " never " was the first association
that was neither substantive nor adjective. All
the words before had evidently meant for her sim-
ply objects; but "candy" seemed to appeal to
her as a hint, a question, a reproach, which she
wanted to repudiate. She was clearly not aware
that this mental change from a descriptive to a
replying attitude was very suspicious; she must
even have felt quite satisfied with her reply, for
the next associations were short and to the point.
After a while I began on the same line again. The
unsuspicious word " box " brought quickly the
equally unsuspicious " white " ; and yet I knew at
once that it was a candy-box, for the next word,
" pound," brought the association " two," and the
following, " book," after several seconds the unfit
association " sweet." She was again not aware
that she had betrayed the path of her imagination.
[ 104]

THE DETECTION OF CRIME
In the course of three hundred associations I
varied the subject repeatedly, and she remained
to the end unconscious that she had given me all
the information needed. Her surprise seemed still
greater than her feeling of shame when I told her
that she skipped her luncheons daily and had
hardly any regular meals, but consumed every day
several pounds of candy. With tears she made
finally a full " confession." She had kept her inju-
dicious diet a secret, as she had promised her
parents not to spend any money for chocolate.
The right diagnosis led me to make the right sug-
gestions, and after a few weeks her health and
strength were restored.

This trivial case with its foolish offence shows
how psychological detective work may also be use-
ful outside of the sphere of law. It not seldom
becomes the serious interest of the educator and
the physician to disentangle hidden thoughts, and
the " third degree " of the school and of the con-
sultation-room might easily be replaced^ by asso-
ciation experiments. On such a basis the nerve
specialist would frequently be able to make the
right and helpful diagnosis without the aid of any
[105 J

ON THE WITNESS STAND
" confession " and without awakening in the pa-
tient the slighest suspicion that his physician had
discovered the real source of the trouble. Experi-
ments have convinced me that the method may
' bring to light facts of which even the patient him-
self is ignorant. Ideas which are connected in his
deepest soul, but which he cannot bring up vol-
untarily by mere effort of memory, are sometimes
brought to expression by the mechanical devices
of this association method. It seems that as soon
as a number of associations have been produced
under pressure of the desire to associate as
quickly as possible, the mind enters into a state of
decreased inhibition, in which suppressed and for-
gotten ideas rush forward.

This fact must become the more important, the
more we learn, under the guidance of the Vienna
School, that one of the most troublesome nervous
diseases — ^namely, hysteria — results principally
from suppressed affective ideas, and can be cured
by awaking anew the restrained thought. Hysteria
is " strangulated emotion," and disappears when
the forgotten emotional ideas are brought to con-
scious expression. One hysteric woman always be-
[106]

THE DETECTION OF CRIME
came mute after sunset; another could not take
any food but liquids ; another was constantly tor-
tured by the hallucination of the tobacco odour.
Every physician knows a hundred such hysteric
symptoms. No one of these patients knew the rea-
son or origin of her trouble. Slowly the physician
discovered the suppressed ideas, which had had no
chance to express themselves and had worked dis-
aster in their inhibited form. The woman who
could not speak at night had sat once at sunset
years before, at the bedside of her sick father ; she
had vehemently suppressed every sound in order
not to disturb him. As soon as this first scene was
brought back to her mind, she regained her voice.
The woman who could not take solid food had
been obliged, years before, to suppress her dis-
gust when eating at the same table with a man
who suffered from an ugly disease. As soon as
this starting-point was consciously associated
again, she was ready to dine like others. The wo-
man who smelled tobacco had long before heard by
chance, in a room full of smoke, that the man she
loved was in love with another, and she had had
to suppress her emotion on account of the pres-
[107]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
ence of others. As soon as she connected the smell
again in consciousness with that first strangulated
emotion, the hallucination disappeared. Hysteric
contractions and anaesthesias, pathological im-
pulses and inhibitions, can all be removed if the
long-forgotten emotional ideas with which the dis-
turbance started can be brought to light. Just
here the association method seems sometimes
helpful. The psychologist who seeks to discover
the secret connections of ideas may thus, by his as-
sociation method, not only protect the innocent
and unmask the guilty, but bring health and
strength to the nervous wreck.

Yet our chief interest belongs to the legal as-
pect of this method. Carried out with the skill
which only long laboratory training can give, it
has become, indeed, a magnifying-glass for the
most subtle mental mechanism, and by it the
secrets of the criminal mind may be unveiled. All
this has, of course, no legal standing to-day, and
there is probably no one who desires to increase
the number of " experts " in our criminal courts.
But justice demands that truth and lies be dis-
entangled. The time will come when the methods
[108]

THE DETECTION OF CRIME
of experimental psychology cannot longer be ex-
cluded from the court of law. It is well known
that the use of stenographers in trials once met
with vehement opposition, while now the shorthand
record of the court procedure seems a matter of
course. The help of the psychologist will become
not less indispensable. The vulgar ordeals of the
" third degree " in every form belong to the Mid-
dle Ages, and much of the wrangling of attorneys
about technicalities in admitting the " evidence "
appears to not a few somewhat out of date, too:
the methods of experimental psychology are work-
ing in the spirit of the twentieth century. The
" third degree " may brutalise the mind and force
either correct or falsified secrets to light; the
time-measurement of associations is swifter and
cleaner, more scientific, more humane, and more
reliable in bringing out the truth which justice
demands. Of course, we are only at the beginning
of its development ; the new method is stiU in many
ways imperfect, and if clumsily applied it may be
misleading; moreover, there exists no hard and
fast rule which fits every case mechanically. But
all this indicates only that, just as the bodily facts
[109]

ON THE "WITNESS STAND
have to be examined by the chemist or the physi-
ologist, the mental facts must be examined also,
not by the layman, but by the scientific psychol-
ogist, with the training of a psychological
laboratory.

[110]

THE TRACES OF EMOTIONS

- V V

THE TRACES OF EMOTIONS

If a girl blushes when a boy's name is mentioned
in the family sitting-room, we feel sure, even if she
protests, that he is not quite indiflferent to her
young heart. If she opens a letter and grows pale
while reading it, she may assure us that the event
is unimportant ; we know better. If she talks with
you and every word makes you believe that her
entire interest belongs to you and your remarks,
it is enough for you to see that her fingers are
playing nervously with her fan, and that her
breathing has become deep and vehement and her
eyes restless since a certain guest has entered the
room ; you know she is hardly listening to you and
waits only for him to approach her. And if he
does not come, — she may be masterful in simula-
tion and the artificial smile may never leave the
lips, yet you will hear her disappointment in the
timbre of her voice, you may see it even in the
width of the pupil of her eye.

Yes, the hidden feeling betrays itself often
[113]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
against the will of the best comedian in life. It
may be easy to suppress intentionally the conspicu-
ous movements by which we usually accentuate the
emotions. It is not necessary to become wild with
anger and to collapse in sorrow, we may even
inhibit laughter and tears, and a New Englander
will never behave like a Southern Italian, But the
lips and hands and arms and legs, which are under
our control, are never the only witnesses to the
drama which goes on inside — if they keep silent,
others wiU speak. The poets know it well.
Through the dramatic literature of aU ages is
repeated the motive of the unintentional expres-
sion of emotions. The ghastly memory of a grue-
some past seems locked up in the hero's mind ; and
yet when he is brought back to the place of his
deed, it comes to light in his paleness and trem-
bling, in the empty glaring of his eyes and the
breaking of his voice. There is hardly a tragedy
of Shakespeare in which the involuntary signs of
secret excitement do not play their role. And the
comedies of all time vary the same motive with
regard to the lighter sins of love and social en-
tanglement. The helpless stammering of the ex-
[114]

THE TRACES OF EMOTIONS
cited lover betrays everything which his deliberate
words are to deny.

But the signs which made Hamlet sure that his
mother had committed murder have not been over-
looked by those who are on the track of the
criminal in our practical life. The suspected man
who pales before the victim while he pretends not
to know him, or who weeps at hearing the story of
the crimes which he disavows, is half condemned in
the eyes of the prosecutor. When the conspiracy
against Dreyfus sought to manufacture evidence
against him, they made much of the fact that he
trembled and was thus hardly able to write when
they dictated to him a letter in which phrases of
the discovered treasonable manuscript occurred.
Much of that which the police and the delinquents
call the third degree consists of these bodily signs
of a guilty conscience ; to make the accused break
down from his own inner emotion is the triumph
of such maladministration of law.

It seems that even some of the superstitions of

barbaric times which claimed to discover the guilty

by all kinds of miracles sometimes contained a

certain truth of this kind. They depended on ap-

[115]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
parently mysterious signs which in reality some-
times belonged to the bodily effects of emotion.
Evidently primitive life sharpens the observation
of such symptoms. One of the most adventurous
" gunmen " of the West told me that when he was
attacked by mobs he behaved as if he were con-
stantly spitting; he went through such motions
because it always discourages the crowd when they
see that their adversary does not fear them, and
they would know that a man who is afraid cannot
spit — the emotion of fear dries up the mouth and
throat.

Of course, everyone knows how uncertain and
unsafe such crude police methods must be. There
cannot be justice if we base our judgment on the
detective's claim that a man blushed or trembled
or was breathing heavily. It would hardly be bet-
ter than those superstitious decisions of early
times. There are too many who believe that they
see what they expect to see, and very different
emotions may express themselves with very simi-
lar symptoms. The door is open for every arbi-
trariness if such superficial observations were
to count seriously for acquittal or for conviction.
[116]

THE TRACES OF EMOTIONS
But that provokes the natural question: cannot
science help us out? Cannot science deter-
mine with exacitude and safety that which
is vague in the mere chance judgment of
police oflScers? More than that: cannot science
make visible that which is too faint and weak to
be noticed by the ordinary observer? The by-
stander watches the expressions of the strong
overwhelming emotions — ^but can science, can ex-
perimental psychology, not bring to light the
traces of the whole interplay of feelings, the light
and passing ones as well as the strong, and the
most hidden suggestions of consciousness as well
as heavy emotional storms?

The question is indeed pressing, as the idea of
the psychological expert in court cannot be with-
drawn from public discussion. The mental life, —
perception and memory, attention and thought,
feeling and will — splays too important a role in
court procedure to reject the advice of those who
devote their work to the study of these fimctions.
And especially the progress of modern psychol-
ogy has been too rapid in recent years to ignore
it stni with that condescension which was in order
[117]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
at the time when psychologists indulged in specu-
lation and psychological laboratories were un-
known. To-day the psychologist operates with
the methods of exact science, and the method
which is here demanded seems entirely in har-
mony with his endeavours. The problem is
whether he can record objectively the passing
symptoms and whether he can get hold of expres-
sions too faint to be perceptible to our senses.
But just that the laboratory psychologist is aim-
ing at constantly and successfully. Whether he
measures the time of mental acts or analyses the
complex ideas, whether he studies the senses or the
volitions, he is always engaged in connecting the
vague inner impression with an outer measurable
fact which can be recorded, and in throwing full
light on that which escapes notice in ordinary
life.

In the region of feelings and emotions the ex-
perimental methods of psychology have been cer-
tainly not less successful than in other fields of
inner life. To confine ourselves to that special
problem which interested us from the point of
view of law: the psychologist can indeed register
[118]

THE TRACES OF EMOTIONS
the symptoms of inner excitement and, more than
that, can show the effects of feelings and emotions
of which the mere practical observation does not
give us any trace. Yet even the subtlest detective
work of the psychological instruments refers only
to the same bodily functions which make us visibly
blush in shame, pale and tremble in fear, shiver
in horror, weep in grief, perspire in anxiety,
dance in joy, grow hot and clench the fist in
anger. Everywhere the blood vessels contract or
dilate, the heart beat changes, the glands increase
or decrease their activity, the muscles work ir-
regularly: but the instruments allow us to be-
come aware of almost microscopic changes. We
may, perhaps, point to a variety of lines along
which such inquiry may move.

To begin with a very simple group of processes,
we may start with our ordinary movements of the
arm: does feeling influence them? I can give my
reply from a little diary of mine. I kept it years
ago. It was not the regulation diary — ^there was
no sentimentality in it, but mostly figures. Its
purpose was to record the results of about twenty
experiments which took about half an hour's time.
[119]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
I had the material for these little experiments al-
ways in my pocket and repeated them three or
four times a day throughout several months. I
fell to experimenting whenever daily life brought
me into a characteristic mental state, such as emo-
tion or interest or fatigue or anything important
to the psychologist. One of these twenty experi-
ments was the following : I attached to the bottom
of my waistcoat a small instrument which allowed
me to slide along an edge between thumb and fore-
finger of the right hand, both outwards and in-
wards. Now I had trained myself to measure off
in this way from memory distances of four and
eight inches. Under normal conditions my hand
passed through these distances with exactitude
while the eyes were closed; the apparatus regis-
tered carefully whether I made the distance too
long or too short. The results of many hundreds
of these measurements went into my diary together
with a description of the mood in which I was.

When I came to figure up the results after half

a year's records I found a definite relation between

my feelings and my arm movements. My diary

indicated essentially three fundamental pairs of

[120]

THE TRACES OF EMOTIONS
feeling in the course of time. There was pleasure
and displeasure, there was excitement and depres-
sion, and there was gravity and hilarity. The fig-
ures showed that in the state of excitement both
the outward and inward movements became too
long, and in the state of depression both became
too short; in the state of pleasure the outward
movements became too long, the inward movements
too short; in the state of displeasure the opposite
— the outward movements too short and the in-
ward movements too long. In the case of gravity
or hilarity no constant change in the length of the
movement resulted, but the rhythm and rapidity
of the action was influenced by them.

Here were, for the first time, three distinct sets
of feelings separated and recognised through
three distinct ways of bodily behaviour. After the
publication of my figures, others came from other
starting points to such division of our feelings
into three groups, while some believe that there
are only two sets. Still others hold, and I should
not disagree, that pleasure and displeasure alone
are the fundamental feelings; that a colour or a
sound is agreeable seems primary, that it is ex-
[121 J

ON THE WITNESS STAND
citing or soothing is secondary. On the other
hand the number of those secondary feelings seems
to me to-day still larger than it did at that time;
I am inclined to accept many more simple feelings
and find for everyone characteristic expressions of
movement. All this becomes important as soon as
the psychologist begins to explain the feelings and
asks how far the sensations themselves enter as
parts into the feelings.

But what concerns us here is the fact that the
pleasurable and the unpleasurable mood betray
themselves in opposite movement — impulses of
which we are unaware. I had meant in those hun-
dreds of cases to make exactly the same out-
ward and inward movements and yet the experi-
ments disclosed the illusion. Of course, we all
know how in joy the outward movements are re-
inforced; the boy swings his cap and the whole
body stretches itself, while in anger the opposite
impulses prevail — ^the contraction of the fist be-
comes typical. The experiments show that these
various impulses are at work when we do not
know and do not show it: we must bring the man
before a registering apparatus to find out from
[122]

THE TRACES OF EMOTIONS
his motions without his knowledge whether sun-
shine or general cloudiness prevails in his mind.

But the unintentional movements may become
symptoms of feelings in still a different way. The
thing which awakes our feeling starts our actions
towards the interesting object. All muscle read-
ing or thought reading works by means of such a
principle. The ouija-board of the spiritualists is a
familiar instrument for the indication of such im-
pulses, and if we want a careful registering of the
unnoticeable movement, we may use an automato-
graph — ^a plate which lies on metal balls and thus
follows every impulse of the hand which lies flat
on it; the plate has an attachment by which the
slighest movements are registered on a slowly mov-
ing surface. If the arm is held in a loop which
hangs from the ceiling, the hand will still more
easily follow the weakest impulse without our
knowledge. Ask your subject to think attentively
of a special letter in the alphabet and then spread
twenty-five cards with the letters in a half-circle
about him; his arm on the automatograph wiU
quickly show the faint impulse towards the letter
of which he thought, although he remains entirely
[123]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
unaware of it. And if a witness or a criminal in
front of a row of a dozen men claims that he does
not know any one of them, he will point on the
automatograph, nevertheless, towards the man
whom he really knows and whose face brings him
thus into emotional excitement. Still easier may
be the graphic record, if it is not necessary to
show a definite direction but simply a sudden re-
action. The hand may lie on a rubber bulb or on
a capsule covered with very elastic rubber and the
slightest movement of the fingers will press the air
in the capsule which, through a rubber tube, is
conducted to a little bulb that pushes a lever and
the lever registers its up and down motions. The
accused may believe himself to be motionless, and
yet when he hears the dangerous name of the place
of his crime or of an accomplice, his unintentional
muscle contraction will be registered. It is only a
question of technique thus to take exact record of
the faintest trembling when a little cap is attached
to the finger.

The emotional interest may betray itself in an
interesting way even through movements which are
ordinarily not consciously guided like those of our
[ 124]

THE TRACES OF EMOTIONS
hands and fingers ; I am thinking of the eye move-
ments. I found that our eyes may go their own
way without our knowledge. My subject, for in-
stance, looks straight forward ; I show him a card
with a printed word which is indifferent to him.
We have agreed beforehand that after seeing and
reading the card he is to close his eyes, to turn
his head somewhat sidewards, and then to open his
eyes again. The experiment shows that if he does
perform these acts, his eyes, after the sideward
movement o^ his head, look in the same direction
in which his head points. I repeat this several
times ; always with the same result. Now I take a
card with a word which, I know, is emotionally im-
portant to mv subject from an earlier experience.
The result is suddenly changed: he reads it, closes
his eyes, turns his head, opens his eyes again, and,
without his knowledge, his eyes have not followed
his head but are still turned towards the exciting
word — ^the feeling interest has been betrayed by
the unintentional backward rotation of the eye-
balls. I may show in this way to the suspected man
one indifferent thing after another; his eyes will
follow his head. Then I show an object which was
[125]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
instrumental in the crime or which was present at
the place of the deed or which belonged to the
victim and, if he recognises it, his eyes will stick
to It while his head is moving and after. Yes, the
police know from old experience that not only
do the eyes want to be back at the exciting scene,
but the whole man is magnetically drawn to the
spot where the crime was committed. Dostojewski
shows us how the murderer, almost against his own
will, returns to the place of his emotion and thus
runs upon his doom.

We are still speaking, of course, of movements
and yet of an entirely different process if we con-
sider the breathing. Our inspirations and expira-
tions can be registered In finest detail and a variety
of elegant methods are available. Perhaps the
simplest " pneumograph " consists of a tube made
of spiral wire and covered with rubber, to be at-
tached by ribbons to the chest. Every respiratory
movement lengthens and shortens the tube, and this
presses a part of the air contained into a little
capsule, the cover of which follows the changing
pressure of the air and moves a registering lever,
usually a large straw which enlarges the move-
[126]

THE TRACES OF EMOTIONS
ments of the cover. The end of the straw but
touches the smoked surface of a slowly revolving
drum; it thus writes in the thin layer of smoke a
wave line which shows the, subtlest features of the
breathing. It is a simple task to measure every ele-
ment of such a curve, every change in the length,
in the height, in the angle, in the regularity of the
wave; and that means every change in the rapid-
ity, rhythm, distribution, pauses and strength of
the breathing. As soon as such delicate methods of
registration are applied, the intimate relation be-
tween feeling and breath becomes evident. Pleas-
ure, for instance, makes the respiration weaker
and quicker ; displeasure, stronger and slower ; ex-
citement makes it stronger and quicker; acquies-
cence, weaker and slower. But such generalisa-
tions cannot do any justice to the manifoldness of
changes that may occur: every ripple on the in-
terests of the mind reflects itself in the changes of
the pneumographic wave — ^it may be an agreeable
or disagreeable smell or taste, it may be exciting
or depressing news from without or a fancy from
within.

The same holds true for the heart beat, meas-
[127]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
ured by the blood wave in the arteries; such a
pulse writer is called a sphygmograph. It may be
attached, for instance, to the wrist; a delicate
lever presses against the wall of the blood vessel
just where the finger of the physician would feel
the pulse. The lever is attached again to the thin
rubber which covers an air chamber, and the
changing pressure of air is again transmitted to
a long straw which writes an enlarged record of
the movement on the revolving drum, rotating
regularly by means of clockwork. Here again the
height and length and form of every pulse beat
may have its own physiognomy. When we write
pulse and breathing together on the same drum,
we see at once that even every ordinary inspiration
changes the pulse ; while we inhale we have a pulse
different from the pulse while we exhale. Far more
influential are the feelings. Again it is only an in-
sufficient abstraction if we generalise and say:
pleasure heightens and retards the puke, dis-
pleasure weakens and accelerates it, or excitement
makes the pulse stronger and quicker, acquies-
cence weaker and slower. But there is still another
way open to observe the changes in our blood
[128]

THE TRACES OF EMOTIONS
vessels. We may examine the quantity of blood,
for instance, which streams to a limb, by means of
the so-called plethysmograph. The arm is held by
a large tube filled with water ; a rubber ring closes
the tube. The change of blood supply which
makes the arm swell changes the pressure which
the water exerts against the air, which is again
conducted through a rubber tube to a recording
lever; every emotional excitement speaks in the
blood supply of every limb. All these instruments
of registration have belonged for decades to the
household equipment of every physiological lab-
oratory ; it was therefore a sad spectacle when re-
cently scores of American papers told their read-
ers that I had invented the sphygmograph and
automatograph and plethysmograph this summer
— ^they might just as well have added that I in-
vented the telegraph last spring. To recent years
belongs only the application of these instruments
for the study, of feelings and emotions.

But we may go still further and point to ex-
pressions of emotions which are entirely beyond
human senses. If we put our hands on two copper
plates and make the weak galvanic current of a
[129]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
battery run through the plates and our body, we
can, with the help of a delicate galvanometer,
measure the slightest variations of the resistance
to the current. Experiment shows that such
changes occur, indeed, if our brain is excited ; any
emotional disturbance influences the resistance: it
seems that the activity of the sweat-glands in the
skin is under the nervous influence of our feelings,
and the functioning of these glands alters the
electrical conditions. A word we hear may excite
us and at once the needle of the galvanometer be-
comes restless : there is no more uncanny betrayal
of our inmost mind. Or we may point to the curi-
ous facts of the knee jerk, A little hammer falls
always from the same height on the tendon of the
knee, and every time the leg makes a jerking re-
flex movement, the angle of which can be regis-
tered. Experiment shows again that this angle
changes with the emotional excitement of the
mind; evidently the brain sends impulses down to
the lower part of the spinal cord where the knee
reflex is produced, and the emotion inhibits those
messages and changes the whole function. Even
the temperature of the body seems to be influenced
[180]

THE TRACES OF EMOTIONS
by excitement; the experienced physician knows
how the emotion of the patient can change his
feverish state, and experiment seems to indicate
similar changes for the normal state.

There is thus really no doubt that experimental
psychology can furnish amply everything which
the court demands: it can register objectively the
symptoms of the emotions and make the observa-
tion thus independent of chance judgment, and,
moreover, it can trace emotions through involun-
tary movements, breathing, pulse, and so on, where
ordinary observation fails entirely. And yet, it
seems to me that a great reluctance and even a cer-
tain scepticism as to the practical application of
these methods is still in order. Firstly, the studies
in this field of the bodily registration of emotion
are still in their beginnings and so far many dif-
ficulties are not overcome; there are still contra-
dictions in the results of various scholars. Es-
pecially we know too little yet about the evident
individual diflFerences to make, fer instance, a
breathing and pulse curve to-day a basis for a
legal condemnation or acquittal. The facts them-
selves are so complicated that much further work
[131]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
must be done before we can disentangle the practi-
cal situations.

Secondly, experiment gives us so far not suffi-
cient hold for the discrimination of the guilty
conscience and the emotional excitement of the
innocent. The innocent man, especially the nervous
man, may grow as much excited on the wit-
ness stand as the criminal when the victim and
the means of the crime are mentioned; his fear
that he may be condemned unjustly may influence
his muscles, glands and blood vessels as strongly
as if he were guilty. Experimental psychology
cannot wish to imitate with its subtle methods the
injustice of barbarous police methods. The real
use of the experimental emotion-method is there-
fore so far probably confined to those cases in
which it is to be found out whether a suspected
person knows anything about a certain place or
man or thing. Thus if a new name, for instance,
is brought in, the method is reliable ; the' innocent,
who never heard the name before, will not be
more excited if he hears that one among a dozen
others; the criminal, who knows the name as that
of a witness of the crime, will show the emotional
[ 132 1

THE TRACES OF EMOTIONS
symptoms. And yet, it may be rash to propose
narrow limits for the practical use, as the rapid
progress of experimental crimino-psychology
may solve to-morrow those difficulties which seem
still to stand in the way to-day.

[1381

UNTRUE CONFESSIONS

UNTRUE CONFESSIONS

It is a sad story which I am going to report, a
weird tragedy of yesterday. I am most seriously
convinced that it is a tragedy not only of crime
but also of human error and miscarried justice,
and my scientific conscience as a psychologist com-
pels me to speak of it because the tragedy of yes-
terday may come up again, in some other form,
to-morrow.

I am the last one to desire for the modern psy-
chologist a special privilege to meddle with the
daily afi'airs of practical life. Far too often the
" new " psychology has been made a kind of Jack-
of-all-trades. Psychology has had to furnish the
patent medicine for all the defects of our schools,
psychology has become the word to conjure with
in literature and religion, in social troubles and
economic emergencies, and the public can hardly
imagine how a psychologist's mail is burdened with
inquiries from superstitious and unbalanced minds
and with reports of uncanny and mysterious hap-
[137]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
penings. Wherever experience seems unexplain-
able, the psychologist is expected at least to
pigeon-hole and to label the occurrence and to
give his oflScial sanction that such strange things
may sometimes happen. Yet, the psychologist can
hardly glance over such letters without wishing
that the public at least might know how much
wiser it would be to consult a detective. No mental
explanation is in order till the facts themselves
are cleared up by methods for which the scholar
is not prepared at aU. His steady contact with
seekers for truth makes him least suspicious of the
thousand sources of delusion and deception which
an attorney may find out, but not a scholar.

But if the psychologist has thus not seldom the
wish that the detective were consulted in his place,
that does not prevent his regretting sometimes
that the world relies on the detective instead of
calling in the psychologist. The more the scientific
analysis and explanation of mental life makes
progress through the experimental and physio-
logical, comparative and clinical methods, the more
we learn how subtle the internal connections are
and how insufficient the popular psychology must
[138]

UNTRUE CONFESSIONS
be with which the facts of life are usually inter-
preted by detectives and attorneys, by juries and
judges. To be sure, they all respect the physician
who examines whether the criminal was insane or
mentally disordered. But between the common-
sense of the average juryman and the medical
science of the alienist the world of criminal facts
cannot be divided fairly. The detective may bring
out much evidence which lies outside of the realm
of physicians, which yet may be a closed book
to the naive view of psychical life. In such case
the psychologist feels it his duty fearlessly to
oppose the popular prejudice.

Just this was the situation when I ventured last
year to write a letter to a well-known nerve
specialist in Chicago who had privately asked my
opinion as a psychologist in the case of a man
condemned to death for murder. The man had
confessed the crime. Yet I felt sure that he was
innocent. My letter somehow reached the papers
and I became the target for editorial sharp-
shooters everywhere. I have before me still a col-
lection of such specimens. " Harvard's Contempt
of Court " is the big heading here, " Science Gone
[139]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
Crazy " the heading there, and so It went on in
the papers, while every mail brought an epistolary
chorus. The efforts of the attorneys to change the
condemned man's fate by a motion for a super-
sedeas before the Supreme Court were unsuccess-
ful. One week later the accused was hanged; yet,
if scientific conviction has the right to stand
frankly for the truth, I have to say again that
he was hanged for a crime of which he was no more
guilty than you or I, and the only difference
which the last few months have brought about is
the fact that, as I have been informed on good
authority, the most sober-minded people of Chi-
cago to-day share this sad opinion.

I felt sure from the first that no one was to be
blamed. Court and jury had evidently done their
best to find the facts and to weigh the evidence;
they are not to be expected to be experts in the
analysis of unusual mental states. The proof of
the alibi seemed sufficient to some, but insufficient
to others; most various facts allowed of different
interpretation, but all hesitation had to be over-
come by the one fundamental argument which
excluded every doubt: there was a complete con-
[140]

UNTRUE CONFESSIONS
fession. And if the sensational press did not
manifest a judicial temper, that seemed this time
very excusable. The whole population had been at
the highest nervous tension from the frequency of
brutal murders in the streets of Chicago. Too
often the human beast escaped justice: this time
at last they had found the villain who confessed —
he at least was not to escape the gallows. For
many years no murder case had so deeply excited
the whole city. Truly, as long as a demand for
further psychological inquiry appeared to the
masses simply as " another way of possibly cheat-
ing justice " and as a method tending " towards
emasculating court procedure and discouraging
and disgusting every faithful ofBcer of the law,"
the newspapers were almost in duty bound to rush
on in the tracks of popular prejudice.

I took it thus gladly as a noble outburst of
Chicago feeling against my " long-distance impu-
dence " that a leading paper resumed the situation
in this way : " Illinois has quite enough of people
with an itching mania for attending to other
people's business without importing impertinence
from Massachusetts. This crime itself, no matter
[141 J

ON THE WITNESS STAND
who may be the criminal, was one of the frightful
fruits of a sickly paltering with the stem admin-
istration of law. We do not want any directions
from Harvard University irresponsibles for pal-
tering still further." This seems to me to hit the
nail on the head exactly, and my only disagree-
ment is with the clause " no matter who may be
the criminal." I think it does matter who may be
the criminal — whether the one whom they hanged
or somebody else who is still to-day in freedom.

But if I examine these endless reports for a
real argument why the accused youth was guilty
of the heinous crime, everything comes back after
all to the statement constantly repeated that it
would be "inconceivable that any man who was
innocent of it should claim the infamy of guilt."
Months have passed since the neck of the yoimg
man was broken and " thousands of persons
crowded Michigan Street, jamming that thor-
oughfare from Clark Street to Dearborn Avenue,
waiting for the undertaker's wagon to leave the
jail yard." The discussion is thus long since re-
moved to the sphere of theoretical argiunent ; and
so the hour may be more favourable now for asking
[ 1-12 J

UNTRUE CONFESSIONS
once more whether it is really " inconceivable "
that an innocent man can confess to a crime of
which he is wholly ignorant. Yet the theoretical
question may perhaps demand no later than to-
morrow a practical answer, when perhaps again a
weak mind shall work itself into an untrue con-
fession and the community again rely thereon
satisfied, hypnotised by the spell of the dangerous
belief that " murder will out." The history of
crime in Chicago has shown sufficiently that mur-
der will not " out." It is important that the court,
instead of bringing out the guilty thought, shall
not bring it " in " into an innocent consciousness.
Of course in a criminal procedure there cannot
be any better evidence than a confession, provided
that it is reliable and well proved. If the accused
acknowledges in express words the guilt in a
criminal charge, the purpose of the procedure
seems to have been reached; and yet at all times
and in all nations experience has suggested a cer-
tain distrust of confessions. The earnestness
with which caution is urged is decidedly different
at different periods ; the danger of accepting con^
fessions seems to have been felt more strongly at
[ 14,3 ]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
some times than at others. Has this perhaps de-
pended on the nervous disposition of the crowd at
various epochs? No doubt, the abnormal, hysteri-
cal, neurotic tendency fluctuated greatly in pre-
vious centuries in which the world was scientifically
still unaware of its own nervousness and its own
hysteria, and yet protected its social life instinct-
ively against its dangers. The essential argument,
however, against the trustworthiness of confes-
sions had a purely social origin: it referred to
possible promises or threats by other members
of the community. No doubt, the chances for such
influences were difi'erent, too, at various times and
in different social conditions. The self-sacrificing
desire to exculpate others has played its role occa-
sionally also. In short, there is no lack of social
motives to make it conceivable from the start that
an accused makes of his own accord a confession
against himself which is not true. Especially in
the realm of the minor offences, promise and
threat are still to-day constant sources of untrue
self -accusation.

Perhaps we can add still another motive which
might induce a man in full possession of his under-
[ 144]

UNTRUE CONFESSIONS
standing to declare himself guilty against his
better knowledge. No statistics can tell the story,
but we can suppose that persons suspected wrongly
of a crime may, in the face of an mifortunate
combination of damaging evidence, prefer to
make a false confession in the hope of a recom-
mendation to mercy. Every lawyer knows the
famous Boom case in Vermont, where the brothers
confessed to having killed their brother-in-law and
described the deed in fuU detail and how they
destroyed the body; while long afterwards the
" murdered " man returned aUve to the village.
The evidence against the suspected appeared so
overwhelming that they saw only one hope to save
their lives — ^by turning the verdict, through their
untrue confession, from murder to manslaughter.
To this group we might count not a few of the
historic confessions in the Salem witchcraft trag-
edy. The nearest relatives urged the unfortunate
accused women to such confessions, seeing no
other way of escape for them.

But just those dark chapters of New England
history can show us an abundance of other forms
of confession which lead us step for step from
[145]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
well-balanced calculation to complete alienation,
through all the borderland regions of mental con-
fusion and disintegration. Even the advice of the
nearest relatives of those accused as witches was
often not at all based on confidence. The prepos-
terous accusations were for them too sufficient
proof of guilt, and not to confess appeared to
them as obstinacy. Thus they urged the poor
women prisoners, starting from the conviction that
the unwillingness to confess showed that their
minds were wholly given over to Satan. " In many
cases where they yielded, it was not from unworthy
fear or for self-preservation, but because their
judgment was overthrown and their minds in com-
plete subjection and prostration." There can, in-
deed, hardly be a doubt that in some instances the
confessing persons really believed themselves
" guilty." The reports agree further that the ac-
cused persons, when they made up their minds to
confess, " fabricated their stories with much in-
genuity and tact, making them tally with the state-
ments of the accusers, adding points and items
that gave an air of truthfulness."

Ann Foster at Salem Village confessed in 1692
[U6]

UNTRUE CONFESSIONS
that the devil appeared to her in the shape of a
bird at several times. She further stated that it
was Goody Carrier that made her a witch. " She
told her that if she would not be a witch, the devil
would tear her to pieces and carry her away — at
which time she promised to serve the devil; that
she was at the meeting of the witches at Salem
Village: they got upon sticks and went said jour-
ney," and so forth. Yet Ann Foster was not
insane; the horrors of the accusation had over-
powered the distressed mind. We should say to-day
that a dissociation of her little mind had set in ;
the emotional shock brought it about that the
normal personality went to pieces and that a split-
off second personality began to form itself with
its own connected life story built up from the
absurd superstitions which had been suggested to
her through the hypnotising examinations.

The untrue confessions from hope or fear,
through promises and threats, from cunning calcu-
lations and passive yielding thus shade off into
others which are given with real conviction under
the pressure of emotional excitement or under the
spell of overpowering influences. Even the mere
[147]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
fatigue often brought to the Salem witches the
loosening of the mental firmness and the intrusion
of the suggestion of guilt. In tedious examinations
the prisoners were urged to confess through many
hours " till the accused were wearied out by being
forced to stand so long or by want of sleep " and
then gave assent to the accusation of having
signed the devil's book.

It seems like the other pole of the social
world if we turn from these cruel court
procedures to the helpful humanity of our
hospitals for the insane. But the sounds of reckless
untrue self-accusation are familiar there too to
everyone who knows the scenes of misery in the
ward of the melancholic patients. There is no
judge and no jury, only the physician and the
nurse, yet no torture of punishment can be harder
than the suffering of the melancholic who feels
remorse for sins which he never committed, for
crimes of which he never thought before. Years
ago his friend died ; now arises the illusion that he
has poisoned him. The last fire in the town was laid
by him ; he is guilty of the unpardonable sin. The
slightest fault in his real past takes, in this illu-
[148]

UNTRUE CONFESSIONS
sory affective state, new and gigantic dimensions;
long-forgotten mistakes awake with unproportion-
ate feelings of anguish. The patient accuses him-
self of meanness and deceit, of diabolical plans,
and with growing accuracy he elaborates the
minute details of his imaginary crimes.

As a matter of course, when the physician
speaks in the modem court-room the grave word
Melancholia, the self -accusation cannot have any
further consequences of a judicial character. The
doors of the hospital are closed behind the patient.
He may still be witness against others; but the
confessions of crime which he claims to have com-
mitted himself cannot be considered as evidence
imder any circumstances. And as the symptoms of
melancholia and other depressive states with self-
accusatory ideas are easily recognised, there
remains hardly any reason for fearing lest such
irresponsible fabrications of a diseased brain be
taken as real confessions of an actual criminal.
But does this give security for a proper rating of
those illusory confessions which, like the absurdi-
ties of the Salem witches, result from the tem-
porary abnormal states of a not-diseased brain?
[149]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
Hysterical and autohypnotic states may there
combine with otherwise perfectly normal behaviour,
and pseudo-confessions may thus arise in men who
are distinctly not ill. A slight dissociation of mind
may set in which does not suggest calling for the
physician at all, and which may yet affect pro-
foundly the admissions made by the accused per-
son. Has the court sufficient means at hand to
convince the jury that it must weigh all the evi-
dence with a fair consideration of these not
pathological, yet very influential, mental varia-
tions ?

Whether the crime was done in a state of mental
responsibility is certainly a question never neg-
lected. The mental status of the witnesses finds
usually much less subtle analysis: the cross-
examining lawyers turn their attention mostly
backwards to the time of the crime and overlook
too often the mental state at the time of the trial.
But above all, the psychical state of the defendant
himself during the trial is usually measured by
the crudest standards of easy-going psychology
which considers a mental life as typical and unal-
tered as long as the man is neither insane nor
[150]

UNTRUE CONFESSIONS
intoxicated. And yet it would be perhaps less
exaggerated if we claimed that no psychical
mechanism remains entirely unchanged when a wit-
ness speaks under his oath or when a defendant
faces the jury. The variations remain, of course,
mostly within the limits of normal life, as we have
to call normal every setting which harmonises with
the life purposes of the individual. But variations
they are, nevertheless, and only the psychologist
may be clearly aware of their tendencies. Practical
life would be satisfied with the broad statement
that the witness was excited, or anxious and timid,
or felt himself important, or was eager to prove
his view. How far really his mental possibilities
were influenced, how far his perceptions, memory,
ideas, imaginative acts, feelings, emotions, voli-
tions, attention, judgment and ideas of self were
altered through the situation Is not considered and
would be certainly unimportant in ninety-nine
cases out of a hundred.

Yet we must not forget that there is nowhere

a sharp line to be drawn between the symptoms of

real mental disease and the variations in normal

personalities. There is no mental trait which be-

[151 J

ON THE WITNESS STAND
longs to mental diseases only; whatever we find
in the asylums is made up of the same material
that enters into the normal interplay of human
minds. The order and harmony alone are dis-
turbed ; a single feature is grossly exaggerated or
unduly inhibited, and by this abnormal increase or
decrease of a regular trait the balance is lost and
danger is ahead. Mental diseases are like carica-
tures of a person ; in the caricature too every part
of the face is the same as in the ordinary physiog-
nomy, but the proportion is lost, as one special
part, perhaps the nose or the teeth are grotesquely
enlarged. All mental aberrations are such exag-
gerated caricatures of the normal feelings, or
emotions, or impulses, or memories, or imagina-
tions, or attentions. And because the disease does
not develop perfectly new features, but simply
reinforces quite ordinary tendencies, it is easy to
see that there is nowhere a sharp hne between the
normal trait and its pathological over-functioning.
The motionless brooding of the melancholic
patient is easily recognised, and yet the pessimis-
tic temperament of many a normal man or woman
generates all the features which are so sadly de-
[152]

UNTRUE CONFESSIONS
veloped in the melancholic attacks. Even the self-
accusations and the self -destructive despair of the
melancholic find their counterpart in the realm of
normal life; the pessimist is too often inclined to
torture himself by opprobriums, to feel discour-
aged with himself, and to feel guilty without real
guilt. From these slight traces of temperamental
type to the complete alienation of the hopeless
patient there is a sliding scale of depressions. It
leads through all the affective states of the neuras-
thenic and other neurotic varieties. To recognise
where the temperament ends and the irresponsible
disturbance begins is made extremely difficult by
the great breadth of the borderland region. Pub-
lic opinion, and court and jury as its organs, are
always inclined to claim that whole borderland
field still for the normal life and to acknowledge
the mental disturbance only when the disease
region is entered. But modem psychology recog-
nises daily more strongly that the subtlest analysis
of the occurrences in the borderland field is abso-
lutely necessary if the higher ends of social justice
are to be reached. The courts show in all other
fields that the progress of science breaks new paths
[153]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
for them. It is, for instance, interesting to see how
the neurasthenic states are slowly recognised by
the courts in civil suits as real bodily disturbance,
while a short time ago they were still considered as
mere imaginations and illusory complaints. The
time has come to take notice of the progress in
psychology too.

There is no less a transitional region for all the
other mental activities. Everyone knows in daily
life the type of the superficial, silly person whose
attention is always shifting, and yet it is only an
absurd exaggeration of such behaviour that char-
acterises the alienation of the maniac. We know
the sanguine type with its quick, sudden impulses,
or the slow mind whose will appears always inhib-
ited, as if every volition is checked by an inner
resistance. We know the stubborn mind which can-
not be persuaded by any logical argument and
which sticks to its fixed ideas, and we know the
suggestible mind which follows the last hint and
believes everything, or at least everything which
is printed. Every one of these features of a mental
physiognomy may grow till its caricature stands
before us as disease, and everywhere there are
[ 154 J

UNTRUE CONFESSIONS
many steps between the extremes of pleasant origi-
nality of character and the saddest mental abey-
ance. The ti-ait becomes psychologically alarming
as soon as the balance is sufficiently destroyed to
make the purposes of life impossible. Persons who
perhaps doubt in the reality of the outer world
may be found in the asylums and on the philo-
sophic platform; whether the doubting mind is a
patient or a philosopher shows itself quickly in
the consequences: the philosopher includes that
doubt within an harmonious life plan, the patient's !
life is destroyed by his insane doubt.

This steady correspondence between the normal,
slight variations and the hopeless disturbances, and
the small steps of transition between the extremes
are shown perhaps nowhere more clearly than in
the field of memory. We differ from one another
not only by good and bad retention of our experi-
ences or by good memory for different spheres, the
one for names, the other for faces, the one for
figures, the other for sounds, but the disturbances
and illusions of memory too are most irregular,
and just as no two persons have exactly the same
face, certainly no two have the same kind of
[155]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
memory. Even unusual varieties may remain still
fully within the limit of soundness. I myself, for
instance, have absolutely no memory for the
mental processes during sleep; in other words, I
have never in my life had a dream. When I talk of
dreams in my university courses of psychology, I
speak of them just as a blind man might speak of
colours. Yet, mental processes go on in my sleep-
ing brain as in other men, because my friends have
often found that when they wake me up from deep
sleep with a question, I invariably give at first an
absurd reply full of reminiscences of the foregoing
days ; but as soon as I am really awake, not the
slightest trace of these comes back to my memory.
Yet, this rare variety of memory is not an abnor-
mal state, since it cannot interfere with the pur-
poses of my life; and the remainder of mankind
is, indeed, rather to be pitied for its dreams, which
may bring a confusion of themselves with the ipeal
past. If most people were without dreams, the
dreamers would have good reason to consult the
nerve physicians and their mental state would
be pigeonholed in the borderland region between
normality and hallucination. Dreams are hallu-
[156]

UNTRUE CONFESSIONS
clnations which become harmless only because the
impulses to action become ineffective during sleep.
I say that no field shows such a variety in normal
limits as the memory, and this refers to its positive
features as much as to its negative ones, as much
to the remembering as to the forgetting. That we
forget, is in itself certainly no defect and no
pathological symptom. On the contrary, we could
not fulfil the purposes of our life if we did not
disburden our memory constantly of superfluous
matter. We were lost if we had to keep in memory
every face we have seen in the street and every
advertisement we have seen in the papers. Our
mind has to sift and sift. And we demand from
our normal memory even that it follows somewhat
our own imagination. We do not care to remember
exactly as we experienced the impressions; our
perception is fuU of little blanks which our im-
aginative memory fills aU the time with fitting asso-
ciations, and when we remember a landscape, we
want to have the picture rovmded out and do not
care whether the wave of the ocean had exactly
this curve and whether the tree had just this
number of branches. We remember well when we
[1571

ON THE WITNESS STAND
select the material, eliminate some parts worthy of
being forgotten, and add from our own imagina-
tion other parts well adapted to reproduce the
original experience.

But it is evident that this suppressing and sup-
plementing of memory ideas makes us unfit for life
when it assumes large proportions. If we cannot
remember our previous experience, and if, in addi-.
tion to it, our own imagination deceives us by the
delusion of pseudo-memories, we are of course
completely lost in the social world, and the care of
the asylum alone can protect us against utter
destruction. Yet, who will decide when the limit
is reached where we forget and supplement too
much: nowhere is the borderland region broader
and nowhere more important for the psychology
of the court-room. We may move for a long while
still in the realm of the normal. It may be pure
fatigue which may decrease our resistance against
the creeping of deceptive illusions into our
memory. Or it may be a simple emotional excite-
ment; no doubt, the mere fact of being on the
witness stand awakens in many minds, by its im-
portance and solemnity, an excitement which is
[158]

UNTRUE CONFESSIONS
especially favourable for opening the memory to
suggestions and to confused ideas which group
themselves around some ideas with strong feeling
tone. Many a memory succumbs even to an im-
pressive or a suggestive question. And more im-
portant still is the suggestiveness of the whole
situation and especially of its social elements. All
that is stiU normal ; there is no education and no
art, no politics and no rehgion without suggestion,
and yet suggestion is certainly to a high degree a
suppression of objective memory. But slowly aU
this leads over into the borderland region. Instead
of a sound fatigue, there may be an over-fatigue ;
instead of light emotional excitement, the deep
affectional influence of alcohol or drugs; instead
of the mild suggestive influence of the teacher and
minister, the deep intrusion of the hypnotising
physician or of autohypnotisation. All that is not
pathological ; yet the abnormahties of the memory
may have taken in the meantime dimensions which
alter entirely the value of the reported recollec-
tions.

The untrustworthiness of memory under all
such conditions has nothing whatever to do with
[159]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
the intentions and the veracity of the witness. The
average man knows anyhow very little of the work-
ing of his own mind and his particular variations
escape his attention. It is well known how many
persons do not know even that they are colour-
blind, or that they lack elements of imagination
which are natural to others. A colleague once
wanted me to hypnotise him because he had just,
in his fortieth year, discovered that he had no
power of optical remembering; he hoped to get
it through hypnosis, and yet he had never missed
it until he read of it in a psychological book. And
only the other day I was consulted by a young
woman who, up to her college days, had not dis-
covered that other persons do not hear voices when
they are alone ; she had heard them since childhood
days and had felt sure that it was everybody's
experience. The average person is unfamiliar with
his psychical peculiarities and with the varieties
and trickeries of his memory. They do not con-
cern the physician either. But the psychological
examiaation furnishes indeed to-day a kind of
mental Roentgen rays which illumine the internal
happenings.

[160]

UNTRUE CONFESSIONS
We must not forget, moreover, that our knowl-
edge of our own personality and its doing is also
only a function of memory. We know of our-
selves, in a psychological sense, through the
connected memory of our actions and of our ex-
periences, and this reproducing self-consciousness
is open to all the chances and defects which be-
long to our remembering in other fields. Our own
doings, of which we know, perhaps, through our
muscle sensations, are in themselves no better
material for our reproduction in memory than
the scenes which we have seen and the words which
we have heard. As soon as the memory for
our own past is completely lost, the pathological
character is, of course, evident; and if the ideas
which form our selves become dissociated and
groups become split ofiF as a second or third
personality in us, no one doubts that such
curious formations belong to the physician's
domain. Yet here again we can reach the
most hopeless forms through small steps from
the experiences of our daily life. Every one of us
is a difi'erent personality under different circum-
stances.

[ 161 ]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
The man in the office is not the man in
family life; on his vacation trip, not the same as
at work; in the political meeting, not the same as
in the theatre. New leading impulses, new groups
of memory associations, new groups of feelings
enter each time into play and change the whole
aspect of our life. To be sure, the core of our
personahty is not touched by such daily occur-
rences, and we can easily bridge over in our mind
from the one state to the other. Just for this rea-
son it does not interfere with the purposes of
healthy action. But this growing up of a new
personality, with its own impulses and separated
by its own memories from our regular life, may
again increase just like those other variations of
memory. An emotional shock or a captivating
impression may stir up long-forgotten memory
ideas or push imaginative thoughts into the cen-
tre and build around them split-off pieces of a
dissociated mind into a new personality which can
be, perhaps, hardly discriminated from the pre-
vious self, but in which important emotions and
memories may be distorted. And this alteration
may affect more and more the deeper layers of
[162]

UNTRUE CONFESSIONS
emotional thought and the whole man may be for
a long time a new man before the outside becomes
aware of it, or before he himself can explain the
sudden changes, in his attitudes and in his actions,
in his judgments and his self -consciousness. The
borderland region between the normal .variations
of personality and the complete pathological de-
struction of the self demand thus the most earnest
consideration in the court-room.

And now I return to the distressing case of
Chicago. Dr. Christison has set forth the entire
murder case in a brilliaiit pamphlet which few
will sjudy without becoming convinced that an
innocent man has suffered death by the rope on
account of untrue confessions. It may be sufficient
here to cite from it the following facts : On Janu-
ary 12, 1906, a young married woman was bru-
tally outraged and murdered in Chicago. Her
body was found, by the unfortunate defendant,
lying face downwards on a manure pile in a barn-
yard. The barn was about half a block distant
from his home. He had to go there to attend to his
father's horse. When he observed the body, he at
once reported the matter to his father at the house,
[163]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
and the father notified the police. The officers who
inspiected the premises found the woman's hat at
her feet, but could discover no evidence whatsoever
of a scuffle having taken place. Purse, shopping-
bag and muff were gone. Around her neck was a
hard-drawn copper wire, the ends being twisted
together.

The young man looked as if he had not slept
during the night and the officers suspected him.
The testimonies show that the young man was
everywhere regarded as a thoughtful, obliging
fellow of exceptionally good disposition, but often
exhibiting marked stupidity. He never sought the
company of women. All of his friends thought
him decidedly trusting and credulous and absent-
minded. He alternated between gay and morose
moods. His most pronounced defect seemed to
them his lack of initiative. His regular work was
with his father at the trade of carpenter. When
he came to the police station, he was- told at once
that he was the guilty man ; but the accused denied
everything.

Now the pohce began to press him and to sug-
gest more and more impressively to him his guilt.
[164]

UNTRUE CONFESSIONS
Suddenly he began to confess, and he was quite
willing to repeat his confession again and again.
Every time it became richer in detail. "At about
6.30 I took her in the alley. I wrestled with her
and lost my senses. She wanted to run," — and so
on and so on. On this basis he was condemned to
death. So the matter stood when my opinion was
asked for, as above reported. I could not help be-
coming convinced that all the external signs spoke
against the interpretation of the jury. The young
man's alibi proof, brought forward by his friends,
seemed to me convincing. Everything seemed to
point to the fact that the woman was murdered by
an unknown person at another place, and that her
body was dragged during the night by the copper
wire coiled around her neck from another street
to the barnyard. The so-called " confessions "
themselves seemed absurd and contradictory and
exactly like the involuntary elaboration of a sug-
gestion put into the man's mind. His whole life
history and the expression of his face were in full-
est accordance with the suspicion that his mind
was in a state of dissociation when he began his
confessions. It seemed to me a typical case of that
[165]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
large borderland region in which a neurotic mind
develops an illusory memorj as to its own doings
in the past. After most careful scrutiny as far as
the written and printed material allowed, I wrote
thus in June in my much-abused letter that the
confessions must be untrue and that the con-
demned man had really nothing to do with the
crime. I added at once, " It is an interesting case
of dissociation and auto-suggestion ; it would need
probably careful treatment to build up his disso-
ciated mind again and thus to awake in him a clear
memory of his real experiences."

But when I expressed thus my firm conviction,
I had, nevertheless, the uncanny feeling that there
was something obscure in the case. I was unable
to understand how the sudden change from denial
to confession was brought about. To be sure, there
were the sharp inquisitory questions of the police
officers, and yet from a rather extended experience
I cotdd not imagine that without a sudden external
shock or some overwhelming fascination such a
conversion and such a disintegration could set in.
Only a short time before a lady had come to me
who showed quite similar blanks of memory for
[166]

UNTRUE CONFESSIONS
several days, filling the gap with imaginative ideas,
and she too did not understand why her personality
had been changed so suddenly. But when I hypno-
tised Her, I understood what had happened. She
had been in a nervous and over-fatigued state
when her own physician bent over her, and the
sharp sunlight reflected from his eye-glasses struck
her eyes. At that moment she felt it like a shock,
his eye-glasses seemed to become large and un-
canny, and from that moment on her consciousness
was split and her remaining half-personality de-
veloped a pseudo-memory of its own.

I had before my mind also the case of a certain
religious conversion which Dr. Prince has recently
analysed and described. It was the case of a young
woman who, from a most distressed, restless and
suffering state, was suddenly completely changed
to a state of joyful excitement and happy ecstasy.
She felt it as a spiritual " conversion " to health,
and the complete change of her mental personality
was indeed most surprising. She could not remem-
ber that anything had happened which might have
influenced her ; but when the physician hypnotised
her in the interest of her ailments, everything
[167]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
became clear. She had gone to church in a condi-
tion of hopeless despair. The church was empty
and, as she communed with herself, her hopeless-
ness deepened. Then her ejes became fixed upon
one of the shining brass lamps in the church, and
of a sudden all was changed. She went into a
trance-like state in which many disconnected memo-
ries of her early life and of happy times rushed
to her consciousness, each accompanied by emo-
tion, and these long-forgotten emotions of happi-
ness persisted.

If there had been anything of such optical cap-
tivation of attention, like the reflex of the eye-
glass or the shining of the brass lamp, in the
Chicago case, everything would have been com-
pletely clear to me; without such fascinating
stimulus, I could not account sufficiently for the
suddenness of the change in the defendant's per-
sonality. When I wrote my letter, I felt certain
that if I had had a chance to hypnotise the con-
demned man, I should have found out that some
unexpected stimulus must have come in, must have
snapped off the normal connections. I expressed
this as my wish at that time, repeatedly. I could
[168]

UNTRUE CONFESSIONS
not foresee that all the explanation I was looking
for would be furnished only a few days later by
Nature herself. The unfortunate youth awoke
suddenly from the awful spell. The period of dis-
integration was suddenly again eliminated from
the memory and the normal connections entered
again into play. The same paper, which had in-
sisted that the defendant must be the murderer
because no innocent man would ever confess such
a brutal crime, brought out a few days later a
long report which began as follows:

" With death on the gallows only six days away,
he asserts his innocence of the atrocious murder.
He declares he has absolutely no memory of having
made to the police a confession . . . He as-
serts that his only recollection of the coroner's
inquest is that of seeing a revolver pointed at him.
He said, ' I saw the flash of steel in front of me.
Then two men got before me. I can remember no
more than that about it. Someone told me after-
ward who the man was ; but I had not seen him at
all and I don't recall seeing any other men even
until after I had seen the revolver. I suppose I must
have made those statements, since they all say I
[169]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
did. But I have no knowledge of havmg made
them, and I am innocent of that crime. From the
time that I was arrested I do not believe that I
was myself for a moment, until after I was over
here in the jail. Everything about that time is
a blur, a blank, to me. I can see through this blur
the time in the station, when the police would bring
me up every little while and tell me that I had done
it. I know that the very first thing that the In-
spector said to me when I was brought to him was,
*You did this.' I did not do it, and I knew that
I did not; but I do not know what I said or did
during that time in the station. I wondered why a
revolver should be pointed at me,' " and so forth.
It would be absurd to fancy that this last turn
of his mind was a made-up story to escape pimish-
ment. Through all those weeks of his half -dazed
condition, he had never made the least effort to
weaken his so-called confessions or to protect him-
self in any way. Moreover, this stupid boy would
be the last to be able to invent suddenly a long
story which fits so exactly in every detail the
clinical experiences of the nervous physician and
the mental experiences of the psychologist. " I
[170 J

UNTRUE CONFESSIONS
saw the flash of steel in front of me." And from
that moment everything became a blur and a blank.
It was the one missiilg link in the chain of evidence
of his innocence. He cannot even have understood
that this flash of steel worked like the shining brass
lamp in Dr. Prince's case or the reflecting eye-
glass in that other case. He naively reported the
whole truth, and with all the ear-marks of truth.
He would have been absolutely unable to fabricate
by his own efforts such scientifically exact observa-
tions. What resulted when he begun to fabricate
out of his own faculties was sufficiently shown in
his " confessions," a contradictory mixture of im-
probable and psychologically impossible occur-
rences. Six days later the punishment of death was
executed.

[171]

SUGGESTIONS IN COURT

SUGGESTIONS IN COURT

It was in a large city which I was visiting for the
first time. I went to see the hypnotic experiments
of a friend, a physician for nervous diseases. He
invited me to witness the treatment of a lady who
had been deeply hypnotised by him for a local
nervous disturbance. Her mind seemed normal in
every respect. She was a woman of wealth and
social position. When she was in hypnotic sleep,
he suggested to her to return in the afternoon
when she would find us both, and, as soon as he
took out his watch, to declare her willingness to
make a last will in which I should become the only
heir to all her property. She had never seen me be-
fore and I was introduced to her under a fictitious,
indifferent name. When she left the office after
awakening from her hypnotic sleep, she did not
take any notice of me at all. At the appointed
hour she returned, apparently not knowing herself
why she came. She found in the parlour, besides
her physician and me, three or four others who
[175]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
wanted to watch the develppment of the experi-
ment. She was not embarrassed. She said that she
had passed the house by chance and that she
thought it would be nice to show her doctor how
much better she felt and to ask whether there was
any objection to her going to the theatre. I then
began a conversation with her about the opera.
We talked for perhaps ten minutes on music and
the drama, exactly as if we had met at any dinner
party, and there was nothing in the least strange
in her ideas or in her expression of them.

Suddenly my friend asked how late it was and,
as arranged, took his watch out of his pocket.
There was a moment of hesitation. The lady spoke
the next few words in a stammering way; but
then she rushed on and told us that she had not ex-
pected to find such a company, but that her real
purpose in coming was to report to me that she
had selected me as her heir and that now she
wanted accordingly to make her last will. Up to
this moment her action has been a mechanical
carrying out of the post-hj^notic suggestion, but
the really interesting part was now to begin. I
told her that there must be a mistake, as she could
[176]

SUGGESTIONS IN COURT
not have seen me before, and I mentioned a ficti-
tious city in which I claimed to live. At once she
replied that she had just spent the last winter in
that city, and that she had met me there daily on
the street, and that from the first she had planned
to leave me all that she owned. I insisted that at
least she had never spoken to me. Yes, in that
same city she had met me repeatedly in society.
I represented to her the unnaturalness of leaving
her Wealth to a stranger instead of to her children.
At once she rephed that she had thought it out
for years, that it would be a blessing for the chil-
dren not to be burdened with riches, while she
knew that I would use them in a philanthropic
way. The others took part in the conversation,
scores of arguments were brought up to dis-
courage her from this fantastic plan. For each
one she had a long-considered excellent rejoinder.
Finally, I told her directly that, as she knew,
she had been hypnotised that morning and that
this whole idea of the last will had been planted in
her head by the witnessed suggestion of her physi-
cian. With a charming smile she replied that she
knew all that perfectly well, but that she did not
[177]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
contradict and resist this proposition of the doc-
tor simply because it by chance coincided entirely
with her own cherished plans, which had been per-
fectly firm in her mind for a year. She would have
written to me some day soon if I had not come
to town. She went on that she was unwilling to
hear any further doubts of her sincerity and that
she was ready to take an oath that she had made
up her mind in favour of such a testament long be-
fore she was hypnotised. To put an end to all this,
she insisted that paper be brought to her, and then
she wrote a codicil which left all her property to
the fictitious man from the fictitious town. The
doctors present had to sign as witnesses. I put the
paper into my pocket, switched the conversation
over to the theatre again, and, after a few minutes,
she had evidently forgotten the whole episode.
She treated me again as a complete stranger ; and
when I asked whether she happened to know the
city before mentioned, I was told that she had once
passed through it on the train. When she left the
house, she had clearly not the slightest remem-
brance of that document in my pocket, which we
others then burned together.
[178]

SUGGESTIONS IN COURT
If I had been present as an uninformed stranger
during that afternoon visit, I should have been so
completely misled that I could not have thought
of any additional inquiry or any further argu-
ment to test the validity of the testimony. Every-
thing seemed to harmonise with the one plan which
had been put into her mind. All her memories be-
came falsified, all her tastes and emotions were
turned upside down, all her life experiences were
mingled with and supplemented by untrammelled
imagination, coupled with the strongest feeling of
certainty and sincerity, and yet everything was
moulded by her own mind, with the exception of
that one decision which had been urged upon her
from the outside.

If a suggestion planted in a consciousness
would remain there isolated, it would be easy
to detect it. It would be in such manifold con-
tradiction with all the normal reminiscences
and habitual arguments that every court, for
instance, would quickly recognise the strange
thought as an intruder. But just this is the un-
canny power of suggestion, that it at once infects
all the neighbouring ideas and emotions and
[179]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
forces the whole mental life of the personality
under the unnatural influence.

Of course, life does not o'ften make such effec-
tive experiments, and the danger seems small that
judges or jurymen should ever be deceived by such
an elaborate performance of a witness. Few per-
sons only can be hypnotised to the degree that a
post-hypnotic suggestion becomes so powerful.
But it cannot be emphasised too strongly that the
extreme abnormal changes in mental life go over
by the smallest steps into the perfectly normal and
habitual behaviour. The grotesque destructiveness
of such a hypnotic revolution shows only an exag-
gerated form of the dangerous working of sug-
gestion which leads in a sliding scale down to the
little bits of strange influences with their unrea-
sonable reasoning, as when we read in the cars the
unhypnotic suggestions of " cook with gas " or
" read the StMi " or " wear rubber heels."

The psychologist does not need, indeed, the hyp-
notic state to demonstrate experimentally how
every suggestion contaminates the most sincere
memory. A picture of a farmer's room was shown
to about forty persons, children and adults. Each
[180]

SUGGESTIONS IN COURT
one examined- it individually and was then asked
to give a report from the fresh memory image in
reply to detailed questions. The picture had
plenty of detail which could easily be grasped.
The questions were partly indiflFerent and objec-
tive. How many persons are in the room? Does
the room have windows? What is the man doing?
There were persons and windows and the man was
eating his soup. But other questions, referring to
objects not present in the picture, could pass
through different stages of suggestiveness. Is
there a stove in the room? is not so intense a sug-
gestion as the express question, did you see the
stove in the room? There was no stove in the pic-
ture. Are there houses to be seen through the win-
dows of the room? Does a lamp hang from the
ceiling? The result showed that the replies to
these suggestive questions were correct only in
fifty-nine per cent, of all cases. Hundreds of times
objects were invented in accordance with the sug-
gestion of the question and this immediately after
the direct observation of the picture, and without
any personal interest in the falsified result.
The experiments show that the resistance for
[181]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
the young people is much weaker than for the
grown-ups, for the girls weaker than for the boys,
but they all were under perfect conditions of emo-
tional calmness. Such conditions are not to be
found on the witness stand under the excitement
of the solemn court procedure ; there the resistance
of the adult persons may sink to the low level of
that of the boys and girls. Above all, the experi-
ments show that at all ages the positive effect of
the suggestion works itself out in minute and con-
crete detail. As soon as the subject has answered
that there is a stove in the room, he is at once
ready to reply by a positive statement to the
further question, where i& the stove standing?
The one says on the left, the other on the right;
one in the corner, and one against the middle of
the wall, each simply following the path of least
resistance in his own imagination. The experi-
ments allowed a complete gradation of the sug-
gestive power of the various questions. The gown
of the farmer's wife was red. It was sufficient to
ask whether the gown was blue or green to elim-
inate for many the red entirely from memory.
And with the suggestiveness of the question the
[182]

SUGGESTIONS IN COURT
readiness to elaborate their own inventions stead-
ily increased. Experiments of this kind have been
carried on with almost identical results in different
nations with persons of different ages and profes-
sions with most varied material, and every time the
power of a suggestive question to break down the
true memory appears alarming. But whoever has
studied these protocols of the psychological lab-
oratories cannot help feeling that many cross-ex-
aminations in court are only continuations of the
interesting tests carried on to demonstrate that
there is nothing more suggestive for some persons
than a skiKul question. Their influence may set
in long before the lawyer of the other side rejects
a too clumsy suggestion as an imallowed " lead-
ing question."

Of course, the illusory effect of a suggestion
need not wait till the labour of the memory sets in.
Our perceptions themselves may be distorted
through suggestive influences. Experimental psy-
chology can demonstrate it and at the same time
test it in a thousand forms. Of course, such little
psychological laboratory experiments seem petty
and far removed from the reality of life experi-
[183]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
ence, as they can offer nothing but a dry sche-
matic pattern. Yet this is a complete misunder-
standing. Not the weakness of the experiments
but their strength lies in their schematic char-
acter. All the experimental sciences teach us to
understand the world by bringing its manifoldness
to the simplest formula. The physicist too does
not wait till the lightning breaks through the
clouds; he does not need the thunder storm. The
small electrical machine on his laboratory table
can teach him in a much more instructive way
what factors determine the electric discharge.
The artificial schematisation shows the connections
between cause and effect alone. Thus we do not
need in the laboratory the erratic play of emotions
and prejudices which suggestions and persuasions
may stjir up in the chaos of practical life. We
recognise the essential features just as well in the
slight changes of perceptive judgment with the
tiny material of our workshop.

If I have, for instance, on the one side of my
table thirty little squares of grey paper and on
the other side the same number of the same ma-
terial, and I ask the subject to decide without
[184]

SUGGESTIONS IN COURT
counting on which of the two sides there are more
of the grey squares, I can easily arrange that he
sees more on whichever side I want him to. I find,
perhaps, that his judgment depends upon the
grouping, that those thirty pieces suggest dif-
ferent numbers according as they lie in regular
lines or in irregular disorder; according as they
are shut off in small groups or grouped in one
circle ; surrounded by a frame, or accentuated by
a few ink spots, or brightened by a light back-
ground, — ^in short, that very various side factors
suggest an erroneous judgment as to the number
of the perceived things. And yet such harmless
experimental tests unveil all the factors with
which, for instance, political parties before elec-
tion awake misleading suggestions as to the rel-
ative strength of the party vote. A little bit of
bright colour on my laboratory table gives me all
the moral effect on my subjects which the most
wonderful torchlight processions and brass bands
can have on the suggestive voter.

Or take a still more striking experiment. We
have a series of cardboard boxes of different sizes,
from a width of a few inches to several feet, and
[185]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
we make them all. exactly equal in weight, filling
the smallest, perhaps, with iron and the largest
with straw. All are to have the same handle, and
if one after the other is lifted with closed eyes, aU
of course appear of equal heaviness. But now the
subject is to lift them, one after the other, with
open eyes, and the impression of weight will at
once be controlled by the suggestion given by the
size. The small box appears now several times
heavier than the large one, and no effort to over-
come the suggestion can rule out the illusion. It
may be a long way from the overestimation of the
weight of a little cardboard box to the falsifying
overestimation of a piece of evidence by the jury
of a murder case, but it is a straight way without
demarcation lines. If the twelve jurymen were
grouped according to their suggestibility, from
the most stubborn to the' most easily influenced,
they would stand probably In the same order as if
they were tested for errors in the judgment of
our boxes of cardboard. Yes, we might simplify
our test still more. Sometimes I found it sufficient
to show to my subjects various pairs of circles
drawn on paper ; they had to decide which of the
[186]

SUGGESTIONS IN COURT
pairs was the larger. The pairs were always of the
same size, but in their centres various figures were
printed ; the suggestible person is easily inclined to
call the circle with the figure 79 larger than the
circle which contains merely the figure 32, just as
there may be men who think the prettier girl to be
the cleverer, or the richer feUow the more bril-
liant.

What does the psychologist really understand
by a suggestion? Let us be sure from the first that
it certainly means nothing abnormal or patholog-
ical. The illustrations have indicated sufficiently
that abnormal disturbance and ordinary normal
life can meet here. My lady with the over-gen-
erous last will had certainly left the realm of
normality ; the voter who is imposed on by the big
parade, or the customer who is carried away by
the bargain prices of the great removal sale, is
also under the influence of suggestion and may
yet be otherwise quite a normal person. Sugges-
tion is, moreover, no symptom of weakness, and it
would be absurd to believe that life might be
wholesomer and better if it could move on without
the aid of influences of suggestion. On the con-
[187]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
trary, life would be dreary and commonplace,
without enthusiasm and without convictions, if all
suggestions evaporated. Education and art, pol-
itics and religion, rely on the power of suggestion,
for a suggestion is after all any idea which takes
hold of dur consciousness in such a way that it in-
hibits and excludes the opposite ideas.

But in what sense is there any meaning in
speaking of opposite ideas? Our consciousness
has room for any combination of thoughts, and
each idea seems to go peacefully together with
any other idea. We can think black and white and
summer and winter and man and woman quietly
together. When the psychologist speaks of op-
posite ideas, he means something very different.
He calls opposite such ideas as involve mutually
exclusive attitudes. I can think of man and of
woman, but I cannot take the attitude towards
a person of taking him for a man and at the same
time the attitude of taking him for a woman. I
can think of summer and winter, but I must be-
lieve that the season is either winter or summer,
not both, and must act accordingly. The whole
antagonism thus lies in our own activities, and,
[188]

SUGGESTIONS IN COURT
if we say that one idea excludes the opposite, we
really mean that the idea which demands one atti-
tude excludes another idea which demands an op-
posite attitude. In ordinary life, in states free
from suggestion, no idea has any prerogative.
Each has fair play. When a new idea comes to our
mind, perhaps from hearing it from a friend, per-
haps from reading it, perhaps from our own
imagination, it may fall into a conflict of atti-
tudes with some other idea present and, above all,
with some associations and memories which awake;
then begins a fair fight in which either the new-
comer or the old idea may win ; both together can-
not last, as we cannot live through opposite ac-
tions at the same time: we cannot turn to the
right and to the left, we cannot close the hand
and open It, we cannot speak and be silent.

Wrong ideas and inappropriate propositions
enter our consciousness through many doors all
the time, but they are at once eliminated through
the influence of the opposite ideas which a faith-
ful memory and a sound reasoning provide. That
which is connected most firmly with the remainder
of our experience will survive. Each of the rival-
[189 J

ON THE WITNESS STAND
ling ideas is thus backed by ii;s own connections
and stands on its own merits. Whenever this is
changed, and an idea, it may be the new intruder
or the old incumbent, gets an unfair chance so
that all its opposing ideas are weakened and per-
haps even suppressed from the start, then we call
it a suggestion. All our prejudices and all our
convictions work as such suggestions. They do
not give to the idea of opposite attitude the op-
portunity for a test. That may work for the good
or for the bad. The moral idea and the vicious
desire may be equally strengthened through such
suggestive energy which eliminates the opposite
from the start. We call the readiness to receive
such suggestions from other persons suggestibil-
ity. The degree of suggestibility changes from
man to man and changes in every individual from
mood to mood, from hour to hour. Hypnotism,
finally, is an artificially increased state of sug-
gestibility. Yet there are nowhere sharp demarca-
tion lines. Even the most stubborn mind is open
to certain suggestions and even the most deeply
hypnotised mind has still the power to resist cer-
tain ideas which would be opposed by the deepest
[190]

SUGGESTIONS IN COURT
maxims of his life. Emotion certainly increases
suggestibility with everybody ; so does fatigue and
nervous exhaustion.

There is nothing mysterious in all this, and the
psychologist is not unable to understand it all as
product of the brain mechanism. He knows to-day
that each idea is composed of sensations which ac-
company nervous excitement in many sensorial
brain cells and these are stimulated by the sense
organs. But he knows further that this excite-
ment does not stop in those sensory cells. The
process which starts from the sense organs does
not find in those sensory brain centres an end sta-
tion, but runs on into motor paths which lead,
finally, to the muscular system. Those central
brain stations thus serve for the transmission of
the incoming sensory stimuli into outgoing motor
impulses. All this is endlessly complex. Millions
of paths lead to the brain and millions of paths
lead out again, and the cortex of the brain is the
great automatic switch-board for aU those tracks.
Yet all this alone would be no explanation. It
would make us only understand that any sensory
idea, a word which we hear, a thing which we see,
[ 191 ]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
would necessarily lead over into an action. But
plenty of facts speak now in favour of the fol-
lowing view.

Firstly, those motor paths in the brain are so
related to each other that whenever excitement
goes on in the one, the track which would lead to
the opposite action becomes blocked. When the
impulse runs into those nerves which, for instance,
open the hand, the brain closes those channels of
motor discharge which would lead us to clench the
fist. Secondly, the ideas which accompany the sen-
sory brain processes become vivid only when the
channels of discharge are open; they remain un-
vivid, that is, they become inhibited and sup-
pressed when those channels of discharge are
closed. A suggestion would thus be an idea whose
sensory brain accompaniment keeps the channels
of motor discharge wide open, so that the paths
which would lead to the opposite action are, on
the whole, closed ; and because the channels of dis-
charge are closed, all the ideas which might lead
to such opposite action are eliminated from the
first. If the words, " This is a garden," spoken
to me here in my library, came as a suggestion,
[192]

SUGGESTIONS IN COURT
> they would not exclude any activity of mine. I
might carry on a conversation on politics, might
read a book, and might remember correctly all
that happened to me before, but everything must
remain in harmony with my attitude towards this
room as a garden. The wish to take a book from
the shelf on the wall would be indeed inhibited and
the books themselves would become correspond-
ingly invisible, while I should believe I saw the
flowers in the garden, which I should feel ready to
pick. Of course, to take my library shelves for
flower bushes because someone tells me this is a
garden demands an extreme degree of suggestibil-
ity, and, where it is reached, we should certainly
speak of an hypnotic state. To take in an anxious
mood at twilight the trunk of a willow tree for a
burglar requires much less suggestibility; and to
believe the latest news of the yellow journal only
because it is shouted in big headlines, in spite of
the fact that a hundred earlier experiences ought
to suppress belief, a stiU smaller degree of sug-
gestibility is sufficient.

If, therefore, no mystery and no disease is in-
volved, if suggestion rests on an opening and
[193]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
closing of motor channels which goes on auto-
matically and to a high degree independent of
conscious will, if everyone is open to suggestions
and yet suggestions are able to turn white into
black and black into white, it seems indeed aston-
ishing that the work of justice is carried out in the
courts without ever consulting the psychologist
and asking him for all the aid which the modem
study of suggestion can offer. There is no one
participant in the drama of the court who might
not change the plot by the operation of sugges-
tions in his mind: the defendant may have worked
under suggestion at the time of his criminal deed,
the witnesses may be influenced during their ob-
servation of the deed or may labour -under sugges-
tion on the witness stand and, even if their observa-
tion and recollection is correct, their narration may
still be tainted by the strange spell ; but is the law-
yer or the judge, above all, is the juryman less open
to a disturbance of the normal ideational rivalry?
To be sure, popular imagination runs often
enough into the suspicion that a crime was per-
formed under hypnotic influence; but just this is
on the whole more a motive for dime novels than
[194]

SUGGESTIOXS IN COURT
for legal consideration. AH the probabilities are
against it. For the purpose of justice it is far
more important to keep in mind that hypnotism is
only the strongest degree of suggestibility and
that the weaker states of openness for suggestion
are the real hotbeds of criminal impulses. We
know to-day, for instance, that alcohol poisoning |
can produce with many persons a state of sug- ;
gestibOity in which complete imitations of post-
hypnotic suggestions become possible. The order
to do a certain foolish act at an appointed hour in
the sober state wUl be carried out when the order
has been given in an impressive way while the wine
was still paralysing the inhibitory centres. In the
same way emotion changes the man; during a
panic the suggestibility is reinforced to a degree
where aU resistances seem to be broken down, and
to be a member of a crowd is always sufficient to
weaken the counter action. But there are many
persons whose unusual suggestibility makes them
constantly liable to chance influences, even in
normal social life. They are enthusiastic for the
last arguments they hear, and the next speaker who
says the opposite convinces them just as fuUy.
[195]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
The psychological experiment can measure the de-
gree of this constitutional weakness with exacti-
tude, and to leave this nervous disposition alto-
gether out of account in judging the criminal act
is in principle not diflFerent from punishing the in-
sane like a normal man.

Still more important than the influence of sug-
gestion on the crime is that on the report of the
witness. The distortion may begin with the mere
perception of the circumstances. Whenever the
court becomes doubtful as to whether the witness
really observed the facts correctly, we hear some
speculative generality as to the probability of a
reliable judgment. Here again the first thing
ought to be to find the personal equation and to
determine by the means of science to what degree
the perceptive consciousness of the observer re-
mains independent of intruding suggestions. The
suggestible witness may have heard distinct words
where the objective witness heard only a noise.
Much may depend upon that for the trial. Words
distinguished by the unsuggestible mind would
count for much; those distinguished by the sug-
gestible one for almost nothing. But to say which
[196]

SUGGESTIONS IN COURT
is which, it ought not to be sufficient to rely on
hearsay and anecdotes, with all the means of the
laboratory experts at disposal to determine the
exact degree of suggestibility, just as experts
would decide whether a bullet can have taken the
one way or the other through the body.

Where the perception was fairly correct, the
recollection may be entirely distorted by sugges-
tive side influences. We have spoken of the ex-
periments which prove the powerful influence of
suggestive questions. No doubt the whole situa-
tion of the court-room reinforces the suggestibil-
ity of every witness. In much-discussed cases cur-
rent rumours, and especially the newspapers, have
their full share in distorting the real recollections.
Everything becomes unintentionally shaped and
moulded. The imaginative idea which fits a prej-
udice, a theory, a suspicion, meets at first the
opposition of memory, but slowly it wins in power,
and as soon as the suggestibility is increased, the
play of ideas imder equal conditions ends, and the
opposing idea is annihilated. Easy tests could
quickly unveil this changed frame of mind and, if
such a half hypnotic state of suggestibility has
[197]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
set in, it is no wiser to keep the witness on the
stand than if he had emptied a bottle of whiskey
in the meantime. And even if the memory itself
is correct, the narration may be dictated by sug-
gestive influences and the reported story itself
may work backwards 'with auto-suggestive in-
fluence on the memory. There are not a few who
finally believe their hunting stories after they
have told them repeatedly.

Is it necessary to say that the most suggestible
man in the court and the one whose suggestibility
is most dangerous may be neither the criminal nor
the witness, but the juryman? His task demands
freedom from suggestion more than ahnost any
other quality. He has to weigh the value of con-
flicting evidence. Here again psychological ex-
periment can show how easy it is to interfere with
the unhampered play of rival ideas when the mind
is suggestible. The lawyer who knows his average
juryman instinctively makes the richest use of all
the psychological factors which bring the argu-
ments of the one side fully into the focus of in-
terest and suppress and inhibit the effectiveness of
the opposite idea. But here again there may be a
[198]

SUGGESTIONS IN COURT
degree of suggestibility which simply interferes
with the purpose of justice and only psychological
experiment can bring such deficiency to light. The
judgment of a jury becomes a caricature, if not
the evidence, but insignificant and accidental cir-
cumstances determine the attitude of the sugges-
tible juror.

Of course public opinion with its crowd of in-
stincts is for the most part just such a suggesti-
ble arbiter. I heard at the centre of politics that
after the Spanish War, when the nation was de-
lighted with the navy and all kinds of scandals
seemed to bring evidence against the army, Con-
gress would never have voted so much to the army
had not WestvPoint in that year won the football
match over Annapolis, and thus swung round the
suggestible public opinion from navy to army.
But, to be sure, when the Court of public opinion
begins to weigh the evidence, it is no longer law,
but politics, and it might not be wise to ask how
far there is suggestion in politics too, inasmuch
as we might be checked too soon by the counter
question: Is there anything in politics which is
not suggestion?

[199]

HYPNOTISM AND CRIME

HYPNOTISM AND CRIME

Those stubborn people who simply did not believe
that such a thing as hypnotism existed have prob-
ably now slowly died out ; they might just as well
have refused to believe that there are mental
diseases. And those of the other extreme, those
who saw in the hypnotic state a mystical revela-
tion in which superhuman powers manifested them-
selves, have slowly lost their ground now; they
might just as well call sleep or hysteria or epilepsy
a supernatural mystery. No, science understands
to-day that the facts of hypnotism are in no way
more mysterious than aU the other functions in the
natural life of the mind. They are narrowly related
to the experiences of absorbing attention, vivid
imagination and obedient wiQ and, on the other
side, to sleep and dreams and mental aberration.

Of course, there nevertheless still remains much
under heated discussion. There is no real agree-
ment yet as to where the limits of hypnotism lie
and where it shades off into suggestion. There are
[203]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
various possible interpretations of the hypnotic
brain process, various views also as to the special
disposition for it, and even its symptoms still need
careful inquiry. But everyone may agree at least
in this : that hypnotism is not without serious con-
sequences and is therefore certainly not a play-
thing. And secondly : that hypnotism is for many
nervous and mental disorders a highly eiFective
remedy when applied by the experienced physi-
cian. It has brought and will bring health and
through it, happiness to uncounted sufferers, and
therefore it has come to stay.

But if hypnotism is to be with us it seems nat-
ural that the question should be asked — often not
without anxiety : — ^What is its relation to law and
court, to crime and criminal procedure.? The un-
canny power which man has therein over men, wiU
over wiU, suggests the thought that dangerous
social entanglements may threaten or that new
energies in the interest of the law may be made
thereby available. The imagination has here a free
field ; the dime novel and, alas ! the dollar-and-a-half
novel have made full use of this convenient instru-
ment of criminal wonders, and the newspaper pub-
[204 J

HYPNOTISM AND CRIME
lie reads, often without any feeling for the dif-
ference, stories of hypnotic crime which might
easily have taken place by the side of others which
are absolutely impossible. There is nowhere a
standard, and it may therefore be worth while to
take a bird's-eye-view of the whole field in which
hypnotism and crime come really or supposedly in
contact with each other.

The popular imagination turns first with pref-
erence to the query whether the court may not ap-
ply hypnotism for the purpose of unveiling the
hidden truth. Unsolicited letters concerning hyp-
notism turn up copiously in a psychologist's mail ;
statistics show that it is just this proposition
which disturbs the largest percentage of these
amateur criminologists. They take a passionate
interest in every murder case and too often reach
the torturing stage of not knowing who is really
guilty, even when all evidence and the verdict of
the jury is in. Their scruple, they feel, could be
removed only by their absolutely knowing that
this or that man speaks the truth. Hypnotism
has the well-known power of breaking down the
resistance of the will; if the hypnotised witness
[205 ]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
were ordered to speak the full truth, he would no
longer have any choice. It looks so simple and
promising.

From a purely psychological standpoint such a
method might be successful. It is not different in
principle from the hypnotic confessions which a
patient may make against his will. The other day
a student whom I was curing of the cocaine habit
assured me most vehemently that he had no cocaine
in his room any more, and a few minutes later, when
I had hypnotised him, he described correctly the
place where he had hidden it. But the difficulty
would begin with the fact, too often misunder-
stood, that one cannot be hypnotised by a newper-
son for tlie"Brittmie against _his wiU, Acrimiaal
who does not confess in his full senses wiU not
yield to any hypnotising efforts, as no outsider
can bring about the new state of mind. Hypnotis-
ation cannot work on an unyielding brain as a
sponge with chloroform which is held by force to
the mouth might work. If the imagination of the
subject does not help in reaching the somnam-
bulic state, no one can inject a mesmeric fluid into
his veins. And finally, even if such hypnotising by
[206]

HYPNOTISM AND CRIME
force were possible, it is self evident, from moral
and legal reasons, that no civilised court ought to
listen to such extorted evidence.

Of course, it might be different if a wrongly
accused defendant or a suspected witness wished
in his own interest to be hypnotised. A woman
once asked my advice in such a case. She
was under a cloud of ugly suspicion ; even her own
husband did not believe her protestations of in-
nocence, and, I suppose, her lawyer still less. She
wanted to be brought to the deepest state of hyp-
notism in open court till it would be evident that
she had no wiU-power left for deceit. If she de-
clared herself innocent on the question of the
hypnotiser, the court would have to accept it. I
advised her strongly not even to suggest such a
theatrical performance. Technically, it is not at
aU possible to hypnotise everyone to such a strong
degree, further it would be difficult to prove to
the court that she did not simulate hypnotic sleep
and that no secret agreement existed between the
subject and her hypnotiser. But the decisive point
for me was the conviction that the court ought to
accept such somnambulic utterances as little as the
[207]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
insane speeches of a paranoiac. She would be no
longer in full possession of her mental energies, as
it is the essence of the hypnotic state that large
parts of the inner functions are inhibited: all is
suppressed which counteracts the suggestions of
the hypnotiser. She thus would cease to be really
herself, and the person on the witness stand would
therefore not remain legally the witness who took
the oath before the hypnotisation.

Quite different is the case when the hypnotisa-
tion is required to awake in the mind the memory
of facts which occurred in an earlier hypnotic sit-
ting. It is well known, indeed, that a person awak-
ing from hypnosis may be without any memory of
the words spoken, but may remember everything,
even months after, as soon as a new hypnotic
state is produced. Such a sharpened dream mem-
ory may become important, and here the break of
personal unity is no hindrance, as the purpose is
objective information; for such an end even an
insane man may give acceptable evidence, perhaps
as to the place where stolen booty is hidden.

But that the court should hypnotise would in
any case be a most exceptional event; what is de-
[208]

HYPNOTISM AND CRIME
serving of much more attention is the case when
the criminal hypnotises. Here again popular mis-
understandings prevail. Here belongs, first of
all, the absurd fear of the man with paralysing
powers. He enters the room and when he looks on
you, you are powerless; you give him your jewels
and the key to your safe and he plunders you
gently while you have to smile and cannot raise a
hand. The Enghsh newspapers insisted that such
a " burglar with the hypnotic eye " is " the latest
product of America." Pwnch, the London Chari-
vari, poked fun at him with a long poem on John
P. Beck of Fortieth Street — ^Was as smart a
burglar as one could meet. " On one thing only
would he rely — The power of his black hypnotic
eye." At first John P. burglarises the halls of the
miUionaires. Finally he comes before the jury, but
every witness begins to talk nonsense as soon as
John P. looks at him. "And each who came
through the witness door — Seemed still more mad
than the man before." And at last he looks on the
judge, and the judge, too, begins to get confused
and absurd and closes finally : " I know the crim-
inal. Yes, you see^The wretch before you. I am
[209]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
he ! — The man who should be in the dock is me ! —
Arrest me, warders ! Step down, John P."

Now all this is, of course, extremely funny, but
Punch wanted to be still funnier, and therefore in-
troduced, with a serious face, the burlesque poetry
with a prose remark. It closes with the statement:
" Professor Miinsterberg of Harvard and other
learned men have set themselves to show that hyp-
notic power may become a most dangerous asset
of the criminal." That is amusing, indeed — ^be-
cause hardly anyone who is interested in the psy-
chology of hypnotic states has sought and used so
constantly the chance to ridicule the belief in a
special " hypnotic power." I know well that not a
few disagree with me in this, but I must. insist
and have always insisted that anyone can hyp-
notise anyone.

Of course, whoever wants to hypnotise — ^in fact,
no one but a physician ought to do it — ^must learn
the technique and apply it patiently and skilfully.
And certainly there are Individual differences. Not
everyone can be deeply hypnotised ; with not a few
the inhibition does not go further than the in-
ability to open the eyes, while only one of
[210]

HYPNOTISM AND CRIME
four enters into strong hypnotic hallucinations.
Further, not everyone is weU prepared to awake
that confidence which is essential and that feeling
of repose which guides one over to the dreamy
state ; the look, the voice, the gestures, the phrases,
the behaviour of certain persons make them poor
hypnotisers, however well they may understand the
tricks. But in principle everyone can hypnotise
and can be hypnotised, just as in principle every-
one can love and can be loved and no especial mys-
terious power is needed to fall in love or to awake
love.

Yet, while thus everyone can exert hypnotic in-
fluence, no one can do it by a mere glance. AH the
stories of a secret influence by which one man's
will gets hold of another man's mind are re-
mainders of the mesmeric theories of the past. We
know to-day that everything depends upon the at-
tention and imagination of the hypnotised and
that no mysterious fluid can flow over. This mys-
tical view of unscientific superstition reached its
climax in the prevalent belief that a man can exert
such a secret influence from a far distance, with-
out the victim's knowledge of the source of the
[211]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
uncanny distortion of his mind. Thus every
heinous crime can be committed under that cover.
The distant hypnotiser can inflict pain and suf-
fering on his enemy and can misuse the innocent
as instrument of his criminal schemes. .

Such a reappearance of the old witchcraft
superstitions is especially characteristic for the
borderland cases between normal and abnormal
minds. An unsound intellect easily interprets the
stray impulses of the mind as the intrusion of a
distant adversary. In Germany, for instance, a
talented writer bombarded the legislatures with
his pamphlets demanding new laws for the pim-
ishment of those who produced criminal perver-
sions through telepathic influence. The asylums
are full of such ideas. The paranoiacs are always
inclined to explain their inner disturbances by the
newest startling agencies. Their mind is disturbed
by Roentgen rays or wireless telegraphy or hyp-
notic influence from a distance. In this country
such accusations have become familiar to the stu-
dents of Christian Science. In " Science and
Health " Mrs. Eddy wrote, " In coming years the
person or mind that hates his neighbour will have
[212]

HYPNOTISM AND CRIME
no need to traverse his fields, to destroy his flocks
and herds . . . for the evil mind will do this
through mesmerism; and not in propria persona
be seen committing the deed." And again, " Mes-
merism is practised both with and without manipu-
lation; but the evil deed without a sign is also
done by the manipulator and mental mal-practi-
tioner. The secret mental assassin stalks abroad
and needs to be branded to be known in what he is
doing." Or, " That malicious animal-power seeks
to kin his fellow mortals, morally and physi-
cally, and then to charge the innocent with his
crimes."

There ought to be no compromise : that morally
ruinous doctrine of " Malicious Animal Magnet-
ism " is a complete distortion of the facts. Noth-
ing of that kind is ever possible. Some agree that
if the surprising facts of hypnotism are possible,
such telepathic mesmerism might be possible too,
as the influence looks similar. We might just as
well propose : if the surprising fact is true that a
lien can be hatched from a hen's egg, it may also
be true that a hen can come from a white candy
egg, as they look alike. It is exactly the essentials
[213]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
of hypnotism and telepathy which are dissimilar
and not to be compared : the latter would be a mys-
tery, the former is no harder to explain than any
act of sense impression and attention.

Of course, there is no reason to deny that a
person may fall into hypnotic state while the hyp-
notiser is at another place. The only condition is,
that he must have been hypnotised by him before
and that his own imagination has been captured
by the thought of the absent hypnotiser. I my-
self have repeatedly hypnotised by telephone or
even by mail. I treated, for instance, a morphin-
ist who at first came daily to my laboratory to be
hypnotised ; later it was sufficient to tell him over
the telephone: Take your watch out, in two min-
utes you will fall asleep; or to write to him: As
soon as you have read this note, you will be in
the hypnotic state. I thus had the " malicious '*
influence over a distance, but it was not by will
power, it was the power of his own imagination;
at the time when he read my note in his , suburb
and fell asleep, I was not thinking of him at all.
As a matter of course, such influences by cor-
respondence would have been impossible had not
[214]

HYPNOTISM AND CRIME
repeated hypnotisation in personal contact pre-
ceded. Even that may not be necessary if not com-
plete hypnotisation but only suggestive influence
is in question. A few days ago I got a letter from
a Southern lady whose son suffers from morphin-
ism. I have never seen either of them. She writes :
" My son has been impressed with the belief that
your treatment is all he needs to be cured. In a
dream, he said, you stood before him with the
finger-tips of your hands trembling and said: i
have the power to influence your will. He woke
repeating: You have the power to control my
will. That morning he seenjed to forget to take
the morphine at the regular time and soon went
down to the beach without his morphine outfit in
his pocket — an unusual thing," and so forth.
He himself was convinced that my will power was
working on him while I did not even know him.

The chief factor is confidence. Anyone who saw
the hypnotic effects, when the greatest master of
hypnotism. Professor Bernheim of Nancy, in
France, went from bed to bed in the clinics sim-
ply saying: Sleep, sleep, felt that indeed no one
else could have attained that influence. But not
[215]

ON THE WITNESS STAl^D
because he had a special power: the chief point
was that the whole population about Nancy went
to him with an exaggerated tension of expectancy
and confidence. I remember the case of a suffering
woman whom I tried at first in vain to hypnotise ;
I felt that her mind was full of antagonism. I
slowly found out what troubled her. She had seen
so many physicians who had sent her high bills
that she was afraid doctors humbug nervous pa-
tients for money. I told her that I, as a psychol-
ogist, do such work only in the interest of science,
and that I, therefore, as a matter of course, have
never accepted a cent from any patient anywhere.
Two minutes later she was in deep hypnotic sleep.
The attention and emotion of the subject is
thus much more important than the power of the
hypnotiser. Yet, this does not exclude the possi-
bility that attention and emotion may be stirred
up intentionally, perhaps even maliciously, with-
out conscious knowledge of the victim. There is
no especial power which produces love, and yet the
coquettish smile of a wilful girl may perturb the
peace of any man. In this way a hypn,otiser may
not wait till the subject lies down with the con-
[216]

HYPNOTISM AND CRIME
scious expectation of being hypnotised, but may
work slowly and systematically by means of a
hundred little tricks on the imagination of a sus-
ceptible person. While both the hypnotic eye
which fascinjites at the first glance and the ma-
licious magnetism from a distance are absurd in-
ventions, such slow and persistent gaining of
power over an unresisting mind is certainly possi-
ble. A full hypnotic state cannot be reached in
such a way ; it shades oflF into the states of sub-
mission which belong to our normal social life;
there is increased suggestibility in love and fear,
in the pupil's feeling towards the teacher and the
patient's feeling towards the physician— nowhere
a sharp demarcation line between these most valu-
able influences of social authority and the ab-
normal suggestions which have their climax in
the complete hypnotic state. Such semi-hypnotic
state can work, of course, also for good, but the
dangers of its misuse are evident.

I remember the tragic case of a young Western

woman who seems to have lived for years such a

depersonalised social life. She had gone through

college and graduate university work and every

[217]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
one of her instructors and comrades was charmed
with the lovely girl; but her finest gifts showed
themselves in her delightful family life. Her aged
mother and her sisters were her only thoughts.
The family made the acquaintance of an Italian
who posed as a rich Italian count. He was without
means, without education, disreputable and man-
nerless, from the lowest level. The girl was dis-
gusted with him, but he managed to see her often.
She felt with aversion how his influence grew on
her; she felt a shiver when he looked at her, and
yet an uncanny sensation crept over her, a
strange fascination which she could not overcome ;
she had to do what he asked and finally what he
ordered her to do. She despised him, and yet one
day they secretly left the house and were married.
At once he took possession of the young woman's
considerable property. But It was not only that
she gave him all ; under his control she began ab-
surd lawsuits to deprive the family of all they
owned; she swore on the witness stand in court to
the most cruel accusations and attacks against her
mother, who had never wavered in her devoted love
for her daughter, and everyone who knew her be-
[218]

HYPNOTISM AND CRIME
fore felt from her expression and her voice that
she was not herself any more, but that she was the
passive instrument of an unscrupulous schemer.
Her own mother said: " Sometimes, for a few
minutes, I seemed to get near her — ^then she would
seem gone, miles and miles away. There are no
words to describe the horror of it." And the sister
wrote : " I should go crazy if I saw her often."
And such a weird spectacle of an elusive mind,
which is the old personality and yet not the old
self, is not quite rare in our court rooms. It is
a hypnotic state which is pregnant with social
dangers, but certainly, as said before, there is no
fear that it can be brought about suddenly or
from a distance; it needs persistent influence,
works probably only on neurotic persons with a
special disposition for mental inhibitions, and
never reaches complete hypnotism.

How far now does the full hypnotic state itself
fall within the realm of criminal action? One
aspect offers itself at once : the hypnotised person
may become the powerless instrument of the crim-
inal will of the hypnotiser. He may press the trig-
ger of the gun, may mix the poison into the food,
[219]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
may steal and forge, and yet the real responsible
actor is not the one who commits the crime but
the other one who is protected and who directed
the deed by hypnotic suggestion. All that has
been demonstrated by experiments a hundred
times. I perhaps tell the hypnotised man that he is
to give poison to the visitor whom I shall call from
the next room. I have a sugar powder prepared
and assure my man that the powder is arsenic. I
throw it into a glass of water before his eyes and
then I caU the friend from the next room. The
hypnotised subject takes the glass and offers it to
the newcomer; you see how he hesitates and per-
haps trembles, but finally he overcomes his re-
sistance and offers the sugar water which he must
take for poison. The possibilities of such secret
crimes seem to grow, moreover, in an almost un-
limited way through the so-called posthypnotic
suggestions. The opportunity to perform unwill-
ingly a crime in the hypnotic sleep itself is in
practical life, of course, small and exceptional.
But the hypnotiser can give the order to carry out
the act at a later time, a few hours or a few days
after awaking.

[220]

HYPNOTISM AND CRIME
Every experimenter knows that he can make the
subject go through a foolish performance long
after the hypnosis ended. Go this afternoon at
four to your friend, stand before him on one leg
and repeat the alphabet. Such a silly order will
be carried out to the letter, and only the theoretical
question is open, whether the act is done in spite
of full consciousness, or whether the subject falls
again under the influence of his own imagination
at the suggested time into a half hypnotic state.
Certainly he does not know before four o'clock
that he is expected to do the act, and when the
clock strikes four he feels an instinctive desire to
run to the house of his friend and to behave as
demanded. He will even do it with the feeling of
freedom and will associate in his own mind illogical
motives to explain to his own satisfaction his per-
verse desires. He wants to recite the alphabet to
his friend because his friend once made a mistake
in spelling. Might he not just as well run to his
friend's house and shoot him down if a criminal
hypnotiser afflicted him with such a murderous
suggestion? He would again believe himself to act
in freedom and would invent a motive. The situa-
[ 221 J

ON THE WITNESS STAND
tion becomes the more gruesome, as the criminal
would have only half done his work in omitting to
add the further suggestion that no one else would
ever be able to hypnotise him again and that he
would entirely forget that he was ever hypnotised.
Experiment proves that all this is entirely possible,
and that posthypnotic suggestion thus plays in
literature a convenient role of secret agency for
atrocious murder as well as for Trilby's wonder-
ful singing.

In contradiction to all this I have to confess : I
have my doubts as to the purity of Trilby's hyp-
notic singing, and I have more than doubts — ^yes,
I feel practically sure that no real murder has
ever been committed by an innocent man under the
influence of posthypnotic suggestion. It is true, I
have seen men killing with paper daggers and
poisoning with white flour and shooting with
empty revolvers in the libraries of nerve specialists
or in laboratory rooms with doctors sitting by and
watching the performance. But I have never be-
come convinced that there did not remain a back-
ground idea of artificiality in the mind of the hyp-
notised, and that this idea overcame the resistance
[222]

HYPNOTISM AND CRIME
which would be prohibitive in actual life. To bring
an absolute proof of this conviction is hardly pos-
sible, as we cannot really kill for experiment's
sake.

There remains, of course, also the possible
claim that the courts have condemned men for
murder for which they were passive instruments.
Yet, it is a fact that so far no murder case is
known in which the not unusual theory of the
hypnotic influence seemed probable after all evi-
dence was in. I have repeatedly received inquiries
from lawyers asking whether there would be any
basis to stand on if the defence were to claim that
the crime was done in a hypnotic or posthypnotic
state. I have replied every time that, in spite of
the many experiments which seem to prove the
contrary, it can be said that hypnotic suggestion
is unable to break down the inner resistance.
There is therefore no danger to be feared from
this side. The frequent claim of defendants that
they must have been hypnotised is, nevertheless,
mostly no conscious invention. It is rather the
outcome of the fact that the criminal . impulse
comes to the unbalanced diseased mind often like
[223]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
a foreign intruder; it takes hold of the person-
ality without free choice of motives, and the un-
fortunate sufferer thus interprets quite sincerely
his unaccountable perversions as the result of
strange outside influences.

But there is another side, and it would be reck-
less to overlook the dliference. You cannot make
an honest man steal and kill, but you can make him
perform many other actions which are not immoral
as far as the action is concerned and which yet
have criminal character. The scoundrel perhaps
gives the posthypnotic suggestion that his sub-
ject, a man of independent means and without
immediate relatives, call at a lawyer's and deposit
with him a last will leaving all his property to the
hypnotiser. Here no resistance from moral prin-
ciple is involved ; the man who throws away all he
owns acts in accordance with the order because
the impulse is not checked by the habits of a
trained conscience. We can add one more step
which is entirely possible: the hypnotiser may see
a further opportunity to give the posthypnotic
suggestion of suicide. The next day the victim is
found dead in his room ; everything indicates that
[224]

HYPNOTISM AND CRIME
he took his own life; there is not the least sus-
picion: and the hypnotiser is his heir in conse-
quence of the spurious last will. Similar cases are
reported, and they are not improbable. The easi-
ness with which any hypnotiser can cover the
traces of his crime by special suggestions makes
the situation the more dangerous.

In this group belong also the posthypnotic per-
juries. Of course, if the man on the witness stand
knew that he swore falsely, his moral convictions
would rebel as in the case of the theft and murder.
But he believes what he swears ; on his side there is
no crime, but merely confusion of ideas and falsi-
fied memory ; the crime belongs entirely to the one
who fabricated the artificial delusion.

In many of these cases the hypnotised subject is
the sufferer while he himself is acting; they are
not seldom supplemented by crimes in which the
subject is a passive sufferer. The French litera-
ture of hypnotism is full of cases in which hyp-
notised women have been the victims of sexual
crime. No warning can be loud enough, indeed,
against hypnotising by anyone but reliable doc-
tors of medicine. Other cases refer to simple
[225]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
fraud. The posthypnotic suggestion may force
one man to pay the price of real pearls for glass
pearls and may induce another man to buy a
house which is useless for him. The physician who
is a trained psychologist will have no difficulty in
assisting the court in all such situations and in
making the right diagnosis; on the other hand,
without thorough experience in scientific psychol-
ogy, no one will be able to disentangle such cases,
be he physician or not. The hypnotiser may have
suggested complete forgetfulness and may have
prohibited any new hypnotisation, but there al-
ways remains somewhere a little opening where the
psychologist can insert a wedge and finally break
open the whole mental structure. It may be added
at once that the psychologist has also no difficulty
in recognising any simulation of hypnotic states.
There remains still one important relation be-
tween hypnotism and crime: hypnotisation may
prevent crime. The moral interest we take in the
suppression of criminal impulses makes us inclined
to see a sharp demarcation line between these
socially destructive tendencies and other impulses
which are morally indiflPerent. Psychologically we
[226]

HYPNOTISM AND CRIME
cannot acknowledge such a distinct line between
them. The craving for an immoral and illegal end
may take possession of a weak nervous system in
the same way in which any neurasthenic impulse
becomes rooted, and it seems therefore not unjusti-
fied to hope for such a criminal disposition the
same relief by hypnotic treatment as for the neu-
rasthenic disturbance.

Last year I was approached within the same
week by two young people who complained in al-
most identical terms that they could not master
their ideas and desires. The one suffered from the
idea that he wanted to kill certain persons ; when-
ever he saw them he felt the impulse to knock them
down. The other suffered from the idea that she
wanted to look altematingly from one eye to the
other of any person with whom she talked. The
impulse to kiU was possibly of the greatest conse-
quence, the impulse to look from eye to eye was
evidently the most indifferent affair. And yet the
second person was the greater sufferer. She had
once by chance observed in a man's face a strik-
ing difference in colour between his two eyes, and
that led her to look altematingly to the one and
[227]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
the other eye. It became a habit which grew
stronger than her will and, when she came to me,
it had reached a point where she thought of suicide
because life had become intolerable from this in-
cessant impulse to swing from eye to eye. I treated
the dangerous killing impulse and the harmless
swinging impulse exactly alike, by inhibitory sug-
gestions, and they disappeared under the hypnotic
treatment in exactly the same time.

But it is evident that the criminal impulses can-
not be simply treated as an appendix to the neu-
rasthenic states. Most complex and partly moral
questions are involved therein. Have we a right to
reinforce righteousness by hypnotic instead of by
an appeal to spiritual energies? If we cure the
depraved boy of his stealing habit by hypnotism,
would it not be the simple logical consequence
that his whole education and training ought to
be left to such a safe and forceful influence?
And that opens the widest perspective of social
problems. It leads us to a new and separate ques-
tion: What can the modem psychologist con-
tribute to the prevention and suppression of
crime?

[228]

THE PREVENTION OF CRIME

THE, PREVENTION OF CRIME

A FEW weeks ago there stumbled into my labora-
tory a most pitiable human wreck; I saw at the
first glance how morphine had devastated the
frame of a man in his best years, and trembling
and with rolling eyes he confessed that he was
using thirty grains of the destructive poison every
day. He could neither eat nor sleep, he had not
worked for years, he had left wife and child, —
it was a gruesome story of heartrending misery.
They had sent him to asylums in vain ; he remained
the slave of his passion, and "everyone treated him
with contempt and disgust. Slowly I drew out his
whole tragedy from the beginning. He had been
successful in life and hard at work; then he had
had an accident and had been brought into a
Southern hospital. There the surgeons gave him
morphine every evening to secure a restful night,
just a little " shot " of an eighth of a grain. When
he left the hospital his hip was healed, but the
poor fellow could not sleep without the drug, and
[231]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
from day to day the dose had to be increased — ^he
was a morphinist, an outcast, without energy and
without hope.

For weeks I have been fighting his passion with
persistent suggestive treatment, and the dose he
needs has now been reduced to the hundredth
part, and his old strength and enjoyment of life
have slowly come back; he wiU be cured soon.
But every day when I put my full energy to the
task, I have to think of the cruelty with which so-
ciety has treated him. He was not born a " dope
fiend " ; he did not choose the poison. Organised so-
ciety injected it into his system — a small dose only,
but enough to make the craving for it irresistible,
and when it had grown to ruinous proportions so-
ciety was ready to despise and to condemn him.
Even in the best case it could only make heroic ef-
forts to overcome the gigantic passion which it had
recklessly raised. To me this diseased passion is a
symbol of all the crime that fills the countries of
the globe. No man is born a criminal. But society
gives him without his will the ruinous injection —
of course, a small dose only, a shot of an eighth
of a grain, and despises him if the injected in-
[232]

THE PREVENTION OF CRIME
stinct grows and grows, and when it has destroyed
the whole man, then society goes heroically to
work with police and court and punishment. It
is nearly always too late — to prevent that first
reckless injection would have been better than all
the labour of the penitentiaries.

At last this conviction is making its way every-
where : prevention of crime is more important than
treatment of crime. It is claimed that this country
spends annually five hundred million dollars more
on fighting the existing crime than on all its works
of charity, education and religion; the feeling is
at last growing that a fraction of that expense
and energy would be ample for providing that
such a quantity of habitual crime should not come
to existence at all. For such a result, however, it
is essential that all social factors cooperate in
harmony and that no science which may contribute
to this tremendous problem hold back. It is evi-
dent that it is the duty of modern experimental
psychology to give its serious attention to such
thoughts, and a psychologist may therefore ask
for a hearing. He has perhaps little to con-
tribute, as only in very recent days has the psy-
L233]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
chological laboratory come into connection with
the world of crime, but that little is the more
needed to awake interest for this too much neg-
lected aspect of the case.

Public opinion, to be sure, to-day leans toward
calling the psychologist as witness for a very dif-
ferent purpose. The psychologist is to disburden
society of its responsibility for the growth of
crime, inasmuch as he is called to testify that the
criminal is born as such. Reminiscences of Lom-
broso's interesting theories and of his whole school
fill the air. It seems a dogma that the true scientist
must accept the type of the born criminal along
with other human abnormalities which are beyond
our social making and unmaking, like the epileptic,
or, on the sunny side of society, the musical genius.
But in such a form the doctrine is certainly mis-
leading and distorted, and the psychologist must
refuse to furnish evidence. No one will deny the
importance of those Italian inquiries which were
quickly amplified by the researchers of all coun-
tries. It was of the highest value to study the
bodily and mental characteristics of the inmates
of our prisons, to gather anthropological and
[ 234 ]

THE PREVENTION OF CRIME
sociological data of their misshapen ears or pal-
ates, of their tattooing and their slang, and
finally to make psychological experiments as to
their sensitiveness and their emotions. But no re-
sult justifies the claim that criminals are born as
such. The accusation against society stands after
Lombroso firmer than before ; society has not done
its duty.

From the outset we must not forget that from
a psychological point of view it is utterly vague
to speak of a criminal disposition as if such a term
stood for a unified mental state. In the old days
of reckless phrenology it seemed so simple to talk
of the sense for architecture or the sense for
morality, and in the same way of the absence of
such sense, as if really one, elementary function
only were involved. All that was necessary for
the old phrenologist, because it was his belief
that he was able to recognise the development of
mental functions like love of music or criminality
from the development of certain bumps on the
skull; and for that purpose it was again neces-
sary to presuppose that such mental traits were
located in one single corner of the brain.
[235]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
To-day we know that such faculties are the out-
come of hundreds of thousands of processes which
are going on in perhaps milhons of brain parts.
We may seek the localised seat for simple tone
sensations or simple colour sensations, but not for
a whole perception of a thing, and infinitely less
for such complex states, built up from ideas, emo-
tions, and volitions.

How does the average man succeed in living an
honest life? Impressions and thoughts carry to
his mind numberless ideas which awake feelings of
pleasure and displeasure. The pleasurable idea
stirs up the desire and the impulse to realise it in
action, and the disagreeable idea awakes the im-
pulse to get rid of the displeasing source. There
is no further will act necessary; the idea of the
end itself presses the brain button and makes us
act. We approach the attractive and escape the
painful by the mere power of the ideas ; the whole
development of life from the first sucking for
sweet milk is possible only through this mechanism.
But from the beginning life complicates this pro-
cess. The tempting idea of the end to be reached
awakes, before the action sets in, some counter
[236]

THE PREVENTION OP CRIME
idea, perhaps the thought of dangerous results ;
we desire the fruit, but we know it is poisonous, and
the idea of poisoning works in the opposite direc-
tion. The attractive impression gives the impulse
to extend the arm, and the thought of danger
gives the counter impulse to withdraw the arm.
The one tends to inhibit the other ; the more vivid
idea overpowers the weaker one ; we do not grasp
for the poisonous fruit, because the danger holds
us back.

Such counter idea, which associates itself with
the idea of the end, may be of social character;
the expectation of punishment or of contempt
may work as such a check, and yet the mechan-
ism of the process is just the same. It is again
a balancing of opposing forces. And finally, in-
stead of such social ideas, there may stand on
the other side a religious habit or an ethical ideal
which may become effective where no social fear
is involved, but the principle remains always the
same: the struggle of ideas controls the resulting
action. There is no good or bad, wise or foolish
actor behind those ideas to pick out the favoured
one, but the ideas in their varieties of vividness
[2S7]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
and feeling-tone with their attached impulses are
themselves the working of the personality, and
their striving determines the result. A life may be
honest, or at least decent, if the tempting ideas of
socially forbidden ends are inhibited and over-
powered by opposing considerations, ideas of pun-
ishment and harm, or of religious fear. On a
higher level we may demand that it shall be the
idea of moral dignity which checks the forbidden
impulse. But the essential point remains that the
non-criminal, the correct life, is always the result
of a complex interplay between ideas and counter
ideas with the result that the thought of some un-
pleasant consequence inhibits the desire. The
mechanism of the process is therefore not differ-
ent from the case where the idea of bodily harm
prevents us from doing a reckless or dangerous
thing. And in this way the psychologist cannot
acknowledge a special function of non-criminal
behaviour; it overlaps and practically coincides
with the reasonable, cautious way of living in
every other respect. By the smallest possible
steps every man's adjustment to his environment
leads from the avoidance of bodily risks to the
• [238 J

THE PREVENTION OF CRIME
avoidance of social risks, and thus to non-crimi-
nal habits. There Is nowhere a sharp demarcation
line. The one who is instinctively overmuch afraid
of being found out in wrong-doing will live a
faultless life from the standpoint of law; just as
truly as his neighbour who obeys the laws from
a moral conviction. It is impossible to bring crim-
inality, from a psychological viewpoint, down to
one formula.

The normal decent life thus demands that an
idea which by its feeling tone stimulates to a for-
bidden action shall awake, at the same time, the
counter ideas which stimulate to the inhibition of
the action, and that these opposing ideas shall re-
main victorious. It is evident that crime may thus
result from most different reasons. Those social
counter ideas may not have been learned, or they
may not come quickly enough to consciousness, or
they may be too faint, or, on the other hand, the
original ideas with their desires may be too intense,
or their emotions may be too vehement, or the
mechanism of inhibition may not be working
normally — in short, a defect or an abnormality in
any part of the complex process may lead to a con-
[2391

ON THE WITNESS STAND
flict with the law. And yet how different the mind
in which the impulses are too strong from that in
which the opposing ideas are too faint and that in
which the inhibition does not work precisely. And
where is to be the point at which the defect be-
comes abnormal? The temperament with strong
impulses may remain still quite well behaved if the
checking ideas are unusually strong too, and the
faint checks may be harmless if the desires are
still weaker.

Moreover, it is clear that none of these defects
works in the direction of crime alone. The brain
in which such counter ideas are too slowly asso-
ciated has no special trouble in the line of legal
consequence alone; it is a general deficiency; all
the ideas come slowly, the mental vision is nar-
row ; the man is stupid and mentally lazy. On the
other hand, the brain in which the opposing ideas
are unable to produce inhibition must do the reck-
less thing everywhere: he runs risks and does not
care. And the brain in which the impulses are
overstrong will again show its emotional lack of
balance in every field. In short, there are minds
which are born slow or stupid or brutal or
[240]

THE PREVENTION OF CRIME
excitable or lazy or quaint or reckless or
duU — ^and in every one of such minds a certain
chance for crime is given^ But to be born with a
mind .which by its special stupidity or carelessness
or vehemence gives to crime an easier foothold
than the average mind certainly does not mean to
be a born criminal. The world is full of badly
balanced or badly associating persons ; we cannot
deny that nature provided them poorly in the
struggle for social existence; they are less fit
than others, but their ending within prison walls
is only one of the many dangers which hfe has in
store for them ; the same unfit apparatus may make
them unable to gain a position or to have friends
or to protect themselves against disease. In short,
it is not criminals that are " bom," but men with
poorly working minds. And yet who will say where
a mind is just of the right kind? No brain works
perfectly — ^what intelligence and what tempera-
ment would be ideal? " All the world is peculiar."
It is thus only a question of relative amount.

Just this, indeed, is the situation which the psy-
chologist finds. Of course, if we turn to the pro-
fessional criminal who has become a specialist at
[241 ]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
safe-blowing or at sneak-thieving or at check-
forging or burglary, and who has been shaped by
long years in the penitentiaries, we find specimens
of mind which are very diiFerent from the normal
average ; but those are the differences of training.
They have become indeed almost unable to avoid
crimes ; they have to go on in their career, but it
was not their inborn disposition that forced them
to burglary. If we abstract from the effect of
such life training in the social underworld, and
from the traces of poor education, of bad ex-
ample, of disease and neglect, we find among the
criminals the same types of mind as in other
spheres, only with a great percentage of all kinds
of mental inferiority — stupid and narrow minds,
vehement and passionate minds, minds with weak
power of comprehension and minds with ineffective
power of inhibition, minds without normal emo-
tions and minds without energy for work.

When a school for criirflnal boys was carefully

ft

examined, it was found that of the two hundred
boys one hundred and twenty-seven were deficient
in their general make-up, either in the direction
of feeble-mindedness or in the direction of hys-
[242]

THE PREVENTION OF CRIME \

teric emotion or in the direction of epileptic dis-
turbance. And fuller light is thrown on these
figures as soon as others are added; in eighty-
five cases the father or the mother, or both, were
drunkards ; in twenty-four cases, the parents were
insane ; in twenty-six cases, epileptics ; and in
twenty-six further cases, suffering from other
nervous diseases. Not the criminal tendency was
born with the poor children, but the insufficient
capacity and resistance of the central nervous
system; and this was their inheritance from ab-
normal and degenerate parents.

If we wish to express it in terms of experimental"
psychology, we may consult the careful tests which
have been made with female criminals in Southern
penitentiaries, on the one side, and female students
of a large university on the other. Certainly,
point for point the criminals show a different re-
sult. For instance, in memory tests the average
student remembered a series of seven letters or a
series of eight numerals, whUe under the same ex-
perimental conditions the average criminal re-
membered only five letters or six numerals. Or
the test for the attention to tactual impressions
[243]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
showed that the students discriminated two com-
pass points as two on the right fore-arm at a dis-
tance of sixteen millimetres, while the criminals
did not discriminate them with less than twenty-
four millimetres. If students pulled at a hook as
fast as they could, their energy would be decreased
in half a minute by 1.6 pounds, while that of the
criminals decreased by 2.4 pounds. Or if a word
was given as starting point for any associations
which might arise in consciousness, the average
number of associations in one minute was for the
students ten, for the criminals five. In short, in
every respect the average of the criminals shows
a poorer mental equipment than the average of
the picked student minds. But here again no one
feature points to a special demand for crime.
Criminals are recruited especially from the men-
tally inferior ; that is the only true core of the
doctrine of the born criminal. But the mental
inferiority — intellectual or emotional or voli-
tional — forces no one to steal and burglarise.
He cannot and will never equal the clever, well-
balanced, energetic fellow, but society may find
a modest place, humble but safe, even for the
[244]

THE PREVENTION OF CRIME
most stupid and most indifferent and most un-
energetic : no one is predestined by his brain to the
penitentiary.

It may be replied, of course, that there are
plenty of cases in which crime is committed from
an irresistible impulse or from a total lack of
inhibition or from other defects which exclude
free self-determination. But in such cases we have
clearly no longer any right to speak of crime; it
is insanity. The man who starts incendiary fires
because he has hallucinations in which he hears
God's voice ordering him to burn the town, is not
a criminal. Moreover, the pathological impulses
of the diseased mind are again not confined to the
criminal sphere ; again crime is only the chance ef-
fect; the disturbance is general. The irresistible
impulse may be just as well directed against the
man's own personality, and may lead to self -muti-
lation or to suicide. And that holds true also for
the milder degrees. Only to-day I studied the case
of a lad of eleven who was brought to xiie because
he was found stealing from time to time. He was
a dear little boy, surrounded with comfort and the
best and most loving influences. He fights
[245 ]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
and fights against his impulse and speaks of it
frankly. Sometimes it comes like an attack; he
longs for some money perhaps to buy fire-crackers
with, and he simply cannot resist till it is done,
he told me with tears, and then he hardly knows
why he did it. But it was evident at the first glance
that the boy was not normally built, and that the
attacks which led to such pseudo-crimes were
pathological, quite similar to epileptic or hysteric
fits. To prevent such explosions of the diseased
brain is not prevention of crime; but, on the one
side, treatment of disease, on the other side, pro-
tection of society against the outbreaks of dan-
gerous patients. In real crime we have to presup-
pose that the checking of the impulse by the
counter idea would have been possible if the avail-
able energy had been brought into play. Crime
is thus not a disease, and there is no need to excuse
the existence of our jails by considering them as
asylums. Every action is, of course, the necessary
result of foregoing causes, but such effect of the
causes remains a free, and therefore a responsible
action, as long as the causes work on a mechanism
which is able to secure an unhampered interplay
[246]

THE PREVENTION OF CRIME
of Influences. The insane or the hypnotised mind
has no freedom and therefore cannot commit crime,
but the merely stupid or reckless or brutal or in-
different minds are still free, while it is clear that
the probability of a disastrous result is for them
alarmingly high.

If we thus exclude the pathological mind from
further discussion, we can say that no one is born
a criminal: what, then, has society to do that no
one shall become a criminal? The latest of all sci-
ences, eugenics, might look backwards and demand
that society take care that such mentally weak
and inferior persons are not born at all. Vital sta-
tistics show indeed on some of their darkest pages
that the overwhelming majority of those degen-
erate personalities have drunkards and epileptics
as parents. But our immediate lack Is a different
one : we presuppose that the minds of the millions
in aU their variations of strong and weak, of in-
telligence and emotionality and power are bom
and sent into the streets of the cities ; what can
the psychologist advise that their way may not
lead them from the street to the cell of the prison?

But now the problem has become simplified. We
[247]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
know the mechanism which keeps men straight ; we
can foresee, therefore, what influences must be
detrimental. If the counter idea is to balance and
to overcome the first desire, we can foresee that
the chances for crime must grow if the impulses
are strengthened or if the counter ideas are weak-
ened or ehminated, or if the inhibitory apparatus
is damaged, or if in any other way the sound bal-
ance is tampered with. Here is indeed the place
for the experiment of the psychologist. He can
isolate the special factors and study their influence
under the exact conditions of the laboratory. We
may take illustrations at random.

We said that crime involves an impulse to action
which is normally to be checked. The checking
will be the more difficult the stronger the impulse.
The psychologist therefore asks: What influences
have the power to reinforce the impulse? Has, for
instance, imitation such an influence.'' Mere specu-
lation cannot answer such a question, and even so-
called practical experience may lead to very mis-
taken conclusions. But the laboratory experiment
can tell the story in distinct figures. I ask my sub-
jects, for instance, to make rhythmical finger
[248 J

THE PREVENTION OF CRIME
movements by which a weight is lifted, and the ap-
paratus in which the arm rests records exactly the
amount of every contraction. After a while the
energy seems exhausted ; my idea has no longer
the power to lift the weight more than a few milli-
metres; the recorded curve sinks nearly to zero.
I try with encouraging words or with harsh com-
mand; the motor energies of these word-stimuli
are not ineffective; the curve shows a slight up-
ward movement, but again it sinks rapidly. And
then I make the same rhythmical movement myself
before the eyes of my subject; he sees it and at
once the curve ascends with unexpected strength.
The movements have now simply to imitate the
watched ones, and this consciousness of imitation
has reinforced the energy of the impulse beyond
any point which his own will could have reached.
It is as if the imitation of the suggestive sight
suddenly brings to work all the stored-up powers.
The psychologist can vary the experiment in a
hundred forms ; always the same result, that the
impressive demonstration of an action gives to
the impulse of the imitating mind the maximum
of force — it must then be the one condition under
[249]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
which it is most difficult to inhibit the impulse.
How many helpful suggestions for the good, for
education and training and self -development can
be drawn from such facts ; but, much more, how
many warnings against the reckless fostering of
criminality ! In millions of copies the vulgar news-
paper pictures of crime reach the homes of the
suggestible masses and every impulse towards the
forbidden is dangerously reinforced. Every bru-
tality spreads outward and accentuates the lawless
impulses in the surrounding ; the abolition of prize
fights and whipping posts is not enough.

To point in another direction: everything must
be fatal for weak honesty which reduces the power
of restraint. The psychological experiment can
here analyse the influences, for instance, of our
usual stimulants — coffee and tea, tobacco and alco-
hol, drugs and nervina. Laboratory experiment
indicates perhaps only slight variations in the
rapidity of movements in the memory tests or
in the discriminations of stimuli, but every one of
those changes must be endlessly magnified if it is
projected into the dimensions of a world-city in
■ which the millions indulge in artificial excitement
[250]

THE PREVENTION OF CRIME
and stimulation. Take the well-studied case of al-
cohol. We ask, let us say, a number of normal men
to go through a series of experiments in their
ordinary state.

We may begin with a reaction time ex-
periment. That means we study how long it
takes to make the quickest possible hand-move-
ment in response to a flash-light or to a click; we
measure the time between the light or sound stim-
ulus and the reaction in thousandths of a second.
Then we vary it by a test where various movements
are to be made in response to different lights, so
that a choice and discrimination is involved. We
then turn, perhaps, to memory experiments — ^with
the learning of letters or figures or words. Next
may be an experiment in intellectual activity; we
measure the time of simple arithmetical opera-
tions. Then we study the mental associations ; for
instance, we give a list of two hundred words and
our subject has to speak for each one the first
word which flashes on his mind. We may then
study the character of these closely-bound ideas
and may group them statistically. Then we meas-
ure with a dynamometer the strength of the great-
[251]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
est possible effort for action. Next in order per-
haps we study the judgment of our subject in his
estimation of space and time distances, then the
accuracy with which he Imitates a given rhythm,
then the rapidity with which he counts the letters
of a page, then the sharpness of attention with
which he discriminates a set of short impressions,
and so on through other tests for other mental
functions. For every test we get his average fig-
ures. And then we begin the examination of the ef-
fect of the stimulants. How are all these exactly
measurable functions changed twenty minutes or
an hour or two hours after taking a dose of one
ounce or two ounces or three ounces of pure alco-
hol, whiskey, beer or champagne?

Only such a variety of tests gives the possibility
of disengaging the effect and of understanding
where the real disturbance sets in. Certain func-
tions seem certainly Improved. For instance, we
soon find that the reaction time test gives smaller
figures under alcohol, at least in a first stage ; the
subject who needs normally, say 150 thousandths
of a second to press a telegraph key after hear-
ing a click, may need only 125 thousandths of a
[252]

THE PREVENTION OP CRIME
second half an hour after his alcohol dose. But is
that really an improvement? The same records
show that while the time of the reaction decreases
there appear at the same time wrong reactions
which did not occur in his normal state ; again and
again, the key is pressed before the signal is really
heard, the impulse explodes when any chance
touches it off instead of remaining under the con-
trol of consciousness which waits for the cHck.

In the same way, it seems in the first short
period from the dynamometric tests that the alco-
hol brings an improvement of motor energy, but
half an hour later the tables are turned, the mus-
cular effectiveness is decreased. In the field of as-
sociations the time of bringing a new idea to
consciousness becomes longer, the process is re-
tarded, but, more important, the associative pro-
cess becomes more mechanical. If we call those
associations external in which an idea awakes an-
other with which it is connected in space or time,
and internal those which involve a thorough rela-
tion, a connection by meaning and purpose, we
can say that the external associations strongly
increase with alcohol and the internal ones be-
[253]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
come eliminated. Still greater are the changes
in mechanical memorising, which is at first
greatly facilitated and in calculation, which suf-
fers from the first. The strongest improvement
is shown in reading, the greatest difficulty in the
intellectual connection. And if the various threads
are connected by careful study, we get a unified
result: all motor reactions have become easier, all
acts of apperception worse, the whole ideational
interplay has suffered, the inhibitions are reduced,
the merely mechanical superficial connections con-
trol the mind, and the intellectual processes are
slow. Is it necessary to demonstrate that every
one of these changes favours crime.'' The counter
ideas awake too slowly, hasty action results from
the first impulse before it can be checked, the in-
hibition of the forbidden deed becomes ineffective,
the desire for rash vehement movements becomes
overwhelming. In such a way experimental psy-
chology can carry the vague impressions of the
bystander into a field of exact studies where mere
prejudices are not allowed to interfere, but where
real objections can be substantiated. Moreover,
the general statements can be particularised by
[254 J

THE PREVENTION OF CRIME
subtler examinations still: how does alcohol work
in different climates, at different seasons, at dif-
ferent hours of the day, in work and in fatigue,
in different states of health, with food and with-
out, for different ages, different sexes, different
races, and how is the effect of pure alcohol related
to that of the various beverages, to whiskey and
beer and wine? Only if we can differentiate the
mental influences through such experimental tests
can we secure a rational protection against one of
the most persistent sources of social evils.

With the same methods we might study tobacco
and coffee and tea, bromides and morphine, but
also the effects of physical or mental overstrain, of
bad air and bad light, of irrational nourishment
and insufficient sleep, of exhaustive sports and
emotional exertions, and a hundred other factors
which enter into the daily life of the masses. On
such an experimental basis only can we hope for
regulation and improvement; a sweeping pro-
scription, of course, might be reached without
laboratory studies : simply to forbid everything is
easy, but such radicalism is practically impossible
as far as the evidence of fatigue or poverty is con-
[255]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
cerned, and perhaps possible but unwise as far
as the stimulants are in question. The psycholog-
ical experiment must show the middle way which
shall close the fountains of evil and yet keep open
the sources of good.

Mere abstinence from stimulants, indeed, is no
real solution of the problem ; it is just the psychol-
ogist who knows too well the evil effects of monot-
ony and emptiness ; who understands that the crav-
ing for stimulants and artificial excitement be-
longs to the deepest conditions of our physical
existence, and that the complete suppression of it
leads to mental explosions which bring man again
to disastrous impulses and crime. The laboratory
experiment can demonstrate in turn how the psy-
chological conditions are changed when such a
dreary state of waiting and monotony lays hold
on the mind; how certain mental functions are
starving and others dangerously overwrought. A
state of dulness and expectant attention is created
in which the longing for contrast may intensify
the desires to a point where the reaction is more
vehement than under any stimulant. That is the
state which, projected into the masses, may lead
[256]

THE PREVENTION OP CRIME
to gambling and perversity, and on to irrational
crimes, which through thef mere excitement' of the
imagination overcome the emptiness of an unstim-
ulated life. '

Or the experiment may undertake to ex-
amine the subtler mechanism of mental inhibition:
how far does the suppression and inhibition of the
motor impulse depend on the intensity of the
counter stimulus and how far on habit — that is, on
unbroken repetition? How is it altered by inter-
ruption of training or by the feeling-tone of the
ideas'? Simple measurement of reaction times may
be again the method, varied by the Introduction of
warning signals which are to counterbalance the
stimulus. Yet the short schematic experiments of
the psychologist's workshop illustrate clearly how
and why a public state of lawless corruption and
general disrespect of law must undermine the In-
hibitory effects of the law and thus bring crime to
a rich harvest. That is just the wonderful power
of the psychological experiment, that it can ana-
lyse the largest social movements In the smallest
and most schematic miniature copies of the mental
forces Involved, and from the subtle analysis is
[ 257 ]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
only one step to the elimination of dangers. What
the commercialism of our time or the vices of the
street, the recklessness of the masses and the vul-
garity of the newspapers, the frivolity of the
stage and the excitement of the gambling hells
may mean for the weak individual cannot be better
understood than through the microscopical model
of it in the experimental test which allows subtle
variations.

The psychologist wiU thus certainly not believe
that all or most is done for the prevention of
crime by mere threatening with punishment. The
question, in this connection, is not whether the pun-
ishment satisfies our demand for retaliation or
whether the punishment helps indirectly towards
prevention by educating and reforming the man
behind whom the doors of the penitentiary are
closed. The question is now only whether the fear
of a future judicial punishment will be a sufficient
counter idea to check the criminal impulse. The
psychologist cannot forget that too many condi-
tions must frustrate such expectations. The hope
of escaping justice in the concrete case will easily
have a stronger feeling tone than the opposing
[258]

THE PREVENTION OF CRIME
fear of the abstract general law. The strength of
the forbidden desire will narrow the circle of asso-
ciations and eliminate the idea of the probable
consequences. The stupid mind will not link the
correct expectations, the slow mind will bring the
check too late when the deed is done, the vehement
mind will overrule the energies of inhibition, the
emotional mind will be more moved by the antici-
pated immediate pleasure than by the thought of a
later suffering. And all this will be reinforced if
overstrain has destroyed the nervous balance or if
stimulants have smoothed the path of motor dis-
charge. If the severity of cruel punishments has
brutalised the mind, the threat will be as ineffective
as if the mildness of the punishment had reduced
its pain. And, worst of all, this fear will be ruled
out if the mind develops in an atmosphere of crime
where the child hears of the criminal as hero and
looks at jail as an ordinary affair, troublesome
only as most factors in his slum life are trouble-
some; or if the anarchy of corruption or class
justice, of reckless legislation or public indiffer-
ence to law defeats the inhibiting counter idea of
punishment and deprives it of its emotional
[259]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
strength. The system of punishment will be the
more disappointing the more mechanical it is in
its application. The plan of probation thus means
a real progress.

More important than the motives of fear are
the influences which can shape the minds of the
tempted, the influences which reduce the emotional
and motor powers of forbidden desires, awake
regularly and strongly the social counter ideas,
strengtheil their inhibiting influence, and weaken
thus the primary impulse. It must be said again:
criminals are not born, but made — ^not even self-
made, but fellow-made. Society must work nega-
tively to remove those influences which work in the
opposite direction. The atmosphere of criminality,
the vulgarity and brutality, the meanness and friv-
olity of the surroundings must be removed from
the mind in its development. And if the social
contrasts are necessary for much of the good, at
least the vulgar esteem of mere riches and the
pitiless contempt for misery can be eliminated.
Above all, a well-behaved mind grows only in a
well-treated body; true, far-seeing hygiene can
prevent more crime than any law. But it is not
[ 260 ]

THE PREVENTION OP CRIME
only a question of the favourite work of our
hygienists, the infectious and germ diseases, to-
gether with the sanitary conditions of factories
and tenements. Hygiene has to take no less care
of the overworked or wrongly treated senses and
nerve systems from the schoolroom to the stock
exchange ; there is no gain if we avoid typhoid
epidemics but fall into epidemics of insanity. The
whole rhythm of life breaks down the instruments
of nervous resistance, and the most immediate
symptom Is necessarily the growth of crime. It
is not the impulse itself, but the inability to resist
the impulse that Is the real criminal feature. The
banker who speculates with the funds of his bank
is not a criminal because such an idea arises in
his consciousness, but because his idea is not in-
hibited by the counter ideas, and yet the whole
community has pushed to break down the bar-
riers which his mind could have put ;into the
motor path of the ruinous impulse.

Of course, the negative precautions must be

supplemented by the positive ones. Hygiene has

not only to destroy the unclean, but to build up

the clean. And for mental hygiene this holds

[261 ]

ON THE WITNESS STAND
still more strongly. To create a public life which
is an example and an inspiration to the humblest,
which fills with civic pride the lowest, — ^means
to abolish the penitentiaries. The public welfare
must give to everybody through work, through
politics, through education, through art, through
religion, a kind of life interest and life content
in which envy is meaningless. It is from this realm
that the counter ideas must be reinforced that
automatically check the impulse to the immoral
deed. But no public scheme can make superfluous
those clearest sources of pure life, the motives of
private personal interest between human being and
human being. Everything which strengthens fam-
ily life and works against its dissolution, every-
thing which gives the touch of personal sympathy
to the forlorn, helps towards the prevention of
crime. How often can a criminal life be funda-
mentally changed as soon as the absurd prejudice
is given up that every criminal is a different kind
of man from those outside of jail, and straight-
forward sympathy instead of mere charitable pity
is offered. To make them feel that they are recog-
nised as equals means to win them over to decency.
[262]

THE PREVENTION OF CRIME
And those who analyse them psychologically know
Well that there is really no condescension necessary
for such acknowledgment. They are the equals
of the unpunished; they are stupid or lazy or
vehement or reckless or uneducated or unemotional
or egotistic, but all that we find on this side of the
legal demarcation line as well. We are accustomed
to bow to the stupid and lazy and reckless and
egotistic, in case that life has brought them
under conditions where a sufficient balance was
secured; they are not different in their inmost
selves, even if surroundings, bad example, over-
whelming temptation, the saloon, the cruelty of
misfortune has once in a hasty hour destroyed that
balance.

There lies finally the deep importance of a full
confession. The man who confesses puts himself
again on an equal ground with the honest major-
ity; he belongs again to those who want both
health and justice; he gives up his identity with
the criminal and eliminates the crime like a foreign
body from his life. A true confession wins the
bedrock of life again and is the safest prevention
of further crime. The psychologist — I say it with
L263J

ON THE WITNESS STAND
hesitation, as my observations on that point may
not yet be complete enough, and the subject Is an
entirely new one — ^may even be able to find out by
his experiments whether a true confession is prob-
able or not. After all, the actions of every man
strive for satisfaction, and there cannot be satis-
faction without unity. He who lives in the present
only gains such satisfaction from the immediate
experience; the pleasure and enjoyment of the
present hour is the end of his consciousness and
absorbs him so fully that complete unity of mind
is reached. Another type rushes forward, the mind
directed toward the future; the suffering of the
hour is overborne by the hope of the coming
success, and present and future complete for him
the unity of life. Both those who turn to the
present and to the future cannot have a desire for
true liberating confession. But It Is different with
those who have a vivid memory and whose mind is
thus ever turning back to the past. There is the
unending conflict between their memories which
belong to the life of purity, to childhood and
parents' love, to religion and friendship, and the
present sorrow and anxiety ; the craving for unity
[ 264 ]

THE PREVENTION OF CRIME
must end this struggle ; a confession connects the
present with the past again and throws out the
interfering intrusion of shame. If the experiment
of the psychologist demonstrates the possession
of a vivid living memory, the chances are strong
that a confession is to be trusted. The criminal
deed is thus almost a split-off consciousness, a
part of a dissociated personality, and through
the confession it is cut off absolutely. On the other
hand, if it is too late, if the split-off part has
grown to be the stronger and has finally become
the real self, then it is nearly always too late
for prevention by social hygiene; the criminal
who has become a professional is nearly always
lost, and society has only to ^consider how to pro-
tect itself against the damage he is effecting. He
must be separated from the commonwealth just as
the insane must be removed from the market places
of life. Short punishment for the professional
criminal is useless and harmful in every respect.
But his career is a terrible warning against delay-
ing the prevention of crime till society — rashly
ignoring psychology — ^has itself manufactured
the hopeless criminal.

[2^5]

INDEX

Abstinence, 256
Advertisement, 34
Alcohol, 251
Alienist, 46, 139
Amnesia, 68
Anaesthesia, 108
Applied psychology, 9
Association, 76, 83, 103,

251, 253
Attention, 7, 30, 48, 56, 64,

88, 243.

Born criminal, 234, 241
Business, 10

Certainty, 49, 55, 179
Colour discrimination, 32
Confession, 73, 98, 105, 137,

143, 165, 206, 263
Court, 45, 108, 194, 207
Cross-examination, 50, 183
Cruelty, 73

Depersonalization, 217
Detection of crime, 73
Direction of sound, 32
Disposition, 235
Dissociation, 147, 165
Dream, 59, 156
Dynamometer, 251

Education, 8, 105
Emotion, 86,99,106,113,191
Eugenics, 247
Evidence, 19, 44, 65, 85,

109, 140, 145, 186
Excitement, 124, 127, 130,

158
Experimental psychology, 4,

6, 45, 65, 79, 109, 118.

184, 233, 243, 248
Expert, 20, 46, 108, 117, 197
Expression, 118
Eye movements, 125

Decisions, 19
Deformation, 93

Feeble mindedness, 242
FeeUng, 7, 113, 121
Frequency, 65
[ 267 ]

INDEX

Hygiene, 261 Multimurderer, 92

Hypnotism, 167, 175, 190, Mysticism, 58

203, 221
Hysteria, 106, 150 Neura^theiuc, 153, 227

Number, 15, 21
Identification, 63

Illusions, 15, 122, 148
• Imagination, 60 Oath, 39, 43, 47, 55

Imitation, 248 Observation. 23, 50

Impressiveness, 65 Omissions, 52

Individual differences, 63,

210 Perception, 18, 196

Inhibition, 30, 64, 106, 192, Perjury, 225

219, 237, 245. 257 Personal equation, 5, 196

Innocence, 74, 82, 132, 139 Personality, 161, 219, 238
Insanity, 245 Phrenology, 235

Physician, 9
Jury, 11, 45, 75, 186, 194, Physiology, 5

198 Pleasure, 121, 127

Plethysmograph, 129
Lie, 18, 77 Pneumograph, 126

Prevention, 226, 231
Magnetism', 213 Professional criminal, 241,

Medium, 30 265

Melancholia, 149 Psychological laboratories.

Memory, 7, 18, 39, 44, 54, 3, 46, 76, 79, 183, 248

61, 155, 180, 208, 243 Punishment, 238, 258

Mental diseases, 152

Morphinism, 231 Reaction time, 252

Movements, 120 Recency, 65

[ 268 ]

IND

Recollection, 48, 67, 197
Reliability, 46
Remembrance, 58
Respiration, 127
Retardation, 86, 97

Second personality, 147, 161
Selfaccusation, 148
Selfconsciousness, 161
Sex, 54

Simulation, 113
Size estimation, 37
Speed estimation, 23
Sphygmograph, 128
SuggestibiUty, 190, 193, 197
Suggestion, 26, 31, 42, 57,
147, 165. 175, 187, 222

EX

Suppressed ideas, 83, 97,

106
Suspected, 82, 115, 145

Taste, 33

Telepathy, 3, 212

Third degree, 74, 105, 115

Threats, 73

Time estimation, 15, 22, S3

Time measurement, 80, 251

Types of memory, 61

Veracity, 44, 94
Vividness, 55

Witchcraft, 145

THE END

[ 269 ]