been developed may have undergone degeneration, under the influence of
alcohol, or from hereditary or acquired disease.

Motor impulses, as the springs of action, are common to all animals. In
the lower animals inhibition is external, and never internal or
subjective. In man it may be internal or external.

It is internal or subjective in those whose higher brain centres are
well developed and normal. Their auto-inhibition is such that all their
motor impulses are controlled and directed in the best interests of
society.

It is external only in those whose higher brain centres are either
undeveloped or diseased. These constitute the criminal classes. Their
motor impulses are unrestrained. They offer a low or reduced resistance
to temptation.

Weak or absent resistance in the face of a normal motor impulse whose
expression injuriously affects another, is crime, and a criminal is one
whose power of resistance to motor impulses has been reduced by disease,
hereditary or acquired, or is absent through arrested development.

A confirmed criminal is one in whom the frequent recurrence of an
unrestrained impulse injurious to others has induced habit.

Auto-inhibition is defective or absent, and society must in her own
interest provide external restraint, and this we call law.

Criminals are, therefore, mental defectives, and may be defined for
sociological purposes as those in whom legal punishment for the second