Criminal Psychology | Page 6

scope in which religion and ethics, economics and
sociology are worthily cooperating--the psychology of the party of the first part and the
party of the second part may well be considered. The psychology of the judge enters into
the consideration as influentially as the psychology of the offender. The many- sidedness
of the problems thus unified in a common application is worthy of emphasis. There is the
problem of evidence: the ability of a witness to observe and recount an incident, and the
distortions to which such report is liable through errors of sense, confusion of inference
with observation, weakness of judgment, prepossession, emotional interest, excitement,
or an abnormal mental condition. It is the author's view that the judge should understand
these relations not merely in their narrower practical bearings, but in their larger and
more theoretical aspects which the study of psychology as a comprehensive science sets
forth. There is the allied problem of testimony and belief, which concerns the peculiarly

judicial qualities. To ease the step from ideas to their expression, to estimate motive and
intention, to know and appraise at their proper value the logical weaknesses and personal
foibles of all kinds and conditions of offenders and witnesses,--to do this in accord with
high standards, requires that men as well as evidence shall be judged. Allied to this
problem which appeals to a large range of psychological doctrine, there is yet another
which appeals to a yet larger and more intricate range,--that of human character and
condition. Crimes are such complex issues as to demand the systematic diagnosis of the
criminal. Heredity and environment, associations and standards, initiative and
suggestibility, may all be condoning as well as aggravating factors of what becomes a

xi> ``case.'' The peculiar temptations of distinctive periods of life, the perplexing
intrusion of subtle abnormalities, particularly when of a sexual type, have brought it
about that the psychologist has extended his laboratory procedures to include the study of
such deviation; and thus a common set of findings have an equally pertinent though a
different interest for the theoretical student of relations and the practitioner. There are, as
well, certain special psychological conditions that may color and quite transform the
interpretation of a situation or a bit of testimony. To distinguish between hysterical
deception and lying, between a superstitious believer in the reality of an experience and
the victim of an actual hallucination, to detect whether a condition of emotional
excitement or despair is a cause or an effect, is no less a psychological problem than the
more popularly discussed question of compelling confession of guilt by the analysis of
laboratory reactions. It may well be that judges and lawyers and men of science will
continue to differ in their estimate of the aid which may come to the practical pursuits
from a knowledge of the relations as the psychologist presents them in a non-technical,
but yet systematic analysis. Professor Gross believes thoroughly in its importance; and
those who read his book will arrive at a clearer view of the methods and issues that give
character to this notable chapter in applied psychology.
The author of the volume is a distinguished representative of the modern scientific study
of criminology, or ``criminalistic'' as he prefers to call it. He was born December 26th,
1847, in Graz (Steiermark), Austria, pursued his university studies at Vienna and Graz,
and qualified for the law in 1869. He served as ``Untersuchungsrichter'' (examining
magistrate) and in other capacities, and received his first academic appointment as
professor of criminal law at the University of Czernowitz. He was later attached to the
German University at Prague, and is now professor in the University of Graz. He is the
author of a considerable range of volumes bearing on the administration of criminal law
and upon the theoretical foundations of the science of criminology. In 1898 he issued his
``Handbuch fur Untersuchungsrichter, als System der Kriminalistik,'' a work that reached
its fifth edition in 1908, and has been translated into eight foreign languages. From 1898
on he has been the editor of the ``Archiv fr Kriminalanthropologie und
Kriminalistik,'' of which about twenty volumes have appeared. He is a frequent
contributor to this journal, which is an admirable representative of an efficient technical
aid to the dissemination of interest

in an important and difficult field. It is also
worthy of mention that at the University of Graz he has established a Museum of
Criminology, and that his son, Otto Gross, is well known as a specialist in nervous and
mental disorders and as a contributor to the psychological aspects of his specialty. The
volume here presented was issued in 1897; the translation is from the second and
enlarged edition of 1905. The volume may be accepted as an authoritative exposition of a

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