Criminal Psychology by Hans Gross (best book recommendations .TXT) 📕

Or suppose that we call it more delicate feeling—the name does not matter—the process is mainly unconscious, and is hence of less value only, if I may say so, as requiring less thought. In consequence, there is not only not a decrease in the utility of feminine testimony; also its reliability is very great. There may be hundreds of errors in the dialectical procedure of a man, while there is much more certainty in the instinctive conception and the direct reproduction of a woman. Hence, her statements are more reliable.

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We need not call the source of this instinct God’s restitution for feminine deficiency in other matters; we can show that it is due to natural selection, and that the position and task of woman requires her to observe her environment very closely. This need sharpened the inner sense until it became unconscious conception. Feminine interest in the environment is what gives female intuition a swiftness and certainty unattainable in the meditations of the profoundest philosophers. The swiftness of the intuition, which excludes all reflection, and which merely solves problems, is the important thing.

Woman perceives clearly, as Spencer says somewhere, the mental status of her personal environment; while Schopenhauer has incorrectly suggested that women differ from men intellectually because they are lazy and want short-cuts to attain their purpose. In point of fact, they do not want short-cuts—they simply avoid complicated inference and depend upon intuition, as they very safely may.

Vision is possible only where perception is possible, i. e., when things are near. The distant and the veiled can not be seen, but must be inferred; hence, women let inference alone and do what they can do better. This suggests the value of these different interpretations of the feminine mode of conception. As lawyers we may believe women where intuition is involved; where inference is a factor we must be very careful. Sensory conception is to be understood in the same way as intellectual conception. According to Mantegazza,[1]

woman has a particularly good eye for the delicate aspects of things but has no capacity for seeing things on the horizon. A remote, big object does not much excite her interest. This is explained by the supposed fact that women as a rule can not see so far as men, and are unable to distinguish the distant object so well. This is no explanation because it would be as valid of all short-sighted people.

The truth is, that the definition of distant objects requires more or less reason and inference. Woman does not reason and infer, and if things miss her intuition, they do not exist for her.

[1] Mantegazza: Fisiologia del piacere.

Objectivity is another property that women lack. They tend always to think in personalities, and they conceive objects in terms of personal sympathies. Tell a woman about a case so that her interest will be excited without your naming the individuals save as A and B, and it will be impossible to get her to take a stand or to make a judgment. Who are the people, what are they, how old are they, etc.? These questions must be answered first. Hence the divergent feminine conceptions of a case before and after the <p 335>

names are discovered. The personalizing tendency results in some extraordinary things. Suppose a woman is describing a brawl between two persons, or two groups. If the sides were equally matched in strength and weapons, and if the witness in question did not know any of the fighters before, she will nevertheless redistribute sun and wind in her description if one of the brawlers happens accidentally to have interested her, or has behaved in a “knightly”

fashion, though under other circumstances he might have earned only her dislike. In such cases the fairy tale about telling mere facts recurs, and I have to repeat that nobody tells mere facts—that judgment and inference always enter into statements and that women use them more than men. Of course real facts and inferred ones can be distinguished,—infrequently however, and never with certainty. It is best, therefore, to determine whether the witness bears any relation to one of the parties, and what it is. And this relation will be an element in most cases inasmuch as one rarely is present at a quarrel without some share in it. But even if the latter case should occur, it is necessary, first of all, to hear every detail so as to get the woman’s attitude clearly in mind. The evidence of the woman’s mode of conception is of more importance than the evidence concerning the fact itself. And finding the former is easy enough if the woman is for a short time allowed to speak generally. When her attitude is known, the standard for adjusting her excuses of one and accusations of another, is easily discovered.

The same is true in purely individual cases. In the eyes of woman the same crime committed by one man is black as hell; committed by another, it is in all respects excusable. All that is necessary for this attitude is the play of sympathies and antipathies generated from whatever source. Just as the woman reader of romances favors one hero and hates another, so the woman witness behaves toward her figures. And it may happen that she finds one of them to have murdered with such “exciting excellence,” and the victim to have been “such a boresome Philistine,” that she excuses the crime.

Caution is here the most necessary thing. Of course women are not alone in taking such attitudes, but they are never so clear, so typical, nor so determined as when taken by women.

Section 72. 2. Judgment.

Avenarius tells of an English couple who were speaking about angels’ wings. It was the man’s opinion that this angelic possession was doubtful, the woman’s that it could not be. Many a woman <p 336>

witness has reminded me of this story, and I have been able to explain by use of it many an event. Woman says, “that must be”

when she knows of no reason; “that must be” when her own arguments bore her; “that must be” when she is confused; when she does not understand the evidence of her opponent, and particularly when she desires something. Unfortunately, she hides this attitude under many words, and one often wishes for the simple assertion of the English woman, “that must be.” In consequence, when we want to learn their ratio sciendi from women, we get into difficulties. They offer us a collection of frequently astonishing and important things, but when we ask for the source of this collection we get “that must be,” in variations, from a shrug of the shoulders to a flood of words. The inexperienced judge may be deceived by the positiveness of such expressions and believe that such certainty must be based on something which the witness can not utter through lack of skill. If, now, the judge is going to help the “unaided” witness with “of course you mean because,” or “perhaps because,” etc., the witness, if she is not a fool, will say “yes.” Thus we get apparently well-founded assertions which are really founded on nothing more than “that must be.”

Cases dealing with divisions, distinctions and analysis rarely contain ungrounded assertions by women. Women are well able to analyse and explain data, and what one is capable of and understands, one succeeds in justifying. Their difficulty is in synthetic work, in progressive movement, and there they simply assert. The few observations of this characteristic confirm this statement. For example, Lafitte says that at medical examinations women are unable to do anything which requires synthetic power. Women’s judgments of men further confirm this position, for they are said to be more impressed with a minimal success, than with a most magnificent effort. Now there is no injustice, no superficiality in this observation; its object is simply parallel to their incapacity for synthesis. Inasmuch as they are able to follow particular things they will understand a single success, but the growth of efficiency toward the future requires composition and wide horizon, hence they can not understand it. Hence, also, the curious contradictions in women’s statements as suspicion rises and falls. A woman, who to-day knows of a hundred reasons for the guilt of some much-compromised prisoner, tries to turn everything the other way when she later learns that the prisoner has succeeded in producing some apparent alibi. So again, if the prosecution seems to be successful, <p 337>

the women witnesses for the defence often become the most dangerous for the defenders.

But here, also, women find a limit, perhaps because like all weaklings they are afraid to draw the ultimate conclusions. As Leroux says in “De l’Humanit<e’>,” “If criminals were left to women they would kill them all in the first burst of anger, and if one waited until this burst had subsided they would release them all.” The killing points to the easy excitability, the passionateness, and the instinctive sense of justice in women which demands immediate revenge for evil deeds. The liberation points to the fact that women are afraid of every energetic deduction of ultimate consequences, i. e., they have no knowledge of real justice. “Men look for reasons, women judge by love; women can love and hate, but they can not be just without loving, nor can they ever learn to value justice.” So says Schiller, and how frequently do we not hear the woman’s question whether the accused’s fate is going to depend on her evidence. If we say yes, there is as a rule a restriction of testimony, a titillation and twisting of consequences, and this circumstance must always be remembered. If you want to get truth from a woman you must know the proper time to begin, and what is more important, when to stop. As the old proverb says, and it is one to take to heart: “Women are wise when they act unconsciously; fools when they reflect.”

It is a familiar fact that women, committing crimes, go to extremes.

It may be correct to adduce, as modern writers do, the weakness of feminine intelligence to social conditions, and it may, perhaps, be for this reason that the future of woman lies in changing the feminine milieu. But also with regard to environment she is an extremist. The most pious woman, as Richelieu says, will not hesitate to kill a troublesome witness. The most complicated crimes are characteristically planned by women, and are frequently swelled with a number of absolutely purposeless criminal deeds.

In this circumstance we sometimes find the explanation for an otherwise unintelligible crime which, perhaps, indicates also, that the first crime was committed by woman. It is as if she has in turpitude a certain pleasure to which she abandons herself as soon as she has passed the limit in her first crime.

Section 73. 3. Quarrels with Women.

This little matter is intended only for very young and inexperienced criminal justices. There is nothing more exciting or instructive than <p 338>

a quarrel with clever and trained women concerning worthy subjects; but this does not happen in court, and ninety per cent. of our woman witnesses are not to be quarrelled with. There are two occasions on which a quarrel may arise. The first, when we are trying to show a denying prisoner that her crime has already been proved and that her denials are silly, and the second, when we are trying to show a witness that she must know something although she refuses to know it, or when we want to show her the incorrectness of her conclusion, or when we want to lead her to a point where her testimony can have further value. Now a verbal quarrel will hurt the case. This is a matter of ancient experience, for