Review: Genius and Criminal
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X3200500416 |
| Published date | 01 October 1932 |
| Date | 01 October 1932 |
| Subject Matter | Review |
THE
POLICE JOURNAL
GENIUS
AND
CRIMINAL.
AStudy in Rebellion. By
HENRY
T.
F.
RHODES.
[Author of Some Persons Unknown.]
Pp.
x. 318, illustrated.
7S. 6d. (John Murray, London, W., 1932.)
THOSE
who know
Mr.
Rhodes' earlier volume Some Persons Unknown will
warmly welcome this one on Genius and Criminal.
The
author asks, ' Is
the criminal an ordinary human being somehow gone wrong, or is there any
sort of criminal type? '
Though
by no means an uncritical disciple,
Mr.
Rhodes claims for
Lombroso that he was the first to insist
that
the punishment should fit the
criminal, not the crime.
But there was a '
First
Offenders' , clause, No. 169, in the Code of
Hammurabi ages before Moses was
born
!
With
Freud
the author finds internal conflict between the Ego and its
environment and remarks, '
There
is a sense inwhich every man in the struggle
to realise himself
...
will hate the society of which he is compelled to form
a
part.'
Later on the normal man adjusts himself to his environment.
The
genius tries to escape from his anti-social conflict in literature, art,
science or politics, thereby seeking to modify his environment,
but
society
often destroys reformers first and adopts their principles afterwards.
The
less successful the genius the greater the likelihood of criminal
developments, for the spirit of
revolt-common
to genius and criminal-s-often
leads to thirst for power.
Many criminals can neither adjust themselves nor modify their environ-
ment, so commit crimes from sheer hatred of
restraint;
others from total
lack of moral sensibility.
Mr.
Rhodes details various cases of men of genius with criminal ten-
dencies. Villon's
'instinctive
criminality'
largely inspired his wonderful
poetry. Oscar Wilde was too much a man of action to succeed in completely
sublimating his hatred of society by literary work alone.
Poe, a
veritable'
Jekyll and
Hyde',
proved apioneer of theoretical
detectivism.
Strindberg was probably only saved from crime by his phenomenal
literary success.
Vidocq, many times a criminal, turned policeman, and revealed his
genius by organising detective work in Paris, thus satisfying his love of power.
Richelieu's thirst for power involved him in
crime;
and
Mr.
Rhodes
suggests that as the creator of modern
nationality'
there is a sense in which
Richelieu was responsible for the horrible catastrophe of 1914.'
Lenin's revolution has involved much crime,
but
as the work of an
extraordinary fanatic-yet-opportunist it bears the stamp of genius.
In
view of these and other histories,
Mr.
Rhodes suggests
that
there is
acriminal type and asks, ' Have genius and crime a certain social value? '
Truly
a most stimulating book.
THE
CAPTAIN
OF
KOPENICK.
AModern Fairy Tale in three acts.
By
CARL
ZUCKMAYER.
Translated from the
German:
DER
HAUPTMANN
VON
KOPENICK,
by
DAVID
PORTMAN.
1932. 7s. 6d. (Geoffrey Bles,
22
Suffolk St., Pall Mall, S.W. I.)
BASED
on an historic episode, this is a clever and amusing sketch of German
mentality written round the magic of uniform.
But the undercurrent is a tragic revelation of clumsy ,
justice':
of
fitting the punishment to the crime, instead of to the criminal. Wilhelm
Voigt, the hero, is the victim of his own youthful folly: enmeshed by a cast-
iron system in a vicious
circle-no
permit (to remain in any given place),
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