Criminal Psychology by Hans Gross (best book club books for discussion TXT) 📖

his examination he not only knows nothing about it, but even doubts its occurrence. This is the dangerous element in his testimony. Generally it is right to believe his kind willingly. “Children and fools tell the truth,” what they say bears the test, and so when they deny an event there is a tendency to overlook the fact that they have forgotten a great deal and hence to believe that the event had really not occurred.

Similar experiences are yielded in the case of the memory of children. Children and animals live only in the present, because they have no historically organic ideas in mind. They react directly upon stimuli, without any disturbance of their idea of the past. This is valid, however, only for very small children. At a later age children make good witnesses, and a well-brought-up boy is the best witness in the world. We have only to keep in mind that later events tend in the child’s mind to wipe out earlier ones of the same kind.[225] It used to be said that children and nations think only of the latest events. And that is universally true. Just as children abandon even their most precious toys for the sake of a new one, so they tell only the latest events in their experience. And this is especially the case when there are a great many facts—e.g., repeated mal-treatment or thefts, etc. Children will tell only of the very last, the earlier one may absolutely have disappeared from the memory.

Bolton,[226] who has made a systematic study of the memory of children, comes to the familiar conclusion that the scope of memory is measured by the child’s capacity of concentrating its attention. Memory and acute intelligence are not always cognate (the latter proposition, true not for children alone, was known to Aristotle). As a rule girls have better memory than boys (it might also be said that their intelligence is generally greater, so long as no continuous intellectual work, and especially the creation of one’s own ideas, is required). Of figures read only once, children will retain a maximum of six. (Adults, as a rule, also retain no more.) The time of forgetting in general has been excellently schematized by Ebbinghaus. He studied the forgetting of a series of thirteen nonsense syllables, previously learned, in such a way as to be able to measure the time necessary to re-learn what was forgotten. At the end of an hour he needed half the original time, at the end of eight hours two-thirds of that time. Then the process of loss became slower. At the end of twenty-four hours he required a third, at the end of six days a fourth, at the end of a month a clear fifth, of the time required at first.

I have tested this in a rough way on various and numerous persons, and invariably found the results to tally. Of course, the measure of time alters with the memory in question, but the relations remain identical, so that one may say approximately how much may be known of any subject at the end of a fixed time, if only one ratio is tested. To criminalists this investigation of Ebbinghaus’ is especially recommended.

The conditions of prehensivity of particular instances are too uncertain and individual to permit any general identifications or differentiations. There are certain approximating propositions—e.g., that it is easier to keep in mind rhymed verse than prose, and definite rows and forms than block masses. But, on the one hand, what is here involved is only the ease of memory, not the content of memory, and on the other hand there are too many exceptions—e.g., there are many people who retain prose better than verse. Hence, it is not worth while to go further in the creation of such rules. Forty or fifty years ago, investigations looking toward them had been pursued with pleasure, and they are recorded in the journals of the time.

That aged persons have, as is well known, a good memory for what is long past, and a poor one for recent occurrences is not remarkable. It is to be explained by the fact that age seems to be accompanied with a decrease of energy in the brain, so that it no longer assimilates influences, and the imagination becomes dark and the judgment of facts incorrect. Hence, the mistakes are those of apperception of new things,—what has already been perceived is not influenced by this loss of energy.

Again, it should not rouse astonishment that so remarkable and delicately organized a function as memory should be subject to anomalies and abnormalities of all kinds. We must take it as a rule not to assume the impossibility of the extraordinary phenomena that appear and to consult the expert about them.[227] The physician will explain the pathological and pathoformic, but there is a series of memory-forms which do not appear to be diseased, yet which are significantly rare and hence appear improbable. Such forms will require the examination of an experienced expert psychologist who, even when unable to explain the particular case, will still be able to throw some light on it from the literature of the subject. This literature is rich in examples of the same thing; they have been eagerly collected and scientifically studied in the earlier psychological investigations. Modern psychology, unfortunately, does not study these problems, and in any event, its task is so enormous that the practical problems of memory in the daily life must be set aside for a later time. We have to cite only a few cases handled in literature.

The best known is the story of an Irish servant girl, who, during fever, recited Hebrew sentences which she had heard from a preacher when a child. Another case tells of a very great fool who, during fever, repeated prolonged conversations with his master, so that the latter decided to make him his secretary. But when the servant got well he became as foolish as ever. The criminalist who has the opportunity of examining deeply wounded, feverish persons, makes similar, though not such remarkable observations. These people give him the impression of being quite intelligent persons who tell their stories accurately and correctly. Later on, after they are cured, one gets a different opinion of their intelligence. Still more frequently one observes that these feverish, wounded victims know more, and know more correctly about the crime than they are able to tell after they have recovered. What they tell, moreover, is quite reliable, provided, of course, they are not delirious or crazy.

The cases are innumerable in which people have lost their memory for a short time, or for ever. I have already elsewhere mentioned an event which happened to a friend of mine who received a sudden blow on the head while in the mountains and completely lost all memory of what had occurred a few minutes before the blow. After this citation I got a number of letters from my colleagues who had dealt with similar cases. I infer, therefore, that the instances in which people lose their memory of what has occurred before the event by way of a blow on the head, are numerous.[228]

Legally such cases are important because we would not believe statements in that regard made by accused, inasmuch as there seems to be no reason why the events before the wound should disappear, just as if each impression needed a fixative, like a charcoal drawing. But as this phenomenon is described by the most reliable persons, who have no axe to grind in the matter, we must believe it, other things being equal, even when the defendant asserts it. That such cases are not isolated is shown in the fact that people who have been stunned by lightning have later forgotten everything that occurred shortly before the flash. The case is similar in poisoning with carbonic-acid gas, with mushrooms, and in strangulation. The latter cases are especially important, inasmuch as the wounded person, frequently the only witness, has nothing to say about the event.

I cannot omit recalling in this place a case I have already mentioned elsewhere, that of Brunner. In 1893 in the town of Dietkirchen, in Bavaria, the teacher Brunner’s two children were murdered, and his wife and servant girl badly wounded. After some time the woman regained consciousness, seemed to know what she was about, but could not tell the investigating justice who had been sent on to take charge of the case, anything whatever concerning the event, the criminal, etc. When he had concluded his negative protocol she signed it, Martha Guttenberger, instead of Martha Brunner. Fortunately the official noted this and wanted to know what relation she had to the name Guttenberger. He was told that a former lover of the servant girl, an evil-mouthed fellow, was called by that name. He was traced to Munich and there arrested. He immediately confessed to the crime. And when Mrs. Brunner became quite well she recalled accurately that she had definitely recognized Guttenberger as the murderer.[229]

The psychological process was clearly one in which the idea, “Guttenberger is the criminal,” had sunk into the secondary sphere of consciousness, the subconsciousness,—so that it was only clear to the real consciousness that the name Guttenberger had something to do with the crime. The woman in her weakened mental condition thought she had already sufficiently indicated this fact, so that she overlooked the name, and hence wrote it unconsciously. Only when the pressure on her brain was reduced did the idea that Guttenberger was the murderer pass from the subconscious to the conscious. Psychiatrists explain the case as follows:

The thing here involved is retrograde amnesia. It is nowadays believed that this phenomenon in the great majority of cases occurs according to the rule which defines traumatic hysteria, i.e., as ideogen. The ideational complexes in question are forced into the subconsciousness, whence, on occasion, by aid of associative processes, hypnotic concentration, and such other similar elements, they can be raised into consciousness. In this case, the suppressed ideational complex manifested itself in signing the name.

All legal medicine discusses the fact that wounds in the head make people forget single words. Taine, Guerin, Abercrombie, etc., cite many examples, and Winslow tells of a woman who, after considerable bleeding, forgot all her French. The story is also told that Henry Holland had so tired himself that he forgot German. When he grew stronger and recovered he regained all he had forgotten.

Now would we believe a prisoner who told us any one of these things?

The phenomena of memories which occur in dying persons who have long forgotten and never even thought of these memories, are very significant. English psychologists cite the case of Dr. Rush, who had in his Lutheran congregation Germans and Swedes, who prayed in their own language shortly before death, although they had not used it for fifty or sixty years. I can not prevent myself from thinking that many a death-bed confession has something to do with this phenomenon.[230]

At the boundary between incorrect perception and forgetting are those cases in which, under great excitement, important events do not reach consciousness. I believe that the responsibility is here to be borne by the memory rather than by sense-perception. There seems to be no reason for failing to perceive with the senses under the greatest excitement, but there is some clearness in the notion that great excitement causes what has just been perceived to be almost immediately forgotten. In my “Manual” I have discussed a series of cases of this sort, and show how the memory might come into play. None of the witnesses, e.g., had seen that Mary Stuart received, when being executed, two blows. In the case of