[BNP/E3, 279D2 – 14r]
Now we shall proceed to separate what is true from what is false in this evidence of Blaver’s, and thus to gain possession of the facts — to be able to make true deductions. I have already shown that the statements of Blaver are falsehood up to the point where he {…}
Now form the evidence of the light footsteps down stairs and from the true but unwary declaration of Blaver that he had opened the door just after the crash, it is possible to deduce the whole movements of Blaver. They are quite clear.”
“Quite clear?”
“Perfectly so. Blaver was in his classroom hurriedly writing out his lines, when he suddenly heard a very large crash. Astonished, he rushed to the door and threw it open. He was horrified to see Mr. Cameron lying on the ground, dead, as he instinctively felt. Having knowledge of Blaver’s character, we can positively assert that his first feeling was an instinctive one of fear, he was afraid that he would be accused of the crime. Accordingly {…}
[13r]
{…} though extremely affrighted, he rushed towards the staircase, his ever-present animal cunning making him tread as lightly as he could. Knowing what we know, there is no other possible solution of his conduct.
“Now, we must consider young Deane. I have already asked all you gentlemen to remark the place where he began to give false evidence. I think that I have made quite clear, from his character, the fact that he speaks the truth first. Let us now see what the truth is that he tells. He was in the second science room doing an experiment when he heard a crash. He says that he came out; but it is obvious that he cannot have come out immediately after the crash, for then Blaver would have seen him on coming out of the sixth form room, and would most certainly have said so at the inquest and thus taken the opportunity of throwing the accusation, legitimately, on someone else. Are we to suppose that young Deane
[13v]
did not think the crash loud enough to go and see what had happened? No, because a crash which seemed large and unusual to the boys downstairs would also have seemed large and unusual to him. But reason is not far to seek. Young Deane is, as we all know, not strong physically, and therefore would not be in any way fond of brawls, quarrels, pushes and pulls and other boyish amusements. He therefore, though he thinks some boys have been causing damage, does not hasten out, simply because he is averse to meeting with rough, playful lads as those must be who have been making such a noise. But when he finds all is quiet, or, very possibly, when he hears the sound of light footsteps down the stairs, he comes out. It is here that the strange and false statement is made, to which I have referred more than once. Deane’s simple statement is that he comes out, forgetful of the fact that the body is in the way. But since
[5v]
it is now clear that Deane did not commit this crime, and, moreover, that he did come out, for he was not in when the body was found. The deduction is then ridiculous obvious that he must have stepped over the body. But why, may we ask, is it that young Deane suddenly, and at this point, ceases to speak the truth? Because, we answer without hesitation, there is something true which he thinks it impossible that the jury will believe. From his character again we can tell what this is. He comes out of the inner science-room, sees the body, and is thrown into complete bewilderment and confusion. He finds it torture to stay here, penned in by that horrible body, he feels the necessity to act, he shuts his eyes, takes a run and a blind leap over the prostrate form, and, frightened out of his wits, rushes down the stairs with a clatter and hides in his dormitory in the outer building, where he is found, in a corner, terrified and weeping piteously. I cannot but think, however, that Deane was quite right in thinking that the truth would seem incredible to the jury; it was a fair stroke of intuition on his part to see this, though it was an unhappy stroke.
“Knowing now how things had occurred, I interviewed Blaver and Deane and put some questions to the various boys who had been downstairs. The result
[5r]
was that I ascertained all the facts which it was possible to ascertain. I shall now run over them.
“During the afternoon there had been (excepting Blaver and Deane) in the science building, before Mr. Cameron came, two boys to leave books or get caps from their desks the French Master, Mr. Lewis, who came to put something in the museum another boy ({…}) who came to give the boys downstairs an account of the match, and these boys downstairs themselves. Of these people I assured myself by questioning many boys that all, except the boys downstairs, were away from the building when Mr. Cameron entered. At about {…} Mr, Cameron came in, spoke to the boys downstairs and went up. A crash was immediately heard, he being struck down just on the threshold of the outer laboratory. Blaver, who was in the room opposite instantly threw open the door and (mark this fact, gentlemen) neither saw, nor heard anything. He then ran away. Immediately after, Deane, hearing no noise, in fact, and thinking it safe to come out and see what damage was done, enters the outer laboratory sees and hears nothing and also, jumping over the body, runs away. The boys downstairs have heard both Blaver’s light footsteps and young Deane’s clattering departure; thinking that some boys are damaging something upstairs, they go up almost immediately after, find the body, see nothing and hear nothing and run off to the cricket field to give the alarm. The people who came to see what is the matter search the whole building, they see nothing and hear nothing; some scan the highway, nobody but an old farmer in a chart is there; the boys in the lower cricket field have seen nobody leave the building or pass through their field; the other building is also searched, Deane is found; another search {…}
[7r]
There are in this crime several things worthy of notice:
(1) Crash of the weapon.
(2) Inexpression of Mr. Cameron’s face.
(3) Fact the though Blaver came out of VI Form room immediately after the crash he heard[,] saw nothing.
(4) Fact that after the crash Deane heard no one moving or coming and saw no one.
____________________
If anybody at all were here he must have left by the staircase (as I have proved), and between the going of the boys downstairs to give the alarm and coming of the masters in answer to the call.
[7v]
“Now, taking account of these things, we must perforce allow this murderer to have been a man not only of utmost praeternatural calmness, and of an enormous cautiousness, well shown us in the utterly inexplicable way in which he rendered himself unheard. Both Blaver, when he opened the door, and Deane, when he sat still listening for a sound, were in such a nervous state that the least sound would not have escaped them. We must allow this murderer a promptness of action quite unparalleled, a stillness in motion, perfectly horrible and a power of self-concealment absolutely and entirely startling.
[1v]
We have now these points to consider: First, whether this murder were committed by someone who knows, or belongs to, the school, or by an outsider; secondly, whether the murder were fore-planned or committed on the spur of the moment.
The first proposition it is impossible to consider seriously for two seconds. We say at once that no one unacquainted with the school could have thus escaped all observation. Let us, in the next place, twist our original question into this one: whether the murderer were from the school, or whether he were an outsider who had acquaintance with the school. Here all things seem to point to the latter hypothesis, since, however well-planned the murderer may have been, the presence of Blaver and of Deane was very probably not known – unless we believe the criminal thought to incriminate Blaver or Deane. Now this is a very wild supposition though it is a rather easier to hold if we conceive the murderer to belong to the school, and thus have intimate knowledge of the affairs of the two boys mentioned. But if the murderer knew Blaver and Deane to be present, why did he make a crash that could bring them on the scene.
We arrive then at the conclusion that this murderer has been committed by someone who belongs to the school.
[1r]
Now to consider whether the murderer has been or has not been fore-planned: we see at once from our former reasoning that it has been, must have been, fore-planned. The weak blow and the crash, if they be not the outcome of some deep and terrible scheming are the product of nervousness or evil conscience before the deed. For it is easier to conceive the nervousness to be, not of planning, but natural, than to believe the nervousness to be direct and the cautiousness the after-product. Nay, such cautiousness unless fore-planned, unless the product of a study of the places and conditions, would be impossible. We have thus arrived at these two certain and irrefutable conclusions: that the murderer was committed by someone who belongs to the school, that the murderer was cautiously fore-planned. There are two facts which we cannot well explain; why the presence of Deane and of Blaver, though known to the murderer, were not conceived as hindrance, and what is the meaning of the weak blow of and the crash.
We shall not do wrong if we attempt to imagine something which will explain both difficulties, or at least an explanation for each.
If the murderer knew not that Blaver and Deane were present he would have been caught by Blaver.
[15r]
“It now became evident to me that I had to deal with an extremely strange crime. My first action was to examine very carefully the door and the packing case near the door. On the packing case there were no marks; the door was dented and scratched in a few places, but this had no doubt been caused by careless carrying in of cases and boxes of chemical apparatus. In this case observation was useless.
“Now since the usual detective methods had all failed, and since further consideration only made more clear the innocence of Blaver and of Deane, I had yet one method left – that of psychological inquiry. So I brought mentally to a tabular setting all the kinds of men who exist, according to their temperaments (in my classification) and to their courage, which two things alone are needed to get upon the track of the criminal. This is how I registered the types in my mind:
[15v]
1. Genius (under the action of Perverseness).
2. Excitable (under the action of Perverseness.)
3. Excitable (courageous)
x4. Excitable (not courageous).
X5. Animal type (courageous).
X6. Animal type (not courageous).
X7. Greek type. ”
“What an extraordinary classification!” I here exclaimed. “You take no account of intellect, and yet put genius down… And what is the meaning of “Perverseness” and of the “Greek type?”
The Sergeant smiled slightly “Of Perverseness and of the Greek Type” said he “I shall speak in due time. As to intellect, I take no account of it because it determines only the way of committing a crime but not the actions of the criminal, which are ruled by his courage and his excitability, a man of talent of the animal type strikes a hard blow, of the excitable type not always; as you will see, the actions are here most important. As to genius,
[15ar]
I put it down because it is a thing by itself. I make no mention of courage or no courage, because there is only one kind of genius that can kill a man, and that is under the action of the said perverseness. However, the reason for this classification will soon be quite evident. When I have finished my explanation you will perceive that my classification embraces all possible types and is unimprovable.
“To continue, I asked myself which of these types was likely to have killed Mr. Cameron. The obvious method to pursue is that [process] of exclusion. Now, first of all, I have already proved, by the smallness of the blow, that any individual of the animal type cannot have committed this crime. Therefore numbers five and six are cut out.
“Let us now attempt further exclusion; we take the man of the Greek type. The Greek type is the union of the widest perception of the beautiful and the great with a deteriorated moral sense; I call this the Greek type because the latter Greeks are remarkable
____________________
A man of talent of the animal type strikes a hard blow, of the excitable type not always {…}
[15av]
for their sense of the beautiful and of the great and for their nauseous perversion of its use. Here I apply the term more widely, for I take a man of such type to be one who not only has made himself non-moral in love, but in humanity. This kind of man will kill his life-long benefactor with the greatest coolness, as easily as he will disgrace his own daughter or his own sister. Fortunately such moral degradation is very uncommon, but, as the man who was brought himself to it is a particular type, I am bound in all honesty to consider him. Now, since this kind of man is extremely careful and cool in his evil plans and in the carrying out of such plans, and extremely {…} of their effect, moreover, since his atrophied moral sense fills the place of courage, it is quite possible that he would have struck a small blow, and that he would have calmly hidden till Blaver and Deane had past, but what is truly inconsistent with his character is this crash of the pestle following the blow. We cannot
[8r]
conceive such a man, with such a calm, sure grip, with such unstartled carefulness in action and in walk, letting his weapon drop from his hand with a crash after the blow. That the weapon did not slip, I have already proved. However we may strain our imagination to implicate a man of this kind, we must now allow him to be innocent. Type seven disappears.
“We proceed next to a man of the excitable type but possessing courage, and consider the possibility of the criminal being of this type. Against this thought there are several considerations. One of these {…}
[12r]
Let us now turn to not-courageous excitability. This is the temperament of young Deane — in a man. The only difference between a man of Deane’s temperament and a boy like Deane is that the first could commit a crime under certain conditions, and the second could not. Examining then, a man of this type, we find it to be quite possible that he should have struck a small blow, and that, in his fear, he should have dropped the pestle almost at the time of striking. But, on the contrary, is a man of this kind had committed this murder it is quite inconceivable that he should remained unseen and unheard. No
[12v]
sooner would he have struck down the science master than he would have bolted in great fear. This he did not for Blaver neither saw nor heard him, and, if he ran away in fear, he would have made some, if not much, noise. Again his fear might have been momentarily lulled by his intellect and he might have hidden but his slightest movement would have been heard by the nervous Deane, unless synchronous with Blaver’s flight, in which case it would have been heard by Blaver. But it is quite clear that if a man of this type be the criminal, he cannot have planned this murderer, for he would be no such fool
[11v]
nor so brave as to commit a murderer in a place like a school (as I have already generally remarked), if he were an outsider; and if one of the School surely not with Blaver and Deane so near. If this kind of man be guilty, then it is obvious he must have committed the deed on the spur of the moment; but this is contradicted not only by the silentness of movement, but even by the smallness of the blow and by the inexpression in Mr. Cameron’s face. So, gentlemen, this type of man must disappear.
You follow me?
[11r]
“Certainly”, I said, “I am quite assured that a man of that type is not the criminal”.
_______
If a man connected with the School fore-planned this murderer, knowing Deane and /or\ Blaver, or Blaver and Deane to be there, he did so hoping to throw the blame upon them; but then he was not a man of this timid type — indeed, he would be a man of extraordinary, very extraordinary courage. It may be stated that it is possible for the murderer to have planned without knowing that Blaver and Deane would be present; true, but not a man of this kind, as must be obvious to all.”
[2r]
We have now to consider the excitable yet courageous temperament. To speak the truth, a man of this kind may, at first thought, be supposed to have committed this crime and the argument may assume this form: A man, nervous but nevertheless courageous decides to commit this crime. He manages to get here into the school, awaits Mr. Cameron and knocks him down with the pestle. His sensitiveness of temperament, his nervousness if you will, makes the blow weak — for the man can commit the crime only through his courage and will-power. The victim struck down, the nervousness, sense of guilt – comes and the weapon drops from the murderer’s hand, perhaps at the same time as the body falls. But the courage, the firmness – returns immediately the evil is done, and gives to the criminal the cautiousness which places him beyond the reach of Blaver and of Deane. We thus see all things conform to this hypothesis.
“Why,” cried one of us, “this is the final argument. There is no doubt that the solution is found.”
“Your mistake is excusable, but it is none the less a mistake. Tell me, sir, do you really think that a man of this temperament, in his nervousness or trepidation — a courageous, firm individual — would strike a small blow? No, the blow is all the greater. In this lies the great difference between courageous and non-courageous
[2v]
sensitiveness — that under the temperamental influence, the first strikes a hard blow (the will is there unconsciously), and the other strikes a light blow (for where the weak will is clearly evident).”
At hearing this, I felt that flood of intellectual joy, for the moment void of jealousy, which every man of some cleverness feels at the exposition of some analytical subtlety, of some stroke of incisive genius.
“Exit the courageous sensitive,” the detective said with a smile.
“Well,” continued Sergeant Byng, pleasantly “when I had gone thus far and found that nothing was before me but the wildly abnormal — the perverse in its three cases — I was, as you may think, astonished, and very doubtful as to the accuracy of my reasoning. I made another and a careful examination of my logic and came to the conclusion that the extraordinariness was not in the reasoning, but in the facts themselves. Indeed, the more I considered the data, the stranger they appeared and the less so that I should have struck gold in the criminal being of a wildly abnormal type. § But before I continued, I attempted in very many ways to find a character of whose nature the peculiarities of this case might be a logical outcome. My conjectures were numerous, and included all conceivable abnormal {…}
[63r]
The Case of the Science Master.
(Continuation)
Strive to conceive, abstractly, imaging this crime and its method in your mind. You will see then, emotionally, how great the reason I have for saying that the criminal here is a man of genius, a man of great, of enormous originality. Nevertheless with this clearness of conception, there comes also an impulse to scepticism. Such a crime has never before been committed; a criminal man of genius has not yet been observed. Moreover there is an atmosphere of unreality, of strangeness enveloping this crime. But the explanation is simple. The unreality of the crime and its abstract obviousness are two sides of the same idea, of the same conception. This is the psychological aspect of the crime. And even this psychological aspect of the crime furnishes an argument leading to the same point. The fact that is rationally clear, emotionally extraordinary points to a genius.
[53r]
We have not yet perceived the real nature of the crime, but have, more or less, an accurate perception of the character of the man that committed it. From the characteristics of the crime we can in some manner perceive the principal characteristics of the murderer. Some are conspicuously evident: his intellectual caution, his psychological insight, his power of combination — original combination, for it escapes, though clever immediate understanding.
Now such a man desires to murder[1] Mr. Cameron; for what reason we know not, nor at this moment inquire. Now,
[53v]
having in mind his intellectual character, [h]is first thought is, must be, in which manner must the crime be committed?
[3r]
Our first consideration being that a crime is a physical act, we must begin by considering which faculties of the human mind are concerned, directly, in physical acts. You may, of course, consider a crime as moral act — I mean as an act concerning morality, in a contrary way of course —, or you may consider it a mental act, if you have regard to the intellect behind it. But these considerations are erroneous. A crime is not a moral act {…}
Which then are the human faculties or conditions used in the carrying out of the physical acts? We must answer this question, firstly by considering what all crimes show in common. Do all crimes committed by men of intellect betray the possession of intellect in the criminal? They do not; there are some crimes which show intellect preeminently. Others where the animalness or the passion make the physiognomy of the physical act.
No, what is traceable in all crimes is the temperament of the criminal — its coarseness, or its half-coarseness or its intellectuality. But how are we to classify these temperaments? By the faculty of destructiveness? No, for all criminals possess that in some degree. By what faculty, then, can we realize well the temperament, coarse or refined, of an individual? We know at once that it is by amativeness. The way a man loves is a good indication of his nature; we shall classify this way. But you must understand that when I say we
[3v]
judge men by amativeness, that all men in a certain class possess amativeness. No, they may {…}
[37r]
Case of the Science Master.
We must now find such a classification of human characters as will aid us in the discovery of the criminal. Why? May you ask. Because when a man does anything — however trivial — he leaves always upon deed the whole trace of his individuality. No two men hammer a nail into a wall in the same manner; had we observation, we would at once distinguish.
But let us now consider what classification we require.
[23r]
Science Master.
Now this idea of manner of murdering was either of a casual (or external) or {…} (in internal) origin.
_ _ _ _ _
To 2 species of men could this idea have arrived by sudden inspiration: to a man who is wont to have flashes of novelty in idea, or to a man wont to have inspirations which are really termini of subconscious {…} of thought. One is the intuition of the poet; the other of the metaphysician. The mental structures of these 2 men are widely different. Let us examine which fits the actual criminal’s.
Was the man inspired as a poet by entirely spontaneous flashes? Suppose this idea to have occurred to him. He wishes to put into practice. He chooses the laboratory as a proper natural place, having thought of the pestle as a proper weapon. Of course he begins to inquire whether anybody is usually present there. He finds that {…} is, constantly on Saturdays. But does he enquire? You may ask. Can he not choose his occasion simply? No. To choose his
[23v]
occasion involves investigating. Finding {…}’s presence he will abandon the plot, so it seems.
[100 – 32r]
We have now to consider the excitable yet courageous temperament. Running our minds over the peculiarities of our case, we find that the supposition that a man of this type is the criminal, while consistent with the carefulness displayed after the crime, is inconsistent with the weak blow and the crash. If we stretch the case a good deal, we may conceive that the weak blow is given on purpose to mislead, and the crash for some similar purpose; or we can say that the weak blow and the crash were produced by nervousness, for nervousness before such a deed is not inconsistent with a brave temperament. In defence of our last argument, we may add, that once the crime is committed and the necessity for escape rendered necessary, the nervousness becomes cautiousness. These two are the only explanations possible, if we take a man of this type to be guilty of the murderer.
[279D2 – 55r]
1stly: there is the man who is ruseur. He is coarse, not consciously clever. He is resourceful, like some animals, ruseur. If he have a good trick, he repeats it as many times as he can. Cunning without cleverness, an entirely animalness of thought — I believe this is clear.
2ndly: There is the man who premeditates semi-consciously, but his conscious ability is rather than purely intellectual cleverness, pure animal cunning passing through curiousness. This kind of man sometimes[2] does not repeats his ruses.
3rd: There is again the man who is a premeditator. Purely intellectual.
[55v]
4thly: There is the man who premeditates with full consciousness of what he premeditates. Between this man and the former there is an enormous difference. This man creates, is original; the 3rd one does not create — not new methods, as the other, though he may create new ways in known methods. Again, the 4th man, just because he is a creator, moulds circumstances and disposes them to his will — this, be I understood, without necessarily being active or courageous, far from decisive and bold.
[62r]
A strange association of ideas taking place, what are the elements of this:
1) Means of committing the crime Blow
2) Manner in which intellectual commit crimes Impersonal
The disparity between the manner in which the crime was committed and that in which it should have been committed was manifest. I pushed on my inquiry with greater vigour. Here was a rational sight of the strangeness of the crime of which up to now I had had but an intuition, strengthened by the absorption of my reasonings — but an intuition only. This must contain the explanation. My hypothesis — although if desperately conceived — of a criminal genius seemed true. My mental ardour redoubled.
What was here the means of committing the crime? A blow, for the Science Master had been struck down by a monster pestle.
What was the way of committing crimes proper to intellectuals? Impersonality, that is to say, absence of physical. {…} Intellectuals dislike hitting, physical hurting etc; they work, so to speak, at a distance; they are poisoners {…}
[62v]
Other seeming contradictions are: the weak blow and the inexpressive countenance, the carelessness of the crash and the cleverness the carefulness of the disappearance.
Let us consider the first.
_______
Not the second. The contradictory nature of this has been shown.
_______
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Now the inexpressive and the disappearance are the intellectual, the other 2 the physical side of the crime.
__________
Argument of intellectual: {…}
__________
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No intellectual would abandon his impersonal manner of committing crime {…}
He changes the means {…}
[54r]
In this crime several things are clear:
1st. It was premeditated, and seen from the place where it took place.
2nd Being premeditated it was so by one who knew the school.
When arguments may come.
[67-67ar]
Animal Temperament : Courageous.
Non Courageous.
Impulsive.
Reflected.
Sensitive Temperament : Courageous.
Non Courageous.
Impulsive.
Reflected.
Artistic Temperament : Courageous.
Non Courageous.
Impulsive.
Reflected.
Perverse. (abnormal type).
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{…}
generally poisoners.
Thereto
Smallness of blow.
Smallness blow.
Quiet action
[67v]
Since we have now to face the problem by its ethological side, let us at once proceed to determine the method of investigation, inasmuch as the path we follow is new and the lines on which we shall investigate are practically original. Let us consider first the bases on which rest all modes whatsoever of investigation.
All investigation, all inquiry whatsoever, is founded, firstly, on the principle of identity of cause and effect. The principle is to this import — that a weak man cannot give a strong blow, and that, for example, one who has learnt fencing will fence better than one who has not learnt. You open your eyes, I observe at this ridiculous statement, where the ridiculous in its evident truth. Yet it is well to consider this before we proceed.
[67ar]
____________________
Having found temperament to be the principal ruler of our physical acts, we {…}
The two faculties of the human spirit which have hold on physical acts, within temperament of course, are courage and impulse.
After temperament, the faculties to be considered in relation to physical acts are of course those which determine then strength or weakness of the spirit in relation to those acts. Popularly, we may be disposed to make these 2: courage and will-power. But this division is hopelessly false.
Those are two, the ease with which the {…} goes to the crime (impulse) and the strength with which it maintains action (courage) {…}
[134B – 33r]
Prove that criminal knew of Mr. Cameron’s weak head. The knowledge of this probably put him in mind of the crime.
Now we come to the central part of the matter. We have not yet well proved but merely suspect the genius of the criminal.
Now how does genius differ from talent? Generally speaking, genius may be called a mad talent because being as talent a superior activity of the intellectual powers, it has in common with madness as its principal characteristic, the making of unusual and extraordinary associations of ideas. The psychic mechanism of inspiration and of invention is not clear nor known; but this much can be affirmed of it. It is this unusual and abnormal association of ideas that results in creation and in invention. It is decidedly unconventional, out of the common.
[33v]
In madness the association of ideas is incoherent and {…} in its abnormalness; in genius it is coherent and, if I may speak, normalized. Genius is madness, becoming sane. Genius is applied madness. (Napoleon’s phrase)
Is there here the trace of a genius in the inspiration? How can this genius be traced externally? Primarily, to proceed topically, what kind of association of ideas are those of genius.
Experimental psychology had determined 4 manners of association of ideas: by contiguity, by resemblance, by synchronism, and by contrast.
Here on Association of Ideas {…}
To prove that in this case the association must have been such as to produce the manner of crime.
[34r]
Strange, unthinkable, {…} question, I saw it was all this. But I perceived also, well enough, that I was in the presence of the manifestations of a tremendous and diabolic mind of a power of imaging absolutely formidable, of a power of reasoning absolutely colossal.
Many were my doubts as to whether I had failed in my reasoning, or gone wrong. But for every doubt, I never staggered unconvinced. I was in the presence of an awful, of a terrible case.
______________________________________________________
Incoherence yet not madness.
Coherence appearing incoherent.
Not madness but genius.
[34v]
We knowing then that the murderer is aware of the presence of the 2 boys must seek to determine since he is aware of it, whether they are in spite of his will, or because of it.
Now since he plotted thus, if he knew the boys might be there, which would he have dared — left them there or tried to make them absent? It seems at first that {…}
But knowing, having willed, even contrived that the boys should be present, what kind of man was this that dared to commit a crime in these circumstances. Of 2 things, one: either was a man of exceptional daring, or, on the other hand, a man whose plot lies deeper still than we have gone, he being, however not that courage necessary to face the task.
[27r]
“As, however, the appearance of a criminal genius is a thing unique and before this unheard of, though there are many talents in crime, taking always these words genius and talent to apply to intellect alone; as, I repeat, there is no case of a criminal genius, I had to employ scepticism in this matter – a kind of philosophic doubt. (Cartesian Doubt).
“One fact I knew to be determined, firstly rationally, afterwards experimentally, namely that the crime had been committed by placing the pestle on top of the door, so as to drop on the head of the person entering rightly conjecturing him to be the master of science. Thus much I determined. Moreover I determined this by the characters; I did not conclude from it to the characters.
Given then the way in which the crime was committed; it is required to find the character of murderer fitting it.
Now this very strange, starling and original method of committing a crime was either original to the murderer or was copied. In the first case
[28r]
the murderer is a genius; no other conclusion can be drawn. Simplicity allied to effectiveness, this is characteristic of a genius.
The second hypothesis is fraught with improbability. If the murderer, seeking a strange way of killing was by some boyish trick reminded of this; still for this suggestion to have acted the perpetrator of the crime must be conceived as a man capable of seizing upon the suggestion, of conceiving it as a suggestion. For this it is necessary to be a genius. Let us allow it however that the suggestion thrust itself, so to speak into the eyes of the murderer. For the suggestion to force itself thus he must have been seeking. If he sought a method of murder why did he seek it? Surely a man with a weak head needs no strong blow (as this was not) to kill him; however the hand might fail, the blow could not but give death. So it is,
[27v]
but here it was not the hand that failed, but the heart. Any man of moderate courage determining to do this act would have done it personally. This one has refused to do so. There is no courage in this murderer.
“The conclusion may seem abusive, excessive. But it is not so.
Caution
“But what kind of cowardice is this? The murderer is generally a coward, except the extreme sanguinary and the criminal by passion. But this here, in this case, is a refined, feminine cowardice. There is a lack of desire for violence. There is a certain hatred of personal contact, of external physical opposition.
The murderer here is an intellectual. His crime, and his[3] method of it betray the intellectual premeditator.[4]
[BNP/E3, 279D2 – 39r]
Science Master
What was then at the end? I am trying to reconstitute consciously what happened unconsciously or subconsciously in the mind of the plotter.
Consciousness by contrast at the end, absurdity with genius, one method with another {…} – all entirely rapid.
Far from absurd — it is so rational in itself that I have reasoned up to it and with it and only by reasoning have found it.
[38r]
Case Science Master
Now I know it it seems strange no man should think of this manner of doing the thing.
“Columbus and the egg again by Dean Lewis”, said the Ex. Sergeant. “It is so simple, so preposterously childish that if, which is, be it said it were, impossible such an idea should pass by chance, through any normal mind it would pass only as a sort of normal delirium and day-dream, without wholly being made form. Childishness of form and profound {…} of idea: this is genius.”
[38v]
As you think on this crime — so {…} is the manner of its being committed — you will be in the power of extremely varying feeling — from absolute doubt to rested conviction. These are originated in the nature of the ting.
[61r]
The science master had received a blow on the head some time before this crime. Now by an abnormal association of ideas between this fact and the natural tendency of Mr. Lewis to intellectual crime, by a veritable awful association of ideas giving {…} Laplace on discoveries. Here a case of this. Mad yet original therefore genius[5] with cleverness.
Mr. Lewis has a desire to kill the science master.
[134B – 32r]
Crime of course committed in the simplest manner.
Genius in it, {…}
_______
The simpler, the profounder. Hence is deduced the character of Mr. Lewis, as a genius.
Imagination and reasoning.
[1] murder /(kill)\
[2] sometimes /often\ /mostly\
[3] his /the\
[4] Berkley. Principles of Human Knowledge.
Dialogues Hylas and Philonous.
New Theory of Vision
Kant. Critique of Pure Reason.
Kant: Critique de la Raison Pure.
trad. Barni.
[5] genius /genial\
