I 62 THE MISMEASURE OF MANthe maximum for criminals—may simply be an artifact of larger
sample size for law-abiding men (the larger the sample, the greater
the chance of including extreme values).
Lombroso's stigmata also included a set of social traits. He
emphasized particularly: 1) The argot of criminals, a language of
their own with high levels of onomatopoeia, much like the speech
of children and savages: "Atavism contributes to it more than any-
thing else. They speak differently because they feel differently;
they speak as savages because they are true savages in the midst of
our brilliant European civilization" (1887, p. 476); 2) Tattooing,
reflecting both the insensitivity of criminals to pain and their ata-
vistic love of adornment (Fig. 4.4). Lombroso made a quantitative
study of content in criminal tattoos and found them, in general,
lawless ("vengeance") or excusing ("born under an unlucky star,"
"out of luck"), though he encountered one that read: "Long live
France and french fried potatoes."
Lombroso never attributed all criminal acts to people with ata-
vistic stigmata. He concluded that about 40 percent of criminals
followed hereditary compulsion; others acted from passion, rage,
or desperation. At first glance, this distinction of occasional from
born criminals has the appearance of a compromise or retreat, but
Lombroso used it in an opposite way—as a claim that rendered his
system immune to disproof. No longer could men be characterized
by their acts. Murder might be a deed of the lowest ape in a human
body or of the most upright cuckold overcome by justified rage. All
criminal acts are covered: a man with stigmata performs them by
innate nature, a man without stigmata by force of circumstances.
By classifying exceptions within his system, Lombroso excluded all
potential falsification.
Lombroso's retreat
Lombroso's theory of atavism caused a great stir and aroused
one of the most heated scientific debates of the nineteenth century.
Lombroso, though he peppered his work with volumes of num-
bers, had not made the usual obeisances to cold objectivity. Even
those great a priorists, the disciples of Paul Broca, chided Lom-
broso for his lawyerly, rather than scientific, approach. Paul Topi-
nard said of him (1887, p. 676): "He did not say: here is a fact
which suggests an induction to me, let's see if I am mistaken, lets