57 6 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
this sort of insanity, (h) Weak-mindedness is the form of psychic abnormality most frequently encountered among the criminal insane, (i) Sensory illusions, noted among the criminal insane and named in the order of frequency of occurrence, are as follows : auditory, visual, tactile, gustatory, and olfactory. The chief delusions are those of persecution, pursuit, coming freedom, and exaggerated personality. (j) Very few cases of feigned insanity are found, (k) Insane criminals are much more likely than others to attempt escape. (/) The chances are about one to three that an insane criminal will be recognized as such upon the occasion of his first crime and conviction. DR. ULRICH SCHEVEN, " Geistesstorung und Verbrechen in Mecklenburg-Schwerin," in Archiv fur Kriminal-Anthropologic und Kriminalistik, 4. Band, I., 2., 3. u. 4. Heft.
R. G. K.
Socialism and Anarchism. Great as is the danger to which society is exposed from anarchism, it is less serious than that which arises out of the temper of society toward the anarchism which its dreads.
Anarchism is not a disease, but it is a symptom of a disease, and that disease is democracy. It was in order to counteract the ravages of that disease that Hamilton and his colleagues framed the checks and counterchecks which are such a unique feature of the American constitution, and which have so admirably preserved the balance in the working of that constitution. This has been one of the main factors in the amazing progress of the United States.
We have the disease in quite as virulent a form as they have it in America. But, alas ! we have not the remedy. A nation wholly abandoned to the heady law- lessness of a democracy is stricken to its very vitals with a deadly and incurable malady. Such a nation is a spectacle over which the gods might well weep with tears of pity. And such a spectacle is England today. Hence our statesmen sigh for a con- stitution similar to that of the United States. When Lord Salisbury, some months ago, said, " Under a constitution such as ours you have, and ever can have, no adequate guarantee that either war or any other department of government will be efficiently conducted," he put his finger on the fatally weak spot in England's armor.
Democratic government is on its trial, and it is by no means certain that it will emerge triumphantly from the test to which it is being subjected. Already it shows signs of breaking under the strain ; at all events this is the case in England. If it is not true in the United States or France in the same degree, it is because those coun- tries are really less democratic than ours.
The rock upon which democracy will shiver itself to atoms is property. And this is the common ground upon which socialism and anarchy meet. Anarchism says very little about property, and socialism says very little about liberty ; their policy is, however, to cooperate toward undermining these two bastions, upon which the whole of civilization is founded. If these go, all goes.
At the present time in this country press, platform, Parliament, and even many of our nonconformist churches and philanthropic movements, are veritable seed-beds of socialism and anarchy, and the same remark applies with equal force to the United States. And the governments encourage rather than try to stop it.
Both in the United States and in England people who profess to understand the signs of the times and to be statesmen and leaders calmly sleep on over a slum- bering volcano, which may burst into active eruption so suddenly as to over- whelm and confound those who are at ease in the midst of their luxury. GEOFFREY LANGTOFT, in Fortnightly Review, October, 1900. B. F. S.
