e says that a girl has died of a 'broken heart,'
without suspecting that disappointed love has been known to cause an
actual heart rupture, demonstrable by _post-mortem_ examination. So,
to return to my subject, people say that an immoral man has 'a
diseased imagination,' without realizing that they state the exact
condition from which he suffers."

"Why, if such were the case, it would be improper to punish
criminals!" Such an idea seemed rank heresy to the Judge.

"It is entirely wrong to punish criminals. We should however imprison
them, because they are dangerous to the community. But their
incarceration should be precisely similar to the forcible confinement
of individuals suffering with diseases which threaten to become
epidemic, and for very similar reasons. First, to endeavor to effect
their cure, and second, and most important, to prevent the spread of
the malady."

"You mean that jails should be reformatories?"

"Exclusively. Moreover, the length of the confinement should not be
regulated by statute, but should depend upon the intensity of the
attack of crime or vice, which has occasioned the arrest of the
prisoner. He should be jailed until cured, just as a leper is, even
though it be for life. However, I cannot now discuss that aspect of
the question. I wish to more fully explain the germ theory of crime."

"I am impatient to hear you." In his interest in the subject the Judge
had almost forgotten his recent feeling of animosity.

"The idea then is this. Suppose that a babe could be born, with a
perfect psychical endowment. We would have a being in whom all the
higher virtues would predominate, while the vices would be
non-existent. But take such an individual and place him in an
environment where he would daily be associated with vice in its worst
form and it would be inevitable that he would become vicious, for
crime is as contagious as small-pox. The germ of a physical disease is
a parasite so small in some instances, that when placed under a
microscope and magnified one thousand times, it then becomes visible
as a tiny dot, which might be made by a very sharp pencil. The germ of
crime is even more minute and intangible. It exists as a suggestion."

"A suggestion?"

"Yes! Suggestion is the most potent factor in the affairs of the
world. There is never a suggestion without an effect. Wherever it
occurs an impression is created. No living man is free from its
influence. A common example which I mi