Detecting a Criminal

Although there have been numerous studies done on Cesare Lombroso's Criminal Man Theory and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's contribution to the field of criminal anthropology through the character Sherlock Holmes, I have not yet encountered a piece of scholarship that addresses Doyle's rejection of Lombrosian theory. Due to the social concerns of fin-de-siècle Europe, I am confident that Lombroso's intention was to provide a classification system that would assist in the identification of individuals which he deemed threatening to society; however, he was criticized by many leading physicians, including Doyle, who claimed that his research lacked scientific evidence. Like many of his contemporaries, Doyle believed in the "classical school" of criminal anthropology-that an individual's behavior is a product of choice and is not determined by inherited biological factors as Lombroso had suggested. Additionally, Doyle challenged the lack of falsifiability in the Criminal Man Theory by creating Sherlock Holmes-a born, morally insane, criminal genius "type" who did not contribute to societal degeneration but restored social order. I examine Cesare Lombroso's Criminal Man Theory by first discussing the history of criminal anthropology and the social concerns of fin-de-siècle England, in order to identify Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as a critic and address the way he refutes the Criminal Man Theory through the Sherlock Holmes novels. I determine that Doyle characterizes Holmes in Lombrosian terms as a born, morally insane, and criminal genius. By examining the detective's physical, mental, and behavioral characteristics in the four Holmes novels, I argue that Doyle characterizes Holmes as each criminal "type" by assigning him five more abnormal anomalies. I will further argue that because Holmes is "criminal" in Lombrosian terms but does not contribute to the degeneration of society, Doyle falsifies the Criminal Man Theory. I will show that Doyle's sociologically based view of the social order conflicted with Lombroso's biologically determined theory, and will further argue that Doyle's creation of Sherlock Holmes influenced the field of criminal anthropology by offering an alternative theory to the debate of the causes and effects of criminality-that criminal behavior is not a result of genetics but of choice.