Van Helsing : Ah, there I have hope that our man-brains, that have been of man so long and have not lost the grace of God, will come higher than his child-brain that lie in his tomb for centuries, that grow not yet to our stature, and that do only work selfish and therefore small. Here comes Madam Mina! [...]. We want all her great brain which is trained like a man’s brain, but is of sweet woman and have a special power which the Count give her, and which he may not yet take away altogether - though he think not so. [404]; What does this tell us? Not much I! No! The Count’s child-thought see nothing; therefore he speak so free. Your man-thought see nothing; my man-thought see nothing, till just now. No! But there comes another word from someone who speak without thought because she too know not what it mean - what it might mean. Just as there are elements which rest, yet when in nature’s course they move on their way and they touch - then pouf! and there comes a flash of light, heaven’s wide, that blind and kill and destroy some; but that show up all earth below, for leagues and leagues. Is it not so? Well, I shall explain. To begin, have you ever study the philosophy of crime? “Yes” and “No.” You, John, yes; for it is a study of insanity. You, no, Madam Mina; for crime touch you not - not but once. Still, your mind works true, and argues not a particular and universal. There is this peculiarity in criminals. It is so constant, in all countries and at all times, that even police, who know not much from philosophy, come to know it empirically, that it is. That is to be empiric. The criminal always work at one crime - that is the true criminal what seems predestinate to crime, and who will of none other. This criminal has not full man-brain. He is [405] clever and clever and cunning and resourceful; but he be not of man stature as to brain. He be of child-brain in much. Now this criminal of ours is predestinate to crime also; he too have child-brain, -and it is of the child - to do what he have done. The little bird, the little fish, - the little animal learn not by principle, but empirically; and when he learn to do, then there is to him the ground to start from to do more. “Dos pou sto” said Archimedes. “Give me a fulcrum, and I shall move the world!” To do once, is the fulcrum whereby child brain become man-brain; and until he have the purpose to do more, he continue to do the same again every time, just as the have done before!’ [405-06]

Mina: ‘The Count is a criminal and of criminal type. Nordau and Lombroso would so classify him, and qua criminal he is of imperfectly formed mind. Thus, in a difficulty he has to seek resource in habit. His past is a clue, and the one page of it that we know - and that from his own lips - tells that once before, when in what Mr Morris would call a “tight place” [recte spot], he went back to his own country from the land he had tried to invade, and thence, without losing purpose, prepared him self for a new effort. He came again, better equipped for his work; and won. So he came to London to invade a new land. He was beaten, and when all hope of success was lost, and his existence in danger, he fled back over the sea to his home; just as formerly he had fled back over the Danube from Turkey land.’ [406]