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THE POSITIVE SCHOOL OF CRIMINOLOGY

Three Lectures

Given at the University of Naples, Italy on April 22, 23 and 24, 1901


By Enrico Ferri

Translated by Ernest Untermann


Chicago

Charles H. Kerr & Company

1908





THE POSITIVE SCHOOL OF CRIMINOLOGY


I.

My Friends:

When, in the turmoil of my daily occupation, I received an invitation,
several months ago, from several hundred students of this famous
university, to give them a brief summary, in short special lectures, of
the principal and fundamental conclusions of criminal sociology, I
gladly accepted, because this invitation fell in with two ideals of
mine. These two ideals are stirring my heart and are the secret of my
life. In the first place, this invitation chimed with the ideal of my
personal life, namely, to diffuse and propagate among my brothers the
scientific ideas, which my brain has accumulated, not through any merit
of mine, but thanks to the lucky prize inherited from my mother in the
lottery of life. And the second ideal which this invitation called up
before my mind's vision was this: The ideal of young people of Italy,
united in morals and intellectual pursuits, feeling in their social
lives the glow of a great aim. It would matter little whether this aim
would agree with my own ideas or be opposed to them, so long as it
should be an ideal which would lift the aspirations of the young people
out of the fatal grasp of egoistic interests. Of course, we positivists
know very well, that the material requirements of life shape and
determine also the moral and intellectual aims of human consciousness.
But positive science declares the following to be the indispensable
requirement for the regeneration of human ideals: Without an ideal,
neither an individual nor a collectivity can live, without it humanity
is dead or dying. For it is the fire of an ideal which renders the life
of each one of us possible, useful and fertile. And only by its help can
each one of us, in the more or less short course of his or her
existence, leave behind traces for the benefit of fellow-beings. The
invitation extended to me proves that the students of Naples believe in
the inspiring existence of such an ideal of science, and are anxious to
learn more about ideas, with which the entire world of the present day
is occupied, and whose life-giving breath enters even through the
windows of the dry courtrooms, when their doors are closed against it.

       *       *       *       *       *

Let us now speak of this new science, which has become known in Italy by
the name of the Positive School of Criminology. This science, the same
as every other phenomenon of scientific evolution, cannot be
shortsightedly or conceitedly attributed to the arbitrary initiative of
this or that thinker, this or that scientist. We must rather regard it
as a natural product, a necessary phenomenon, in the development of that
sad and somber department of science which deals with the disease of
crime. It is this plague of crime which forms such a gloomy and painful
contrast with the splendor of present-day civilization. The 19th century
has won a great victory over mortality and infectious diseases by means
of the masterful progress of physiology and natural science. But while
contagious diseases have gradually diminished, we see on the other hand
that moral diseases are growing more numerous in our so-called
civilization. While typhoid fever, smallpox, cholera and diphtheria
retreated before the remedies which enlightened science applied by means
of the experimental method, removing their concrete causes, we see on
the other hand that insanity, suicide and crime, that painful trinity,
are growing apace. And this makes it very evident that the science which
is principally, if not exclusively, engaged in studying these phenomena
of social disease, should feel the necessity of finding a more exact
diagnosis of these moral diseases of society, in order to arrive at some
effective and more humane remedy, which should more victoriously combat
this somber trinity of insanity, suicide and crime.

The science of positive criminology arose in the last quarter of the
19th century, as a result of this strange contrast, which would be
inexplicable, if we could not discover historical and scientific reasons
for its existence. And it is indeed a strange contrast that Italy should
have arrived at a perfect theoretical development of a classical school
of criminology, while there persists, on the other hand, the disgraceful
condition that criminality assumes dimensions never before observed in
this country, so that the science of criminology cannot stem the tide of
crime in high and low circles. It is for this reason, that the positive
school of criminology arises out of the very nature of things, the same
as every other line of science. It is based on the conditions of our
daily life. It would indeed be conceited on our part to claim that we,
who are the originators of this new science and its new conclusions,
deserve alone the credit for its existence. The brain of the scientist
is rather a sort of electrical accumulator, which feels and assimilates
the vibrations and heart-beats of life, its splendor and its shame, and
derives therefrom the conviction that it must of necessity provide for
definite social wants. And on the other hand, it would be an evidence of
intellectual short-sightedness on the part of the positivist man of
science, if he did not recognize the historical accomplishments, which
his predecessors on the field of science have left behind as indelible
traces of their struggle against the unknown in that brilliant and
irksome domain. For this reason, the adherents of the positive school of
criminology feel the most sincere reverence for the classic school of
criminology. And I am glad today, in accepting the invitation of the
students of Naples, to say, that this is another reason why their
invitation was welcome to me. It is now 16 years since I gave in this
same hall a lecture on positive criminology, which was then in its
initial stages. It was in 1885, when I had the opportunity to outline
the first principles of the positive school of criminology, at the
invitation of other students, who preceded you on the periodic waves of
the intellectual generations. And the renewal of this opportunity gave
me so much moral satisfaction that, I could not under any circumstances
decline your invitation. Then too, the Neapolitan Atheneum has
maintained the reputation of the Italian mind in the 19th century, also
in that science which even foreign scientists admit to be our specialty,
namely the science of criminology. In fact, aside from the two terrible
books of the Digest, and from the practical criminologists of the Middle
Ages who continued the study of criminality, the modern world opened a
glorious page in the progress of criminal science with the modest little
book of Cesare Beccaria. This progress leads from Cesare Beccaria, by
way of Francesco Carrara, to Enrico Pessina.

Enrico Pessina alone remains of the two giants who concluded the cycle
of classic school of criminology. In a lucid moment of his scientific
consciousness, which soon reverted to the old abstract and metaphysical
theories, he announced in an introductory statement in 1879, that
criminal justice would have to rejuvenate itself in the pure bath of the
natural sciences and substitute in place of abstraction the living and
concrete study of facts. Naturally every scientist has his function and
historical significance; and we cannot expect that a brain which has
arrived at the end of its career should turn towards a new direction. At
any rate, it is a significant fact that this most renowned
representative of the classic school of criminology should have pointed
out this need of his special science in this same university of Naples,
one year after the inauguration of the positive school of criminology,
that he should have looked forward to a time when the study of natural
and positive facts would set to rights the old juridical abstractions.
And there is still another precedent in the history of this university,
which makes scientific propaganda at this place very agreeable for a
positivist. It is that six years before that introductory statement by
Pessina, Giovanni Bovio gave lectures at this university, which he
published later on under the title of "A Critical Study of Criminal
Law." Giovanni Bovio performed in this monograph the function of a
critic, but the historical time of his thought, prevented him from
taking part in the construction of a new science. However, he prepared
the ground for new ideas, by pointing out all the rifts and weaknesses
of the old building. Bovio maintained that which Gioberti, Ellero,
Conforti, Tissol had already maintained, namely that it is impossible to
solve the problem which is still the theoretical foundation of the
classic school of criminology, the problem of the relation between
punishment and crime. No man, no scientist, no legislator, no judge, has
ever been able to indicate any absolute standard, which would enable us
to say that equity demands a definite punishment for a definite crime.
We can find some opportunistic expedient, but not a solution of the
problem. Of course, if we could decide which is the gravest crime, then
we could also decide on the heaviest sentence and formulate a descending
scale which would establish the relative