LITERARY NOTICES. 



555 



students without means who might wish 

 to devote themselves to scientific re- 

 search. Difficulties having presented 

 themselves in the way of applying the 

 money precisely as intended, the trus- 

 tees retained it with Prof. Tyndall's ap- 

 proval, and finally divided it between 

 the Universities of Harvard, Columbia, 

 and Pennsylvania, each receiving so 

 successful had been the management of 

 the fund no less a sum than ten thou- 

 sand eight hundred dollars. The gen- 

 erous donor of the original sum had a 

 good right to say as he did at the ban- 

 quet, "Not as a servant of Mammon do 

 I ask you to take science to your hearts, 

 but as the strengthener and enlightener 

 of the mind of man." These words 

 were the key to his own life, and might 

 well be engraved on any monument 

 raised in his honor. 



Dr. Andrew D. White contributes 

 to this number of the Monthly the first 

 of a group of papers which, while they 

 form part of his New Chapters in the 

 Warfare of Science, have also a distinc- 

 tive leading idea. Their general title is 

 From Creation to Evolution, and they 

 are Intended to show that the modern 

 scientific conception of the universe, in- 

 cluding man and his activities, has been 

 developed out of the theological and 

 metaphysical conceptions through a con- 

 tinuous progression. In the article pub- 

 lished this month the change of belief 

 in regard to the formation of the earth 

 and stars is traced, and, as our readers 

 will find, with all the wealth and defi- 

 niteness of evidence which always char- 

 acterize Dr. White's writings. 



LITERARY NOTICES. 



Romance of a Born Criminal. Milan : Chie- 

 si, 1893. 



This remarkable book, published and 

 prefaced by a well-known Italian criminal 

 anthropologist, can not and ought not to be 

 judged by the usual canons of criticism. The 



title of romance must be subjectively justi- 

 fied, since the feeling that inspired the pro- 

 tagonist, a convict, to write these pages was 

 certainly not diverse from that which moves 

 other contemporary authors to expose their 

 intimate ideas and sentiments in biograph- 

 ical form. Le Crime et le Chatiment, by 

 Dostojewski ; La Bete Humaine, by ]Emile 

 Zola, Giovanni Episcopo, and L'Innocent, by 

 Gabriele d' Annunzio, are the latest examples 

 of this pathological literature, in which the 

 skill of the authors opens before our minds a 

 vista of deep knowledge of morbid states of 

 mind, in which art takes the place of truth. 

 In this book art there is none, but of truth 

 there is perhaps a great deal more, and the 

 very literary inexperience of the writer throws 

 this into high relief ; for, if truth comes to 

 the fore because it is touched with the ac- 

 cent of veracity, what is false can not be 

 glossed over here as with professional scribes, 

 who know how to varnish and pleasantly 

 hide by means of a pleasing and misleading 

 style. It may have been the writer's inten- 

 tion to indite a work of art, but he has suc- 

 ceeded rather in furnishing the world with a 

 most precious scientific and human document, 

 and as a scientific document the book must 

 be perused. The adventures of this capo ca- 

 morra, a perfect t_vpe of the instinctive crim- 

 inal, who believes he can justify and rehabili- 

 tate himself in the eyes of the world by re- 

 counting his crimes, his changes of fortune, 

 are not without interest. The protagonist 

 endeavors to attenuate and almost to vindi- 

 cate the former by excusing them in his own 

 way. In publishing this work A. G. Bianchi 

 wishes to give a practical illustration of the 

 theories of the new penal school of criminal 

 anthropology which, thanks to Lombroso, Ta- 

 massia, and other well-known observers, has 

 developed so greatly in Italy, and is begin- 

 ning to influence the decrees of human jus- 

 tice when called upon to decide on the culpa- 

 bility of criminals. This book by Bianchi is, 

 in short, the oifspring of analytical studies. 



" This work of mine," says Bianchi in his 

 preface, " ought to be a help to the study of 

 individual criminality, whether subjectively 

 by the narration of his own adventures by 

 the delinquent himself, or objectively and 

 scientifically, thanks to the help of the great 

 savant, Silvio Venturi, professor at the uni- 

 versity at Naples and director of the lunatic 



