546 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



these utterances we recognize the great informing idea of the 

 positive juridical school, the reasoning of Lombroso and of the 

 other modern criminalists and sociologists. Ferrero, in sum- 

 ming up, to support his assertion, cites many practical examples, 

 civil and penal, too long to be quoted here. He says : " From 

 these rapid indications, which I hope to be able, in the future, to 

 develop in a longer and more complete work, we may gather how 

 the future of justice and of juridical institutions lies in the aboli- 

 tion of codes, in the abandonment of juridical principles which 

 are dangerous generalizations and determining causes of ideo- 

 emotional arrest ; in the institution of boards of arbitration, com- 

 posed of honest and intelligent persons, charged with judging 

 ex cpquo et bono, appealing, not to the authority of our fa- 

 thers, but to the authority of their consciences : perhaps also it 

 may be in the abolition of the profession of magistrate, and in 

 a varied choice, often renewed, of arbiters, among persons of 

 intelligence, instruction, and integrity, of diverse occupations; 

 because the constitution of a class of magistrates favors profes- 

 sional ideo-emotional arrests. At all events, since the gravest 

 danger to the right administration of justice lies in the produc- 

 tion of this arrest, the normal and supreme scope of all reform 

 should be to prevent, in the best manner possible, that for any 

 reason ideo-emotional arrest should be produced in those who 

 administer justice." 



When that day dawns, if ever it see daylight, no pessimist 

 will be able any longer to repeat, for the shame and condemna- 

 tion of modern society, the bitter verses which Goethe has put 

 into the mouth of Mephistopheles : 



" Customs and laws in every place, 



Like a disease, an heirloom dread, 

 Still trail their curse from race to race, 



And furtively abroad they spread. 

 To nonsense, reason's self they turn ; 



Beneficence becomes a pest ; 

 Woe unto thee, that thou'rt a grandson born ! 



As for the law born with us, unexpressed 

 That law, alas! none careth to discern." 



Guglielmo Ferrero who, by the way, is quite a young man, 

 not far advanced in the twenties has shown in this book not only 

 great promise but great achievement; and proved once more 

 what a wonderful amount of talent is possessed by that Italian 

 nation to which we owe so much of our culture and civilization. 







