382 HUMAN BIOLOGY 



probably with some approach to correctness, that in the 

 last two years there have been over two hundred such 

 murders in Chicago alone, with almost none of the murderers 

 brought to trial. While this is an outstanding example of 

 the main point we have in mind, in regard to less lurid 

 offenses almost equally baffling conditions confront one 

 who would generalize about human nature as related to 

 criminahstic behavior. 



CRIMINOLOGICAL THEORIES 



For our own orientation, some mention of older concep- 

 tions of criminology will be advantageous. Any outlining 

 of the various ideas that have been held in this field leads 

 to the realization that they, all of them, are bare theories. 

 Even the concepts of the law, based though they are upon 

 "the accumulation of human wisdom during the centuries" 

 are but theories concerning the fitness of certain punish- 

 ments and the eff'ectiveness of deterrency and reformation. 

 It shows that only the first beginnings of the application of 

 scientific method, of experiment and the observation of 

 results, are as yet discernible in the treatment of criminals. 



Until some fifty years ago the generally held notion in 

 regard to crime was that it always results from a fiat of 

 the individual's free will. Nothing further was needed by 

 way of essential explanation, nothing pertaining to specific 

 biological or sociological features concerning the individual 

 or his environment. The latter part of the last century 

 witnessed the rise of the biological and sociological schools 

 of criminology, captained respectively by Lombroso and 

 Ferri. They and their followers constituted the Positivist 

 or Italian school of criminology, as set over against the 

 earlier classical school whose tenets have been mentioned. 

 Enrico Ferri drew up the following orienting diagram of 

 theories: 



Crime is a phenomenon of either: 



A. Normality: biological or social 



B. Biological abnormality: 



(a) Atavistic: organic plus psychic, or psychic 



(b) Pathological: neurosis, neurasthenia, or epilepsy 



