SCIENCE AND REVOLUTION 



toire Naturelle," and this idea became the spark, 

 which, in the hands of Lamarck, later on started 

 the fire of organic development in all natural 

 sciences. 



In criminology, Beccaria made a new de- 

 parture in Italy, in 1774. He published his work 

 on crime and punishment under a false date and 

 with a false place of publication, knowing that his 

 ideas, which were impregnated with the spirit of 

 the impending French Revolution, would set loose 

 a storm of reactionary attacks against him. He 

 opposed the medieval methods of " justice," with 

 their torture and secret proceedings, and under- 

 mined the conception of a personal responsibility 

 of criminals. This threatened the dearest tenets 

 of theological dogmas about " vicarious atone- 

 ment," and set the Jesuitical machine of the 

 church into frenzied motion. 



In economics, the year 1776 marks a milestone 

 of advance in Adam Smith's " Wealth of Na- 

 tions," which subverted the current ideas on the 

 origin of profits. Smith declared in so many 

 words, that profits were not an arbitrary addition 

 of the seller to the price of his article, but surplus- 

 values, surplus-products, appropriated by the 

 owners of means of production out of the unpaid 

 products of " industrious persons." This con- 



