

ENRICO FERRI ON HOMICIDE. 683 



homicide, such as cannibalism, blood revenges, etc., where they do 

 not entirely disappear, become less frequent, are less tolerated, and 

 assume more moral and juridic aspects (juridic homicide and can- 

 nibalism as a punishment for evil-doers), and this new aspect con- 

 stitutes the embryo of the succeeding social right of repression. 



After this extensive analysis Ferri thinks he is justified in as- 

 serting that savages do not entirely ignore any notion of crimes 

 and of punishment, and if some peoples lack the sense of crime, 

 the majority consider as punishable a certain number of criminal 

 actions, although no doubt these are few as compared with the 

 number existing in our actual codexes. After this review of prim- 

 itive homicide, although the ethnographical study of criminality 

 and legislation is still incomplete, Ferri believes he may draw 

 various conclusions, of which the most important are : " As among 

 animals, so among savages, these more or less atrocious facts are 

 not alone the effects of specific race tendencies, but also occur 

 among gentle peoples and those relatively less savage. The moral 

 and juridic evolutions against homicide exist hardly even in em- 

 bryo among the most savage tribes, any more than among animals, 

 and follow, like any other psychological manifestation, the slow 

 evolution of human society. . . . Justice in the moral and juridic 

 sense is essentially relative and variable." As a general and 

 definite conclusion of these preliminary examinations of savage 

 humanity and animals in the order of their criminal activity, it 

 follows, contrary to the affirmation of the schools, that neither 

 punishment nor social innovations will ever succeed in extirpating 

 homicide. But this ideal may be reached rather by the slow labor 

 of progressive evolution. 



This interesting examination of the natural evolution of homi- 

 cide is followed by an inquiry into its natural causes. This second 

 scientific examination needed to be subdivided on the basis of the 

 classification generally adopted by the others (anthropological, 

 physical, and social factors) into three special studies. The com- 

 bination of the factors among themselves, and the respective prev- 

 alence of one of these, determined a special category of crime. 

 Thus the prevalence of the anthropological factor gives us the 

 figure of the murderer born and the murderer by insanity, the 

 main subject of this large work ; the prevalence of physical and 

 social factors furnishes us with the figure of the murderer by oc- 

 casion and by passion, which is to form the theme of the second 

 volume. The anthropological factor in the criminal divides itself 

 yet again into its constituent elements of organic and psychic. 



Ferri begins with the examination of the organic constitution 

 of homicide, objecting with great force to the criticisms and meth- 

 ods of the modern school of anthropology and exposing the cri- 

 terions by which he himself has been guided. It is not easy or 



