nature of crime, its connection with the char- 

 acteristics of the various stages in social evo- 

 lution, and the limits within which it can be 

 cured by better economic arrangements. 



In common with most Marxian socialists, 

 Ferri attacks religion and capitalism, marriage 

 (as we know it) and private property in the 

 means of production, in the same breath. The 

 socialist movement in this country has not 

 only not considered these attacks to be essen- 

 tial to the success of socialism, but has largely 

 disagreed with them. It may be true logically, 

 as Ferri asserts, that once the evolutionary 

 process is granted, it is as easy to swallow the 

 gnat of eternal and self-existent force and 

 matter, as it is to swallow the camel of an 

 eternal and self-existent God. Neither belief 

 may explain the origin of force, of creative 

 power, of will to struggle. But the British 

 socialist, as a rule, has said " Those things 

 have nothing to do with socialism." 



So also with marriage. Mr. Bryce suggested 

 to the Sociological Society a few days ago 

 (23rd March) that it was necessary to collect 

 and classify, with a view of drawing scientific 

 sociological inferences from them, the facts 

 regarding the working of laws making divorce 

 easy. These facts have not been collected 

 and until they are, dogmatising in a priori 

 fashion upon the sociological future of the 

 marriage tie has not seemed to the British 

 socialist a very profitable mental exercise. 

 He has been content to record two well 

 observed conclusions. The first is, that capi- 

 talism hinders the free play of simple affection 

 in marriage to-day, and is thus responsible 

 not only for many ghastly failures in matri- 

 monial ventures, but also for offspring phy- 

 sically and morally unfit. This Ferri describes 

 as " sexual selection the wrong way " (selection 



