6 7 



socialism proclaims aloud for the benefit of 

 all and against all opponents. The solution of 

 the problem does not become easier because 

 the existing abnormal conditions which be- 

 comes more and more acute misery of the 

 masses and enjoyment of the few is not the 

 result of the ill will of such or such an 

 individual. 



On this side again socialism is, in fact, in 

 complete accord with positive science, which 

 denies the free will of man and sees in human 

 activity, individual and collective, a necessary 

 effect, determined at the same time by 

 conditions of race and environment.* 



Crime, suicide, madness, misery, are not the 

 fruit of free will, of the individual fault, as 

 metaphysical spiritualism believes ; and it is 

 no more a result of free will, a fault of the 

 individual capitalist, if the workman is badly 

 paid, if he is without work, if he is miserable. 



All social phenomena are the necessary 

 resultants of historic conditions and of en- 

 vironment. In the modern world the facility 

 and the greater frequency of intercourse 

 between all parts of the earth have drawn 

 still closer the dependence of every action 



* Separating myself from the two exclusive arguments 

 that civilisation is a consequence of race or a product of 

 the environment, I have always maintained by my 

 theory of the natural factors of criminality that it is the 

 resultant of the combined action of race and environment. 



Amongst the recent works which maintain the argument 

 of the exclusive or predominant influence of race must be 

 mentioned Le Bon, The Psychology of Peoples, London, 

 1899. This work is, however, rather superficial. I refer 

 for a more detailed examination of these two arguments 

 to the fourth chapter of my book, Omicidio nell' antro- 

 Pologia criminale, Turin, 1894. 



