i6o 



fashion in a society directed towards a true human 

 solidarity, from the way in which it acts in the indi- 

 vidualistic and morally anarchical world of to-day, where 

 every man through so-called free competition is forced to 

 follow his anti-social egoism that is to say, to be in 

 opposition to, and not in agreement with, the necessities 

 and tendencies of the other members of society. 



But the repetition of the most worn-out commonplaces 

 certainly reaches its summit when, through inattention 

 on the part of the author, M. Garofalo writes these 

 marvellous lines : 



"Many young people of aristocratic families apparently 

 do not work. It is, however, more accurate to say that 

 they do not perform any productive work for themselves, 

 but they work just the same ( ! !), and it is for the benefit 

 of others. 



"In fact, these 'lazy' gentlemen are really given up 

 to sport the chase, navigation, riding, fencing or to 

 travels, or to dilettantism in the arts, and their activity, 

 unproductive for themselves, furnishes profitable occupa- 

 tions for an immense number of persons " (page 183). 



One day studying the prisoners, one of them said to 

 me : "People cry out a good deal against criminals 

 because they do not work ; but if we did not exist, an 

 immense number of persons gaolers, policemen, judges, 

 advocates would be without profitable occupation."* 



After having noted these specimens of scientific inatten- 

 tion, and before approaching the examination of the rare 

 arguments scientifically developed by M. Garofalo, it is 

 useful, in order to be able to pass a general judgment on 

 his book, to show at what point he has forgotten the 

 most elementary rules of the positive method. 



And it will be useful also to add some examples of 

 errors of fact bearing either on science in general or on 

 the doctrines combated by him. 



* And in the French translation M. Garofalo still maintains his miraculous 

 affirmation, even against the objections of M. Nitti, an eclectic and an oppor- 

 tunist, but a talented economist, who with regard to this declared "that Rastiat 

 himself had never said anything like it." 



Here is the answer of M. Garofalo: "Let us suppose that the great lordly 

 parks are used by companies of hunting men. Will the grooms and valets be 

 as well fed and lodged in the service of the company ns they are to-day in that 

 of the rich lords?" But first one might suppose that "great parks "would be 

 cultivated with a view to useful production instead of being abandoned to 

 companies of huntsmen. 



And secondly, is not the parasitism of servants, whose number increases 

 in epochs of decadence, a phenomenon of social pathology when such a number 

 ofprrsons are devoted to the personal cares "of the grent lord instead of 

 working at the production of useful objects?" If the reasoning of M. 

 Garofalo were sound, it would follow that society would have more interest 

 in hiving more " lordly parks" and vnlets than cultivated fields and agricul- 

 tural or industrial workers, 



