1128 The American Naturalist. | December, 
desirable, for the normal or average traits which constitute it are 
grouped together chiefly by reason of their common utility to the spe- 
cles. 
The importance of the above analysis, Prof. Durkheim continues, 
will become evident if we apply it to a single problem. All criminol- 
ogists are agreed that crime isa pathological phenomenon. Yet, in 
the light of the foregoing, the error of this view is at once apparent. 
Crime is found in all societies of all types, and is indissolubly con- 
nected with the conditions of social life; it must therefore he regarded 
as anormal phenomenon. By this admission we do not merely mean 
that it is inevittable, although regrettable; we mean “that it is a factor 
of the public health, an integral part of every healthy society.” Good rea- 
sons can be given for this conclusion. In the first place, crimé can never 
be abolished. It consists in the offence of certain collective sentiments 
If those sentiments could be made strong enough to suppress the pres-- 
ent forms of crime, they would, by reason of their greater sensitiveness, 
take fresh offence at acts now regarded as venial, and crime would be 
as far from extinction as ever. In the second place, since it depends 
upon conditions which are essential to life, it must itself be regarded as 
advantageous. In the third place, this occasional clash of the individ- 
ual with the collective sentiment of the community is an essential con- 
dition of progress. The abolition of crime would be the abolition of 
progress. “ Thus we see the fundamental facts of criminology in a 
quite new aspect. Contrary to current notions, the criminal no longer 
appears a radically unsocial being, a parasitic element as it were, a 
foreign and unassimilable body introduced into the midst of society ; 
he is a legitimate instrument of social life. Crime should no longer be 
conceived as an evil that cannot be contained within too narrow 
bounds; but, so far from congratulating ourselves when it chances to 
fall too noticeably below its usual level, we should feel confident that 
our apparant progress is accompanied by, and is even organically con- 
tinuous with, some social disturbance.” . . . . “Since crime is 
not. morbid, its cure cannot be the end of punishment, and that end 
must be sought elsewhere.” To these startling deductions Prof. Durk- 
heim adds some even more startling reflections upon the practical ad- 
vantages of this truly and only scientific method of investigation. No 
longer need human effort be wasted in the pursuit of fantastic and 
indefinable ideals. The desired and desirable end, that is, social 
health, is something definite and known; we need only labor to main- 
tain the normal state of affairs, to reéstablish it if it is disturbed, to re- 
construct its conditions if they tend to change. 
