Lombroso, prophet and criminologist / [Guglielmo Ferrero].

  • Guglielmo Ferrero
Date:
1908
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Lombroso, prophet and criminologist / [Guglielmo Ferrero]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    an apostle of moral and social reforms, who, like the prophets of olden times, is endeavoring to amend existing morals and institutions. Thirty years ago he en¬ gaged in long clinical studies upon the origin of the pellagra, a terrible disease which makes havoc among the peasants of Lombardy; and he advanced a new theory which, although violently opposed at first, is now generally accepted. From the point of view of purely pathological and chemical research, it would seem as if no moral element could have any con¬ nection with the matter; yet the prophetic spirit is so strong in Lombroso that he made the conclusions of his researches conducive to an agitation for moral and social reform. According to his theory, the disease arose from the fact that the peasants were in the habit of eating bad maize, which the landowners preferred to give them instead of throwing it away; and this fact impelled him to enter upon a violent campaign against the selfishness of landed proprietors, demanding the in¬ terference of the Government on behalf of the peasants. For five years he trav¬ eled through the parts of the country which were the most afflicted with this disease, giving popular lectures on the measures to be adopted for its care; he wrote pamphlets in the form of dialogues or short stories on the causes and cure of the pellagra, and distributed thousands of copies among the peasants; he tried to organize societies and hospitals in order to fight the disease; until at length the landowners, wearied of this prophet who went about preaching redemption from pellagra, succeeded by means of petty persecutions in rendering his life at Pavia, where he was then living as pro¬ fessor, so unbearable that he was forced to remove to Turin. At Turin, Lombroso devoted himself to a zealous study of criminals. For the last twenty years he has been examining criminals with the patience of a Benedic¬ tine, measuring their faces, their skulls, their degree of sensitiveness, studying their diseases and their psychology, col¬ lecting an enormous mass of physiologi¬ cal, anthropological, and psychological data. But it would be wrong to credit him with a mind which is capable of un¬ dertaking this endless task for the sake of a purely intellectual pleasure in explain¬ ing what a criminal really is. The prob¬ lem he wishes to solve is one of a higher and more complex nature—that of find¬ ing a more vigorous method by which a juster proportion between crime and its punishment may be established. Lom¬ broso has not drawn practical conclusions from his studies with the calm indiffer¬ ence of a philosopher giving advice to men more ignorant than himself, but rather with the impassioned ardor of an apostle who feels that he has a noble mis¬ sion to fulfil upon earth, so much so that the most eloquent pages in his works are always those in which he attacks with vi¬ olent and ironical criticism the funda¬ mental injustice of our modern method of penal repression, which is more favorable to the evil-doer than to the honest man. He is actually so thoroughly penetrated and pained by the thought of all this in¬ justice that he does not rest content with instituting an immense propaganda against it by means of books, articles, pamphlets, and speeches, but is continu¬ ally talking of it in his family-circle and among his friends. He often mentions this subject to us; giving vent to a verve of bitter sarcasm against the men who thus neglect justice; and he often becomes so excited in the discussion that he falls into the most extravagant paradoxes. Then he affirms that men are by no means superior to animals, that civ¬ ilization is a lie, that all things will end in ruin for want of that which is so dear to the Jew—justice. In short, he has solved a great scientific problem solely in order to attain the means of modifying certain social institutions, and the reform of these institutions means more to him than a simple desire: it is a mission to which he has dedicated his life. Scien¬ tific research serves to excite in him the prophetic instinct peculiar to his race, by which, if, on the one hand, he is closely related to Spallau, Zani, Lamarck, Dar¬ win, and Spencer by the kinship of great minds, on the other, his ethical spirit renders him a direct descendant of Eze¬ kiel and Isaiah. A GREAT PESSIMIST Pessimism is a transitory state of Aryan thought, but it is the normal condition of Hebrew thought. As Renan observed, in the whole of the Bible there are only two