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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    bright and joyful books—the “Song of Solomon” and the “ Book of Ecclesias¬ tes.” All the rest., especially the Proph¬ ets and the “Book of Job,” form one sublime and colossal cry of pain. Even to-day, after the lapse of many centuries, every Jew of genius is almost destined to convey bad tidings to men, for all In this, Lombroso shares the common fate of his race. Not only has he affirmed that civilization augments crime and that man is fundamentally inclined to evil, but he has formulated the theory which is perhaps the most pessimistic one of the whole century—the theory which was destined to destroy the hero-worship in- CESARE LOMBROSO the great Jewish thinkers have almost always brought to light some painful phenomenon of life. Thus Spinoza an¬ nounced to mankind that good and evil do not exist; Marx, that society is the battle-field of a desperate struggle be¬ tween the social classes; Lassalle, that, by the “brazen law,” workmen, in spite of their most strenuous efforts, can never earn more than the minimum which is just sufficient to keep them from starva¬ tion. troducecl by Carlyle, and which has so many followers in England: I mean the theory that genius is a form of degener¬ acy. It is not that this theory is pessimis¬ tic in itself; for the truth is neither good nor bad, and all theories are equally ca¬ pable of a pessimistic or of an optimistic interpretation. If the theory of the de¬ generacy of genius had been discovered by an optimist, he would have found a way of once more admiring the infinite wisdom and goodness of nature, which I .XXVI—92