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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    knows how to make use even of disease to serve some great purpose. In the mind of Lombroso, on the contrary, this theory became so tragic as cruelly to wound many timid consciences by means of that species of bitter pleasure with which he set to work to destroy old-fashioned illu¬ sions with regard to great men and es¬ pecially by proving that their intellectual greatness is obscured by serious moral de¬ fects, and that almost all of them are bad and often criminal. One is almost led to think that there exists in him an extrava¬ gant desire to appear as a blasphemer of hero-worship. I shall never forget the satisfaction that he once derived from certain unpublished documents which served to convince him that Galileo was a slanderer and a had, hard-hearted man— an unscrupulous thief of discoveries made by his pupils. Thus for some time past Lombroso has been beset by the idea of proving that Dante was in reality a crim¬ inal. Dante was sent into exile by his political adversaries upon the accusation of extortion. This does not really prove anything, because that was a pretext by which, during the Middle Ages, political parties in power in Italy were wont to rid themselves of their enemies. In spite of this, Lombroso has investigated all man¬ ner of documents in order to persuade himself that the accusation was true. He did not find the proofs, and was much discontented, although such an accusa¬ tion against Dante would create an enor¬ mous scandal in Italy, where Dante is venerated not only as the greatest of poets, but also as one of the grandest characters of our history and a hero of righteousness and justice. THE MAN AND THE WRITER Many persons are in the habit of judging a writer’s personal character from his works. This method, however, if applied to Lombroso, would lead to erroneous conclusions. One of the most curious traits which distinguish this man of genius is the incongruity which exists between his personal character and the scientific work he has undertaken—an incongruity so striking as to make one doubt whether the Lombroso who thinks and writes is the same person as the Lombroso who lives and speaks. Lombroso will certainly be considered one of the greatest psychologists of the century; for, with a marvelous depth of thought, he has laid bare many of the most abstruse phenomena of the human soul, especially those relating to the psy¬ chology of the genius and the criminal. In spite of this, there is no one who has less penetration; for, while he is so great in theoretical psychology, he is as ingen¬ uous as a child in practical psychology, and easily mistakes a fool for a great genius or a knave for an ingenuous en¬ thusiast. He himself frankly admits that those whom he had originally believed his best and most trustworthy friends have proved his bitterest enemies, and we who are intimate with him are so thoroughly convinced of this want of penetration that when he expresses an opinion with regard to a person whom he has known only for a short time, we instinctively in¬ cline to believe that the truth is exactly the contrary. On the other hand, at a hospital, in his laboratory, in a prison, face to face with a madman or a criminal, or at his desk, before a heap of docu¬ ments relating to the life of a man of genius, Lombroso is transformed into a psychologist, gifted with the greatest lu¬ cidity of thought and most extraordinary intuitive power. He understands—I might almost say he sees—the most com¬ plicated mechanism of thought and feel¬ ing, and is able to interpret it with won¬ derfully clear syntheses. This is due to the fact that, like almost all men of great genius, he possesses an intuitive insight into things, divining rather than observ¬ ing. He has always boasted of being an experimentalist, of having introduced the experimental method into the study of morbid psychology; but this is one of the weaknesses which are so frequently ob¬ served in men of genius, who think them¬ selves great in things in which they are not. Thus Frederick II boasted of being a very clever flute-player, and Goethe de¬ sired to be considered a great painter. As an experimentalist, Lombroso does not really surpass the average, because he possesses neither the patience nor the pre¬ cision nor the nicety of analysis which are the essential attributes of the true experi¬ mentalist. He is a real poet, a truly cre¬ ative genius, a man who possesses a lofty and vehement imagination, desirous of