omena determined by the economic factor, in
accordance with the conditions of each particular people in every phase
of history and under all climatic conditions.

This idea which corresponds to that great biological law which states
the dependence of the function on the nature and capacities of the organ
and which makes each individual the result of the innate and acquired
conditions of his physiological organism, living in a given environment,
so that a biological application may be given to the famous saying:
"Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are,"--this sublime
idea which unfolds before our eyes the majestic drama of history, no
longer as the arbitrary succession of great men on the stage of the
social theatre, but rather as the resultant of the economic conditions
of each people, this sublime idea, after having been partially applied
by Thorold Rogers[78] has been so brilliantly expounded and illustrated
by Achille Loria,[79] that I believe it unnecessary to say anything more
about it.

One idea, however, still appears to me necessary to complete this
Marxian theory, as I remarked in the first edition of my book:
_Socialismo e criminalita_.

It is necessary, indeed, to rid this impregnable theory of that species
of narrow dogmatism with which it is clothed in Marx and still more in
Loria.

It is perfectly true that every phenomenon, as well as every
institution--moral, juridical or political--is simply the result of the
economic phenomena and conditions of the transitory physical and
historical environment. But, as a consequence of that law of natural
causality which tells us that every effect is always the resultant of
numerous concurrent causes and not of one cause alone, and that every
effect becomes in its turn a cause of other phenomena, it is necessary
to amend and complete the too rigid form that has been given to this
true idea.

Just as all the psychical manifestations of the individual are the
resultant of the organic conditions (temperament) and of the environment
in which he lives, in the same way, all the social
manifestations--moral, juridical or political--of a people are the
resultant of their organic conditions (race) and of the environment, as
these are the determining causes of the given economic organization
which is the physical basis of life.

In their turn, the individual psychical conditions become causes and
effect, although with less power, the individual organic co