e, from which M. Garofalo starts, is erroneous in
itself.

Studying elsewhere the influence of the religious sentiment on
criminality[92], I have shown by positive documentary evidence, that
religious beliefs, efficacious for individuals already endowed with a
normal social sense, since they add to the sanction of the moral
conscience (which, however, would suffice by itself) the sanctions of
the life beyond the tomb--"religion is the guarantor of
justice"[93]--are, nevertheless, wholly ineffective, when the social
sense, on account of some physio-psychical anomaly, is atrophied or
non-existent. So that religious belief, considered as a regulator of
social conduct, is at once superfluous for honorable people and
altogether ineffective for those who are not honorable, if indeed it is
not capable of increasing the propensity to evil by developing religious
fanaticism or giving rise to the hope of pardon in the confessional or
of absolution _in articulo mortis_, etc.

It is possible to understand--at least as an expedient as utilitarian as
it is highly hypocritical--the argument of those who, atheists so far as
they themselves are concerned, still wish to preserve religious beliefs
for the people, because they exercise a depressing influence and prevent
all energetic agitation for human rights and enjoyments _here below_.
The conception of God as a Policeman is only one among many illusions.

* * * * *

Besides these errors of fact in the biological and psychological
sciences, M. Garofalo also misstates the socialist doctrines, following
the example of the opponents of the new school of criminology, who found
it easier to refute the doctrines they attributed to us than to shake
the doctrines we defended.

On page 14, M. Garofalo begins by stating, "the true tendency of the
party known as the Workingmen's Party, is to gain power, _not in the
interest of all_, but in order to expropriate the dominant class and _to
step into their shoes_. They do not disguise this purpose in their
programmes." This statement is found again on page 210, etc.

Now, it suffices to have read the programme of the socialist party, from
the MANIFESTO of Marx and Engels down to the propagandist publications,
to know, on the contrary, that contemporary socialism wishes, and
declares its wish, to accomplish the general suppression of all social
divisions into classes by suppressing the division of the social
patrim