es of a human being either a stupid
creature, or a raving beast. And "s'io dico il vero, l'effeto nol
nasconde"--if I speak the truth, the facts will also reveal it--for
criminality increases and expands, honest people remain unprotected, and
those who are struck by the law do not improve, but become ever more
antisocial through the repeated relapses. And so we have that contrast
which I mentioned in the beginning of my lecture, that the theoretical
side of criminal science is so perfected, while criminal conditions are
painfully in evidence. The inevitable conclusion is the necessity of a
progressive transformation of the science of crime and punishment.

OF CRIMINOLOGY.

II.

We saw yesterday in a short historical review that the classic cycle of
the science of crime and punishment, originated by Cesare Beccaria more
than a century ago, was followed in our country, some twenty years
since, by the scientific movement of the positive school of criminology.
Let us see today how this school studied the problem of criminality,
reserving for tomorrow the discussion of the remedies proposal by this
school for the disease of criminality.

When a crime is committed in some place, attracting public attention
either through the atrocity of the case or the strangeness of the
criminal deed--for instance, one that is not connected with bloodshed,
but with intellectual fraud--there are at once two tendencies that make
themselves felt in the public conscience. One of them, pervading the
overwhelming majority of individual consciences, asks: How is this? What
for? Why did that man commit such a crime? This question is asked by
everybody and occupies mostly the attention of those who do not look
upon the case from the point of view of criminology. On the other hand,
those who occupy themselves with criminal law represent the other
tendency, which manifests itself when acquainted with the news of this
crime. This is a limited portion of the public conscience, which tries
to study the problem from the standpoint of the technical jurist. The
lawyers, the judges, the officials of the police, ask themselves: What
is the name of the crime committed by that man under such circumstances?
Must it be classed us murder or patricide, attempted or incompleted
manslaughter, and, if directed against property, is it theft, or illegal
appropriation, or fraud? And the entire apparatus of practical criminal
justice forgets at once the first p