The unfettered authority of the judge is inadmissible in regard to the forms of procedure, which for the prosecuted citizen are an actual guarantee against judicial errors and surprises, but which should be carefully distinguished from that hollow and superstitious formalism which generates the most grotesque inanities, such as an error of a word in the oath taken by witnesses or experts, or a blot of ink on the signature of a clerk. III. Scientific knowledge of criminals and of crime, not only as the deed which preceded the trial, but also as a natural and social phenomenon--this, then, is the fundamental principle of every reform in the judicial order; and this, too, is a condemnation of the jury. Whilst Brusa, one of the most doctrinaire of the Italian classical school, foretold a steady decline of the ``technical element'' in the magistracy, and consequently a persistent intervention of the popular influence in the administration of justice, the positive school, on the other hand, has always predicted the inevitable decline of the jury in the trial of crimes and ordinary offences.[16] [16] It is interesting to observe that Carrara, in spite of his public advocacy of the jury, wrote in a private letter in 1870 (published on <p 178>the unveiling of his monument at Lucca):--``I expressed my opinion as to the jury in 1841, in an article published in the _Annals of Tuscan Jurisprudence_--namely, that criminal justice was becoming a lottery. Justice is being deprived of her scales and provided with a dice-box. This seems to me to be the capital defect of the jury. All other defects might be eliminated by a good law, but this one is inseparable from the jury. . . . Even amongst magistrates we may find the harsh and the clement; but in the main they judge according to legal argument, and one can always more or less foresee the issue of a trial{.??} But with juries all forecast is rash and deceptive. They decide by sentiment; and what is there more vague and fickle than sentiment{. .??} . . With juries, craft is more serviceable to an advocate than knowledge. I once had to defend a husband who had killed his wife's lover in a caf<e'>. I challenged the bachelors on the jury, and accepted the married men. After that, I was sure of success, and I succeeded. . . . This is the real essential vice of the jury, which no legislative measure could overcome.'' Theodore Jouffroy, after listening at the University of Pisa to a lecture by Carmignani against the jury, said, ``You are defending logic, but slaying liberty.'' Apart from the question whether liberty is possible without logic, it is nevertheless a fact that there is always a prominent political character in the jury. This accounts for the more or less declamatory defences of this judicial institution, which is no favourite with the criminal sociologist.