That is to say, there was (1) a very large proportion of madmen amongst the military offenders, which may point to the effect of military life, or else a careless selection for conscription, or both causes taken together; and (2) a greater proportion of mad criminals amongst the more serious offenders, partly because the authors of crimes of violence are subjected to more strict and frequent observation for madness. It seems to me that this fact, which is also confirmed by the figures for England, is the most cogent argument in favour of criminal lunatic asylums. For born criminals, since, as Dr. Maudsley says, we are face to face, if not exactly with a degenerate species, at least with a degenerate variety of the <p 239>human species, and the problem is to diminish their number as much as possible, a preliminary question at once arises, namely, whether the penalty of death is not the most suitable and efficacious form of social defence against the anti-social class, when they commit crimes of great gravity. It is a question which for a century past has divided the criminal experts and wearied the general public, with perhaps more sentimental declamations than positive contributions; a question revived by the positive school, which, however, only brought it forward, without discussing it, at the first Congress on Criminal Anthropology at Rome; whilst it has been recently settled by the new Italian penal code, which is the first code amongst the leading States to decree (January 1, 1890) the legal abolition of the death penalty, after its virtual abolition in Italy since the year 1876, except for military crimes. Amongst the classical experts, as amongst the positivists, there are those who would abolish and those who would retain the death penalty; but the disagreement on this subject is not equally serious in the two camps. For whilst the classical abolitionists almost all assert that the death penalty is inequitable, the positivists are unanimous in declaring it legitimate, and only a few contest its practical efficacy. It seems to me that the death penalty is prescribed by nature, and operates at every moment in the life of the universe. Nor is it opposed to justice, for when the death of another man is absolutely necessary it is legitimate, as in the cases of lawful self-<p 240>defence, whether of the individual or of society, which is admitted by classical abolitionists such as Beccaria and Carrara. The universal law of evolution shows us also that vital progress of every kind is due to continual selection, by the death of the least fit in the struggle for life. Now this selection, in humanity as with the lower animals, may be natural or artificial. It would therefore be in agreement with natural laws that human society should make an artificial selection, by the elimination of anti-social and incongruous individuals.