madness, 234--Classification of asylums for criminal lunatics, 237--The treatment of born criminals, 238--The death penalty, 239--Extension of the death penalty, 243--Inadequacy of the death penalty, 245--Imprisonment for life, 246--Transportation, 248-- Labour settlements, 249--Establishments for habitual criminals, 250--Criminal heredity, 251--Incorrigible offenders, 252-- Cumulative sentences, 253--Uncorrected or incorrigible criminals, 254--Cellular prisons, 256--Solitary confinement, 257--The progressive system of imprisonment, 257--The evils of cellular imprisonment, 260 --The cell does not secure separation, 262-- Costliness of the cellular system, 263--Labour under the cellular system, 264--Open-air work the best for prisoners, 265--The treatment of habitual criminals, 266--The treatment of occasional <p xiii>criminals, 267--The treatment of young offenders, 268-- Futility of short sentences, 268--Substitutes for short sentences, 269--Compulsory work without imprisonment, 271 --Conditional sentences, 271--Conditional sentences in Belgium, 273--Conditional sentences in the United States, 275--Objections to conditional sentences, 276--When the conditional sentence is legitimate, 282-- The treatment of criminals of passion, 282--Conclusion, 284. INTRODUCTION. _THE POSITIVE SCHOOL OF CRIMINAL LAW_. DURING the past twelve or fourteen years Italy has poured forth a stream of new ideas on the subject of crime and criminals; and only the short-sightedness of her enemies or the vanity of her flatterers can fail to recognise in this stream something more than the outcome of individual labours. A new departure in science is a simple phenomenon of nature, determined in its origin and progress, like all such phenomena, by conditions of time and place. Attention must be drawn to these conditions at the outset, for it is only by accurately defining them that the scientific conscience of the student of sociology is developed and confirmed. The experimental philosophy of the latter half of our century, combined with human biology and psychology, and with the natural study of human society, had already produced an intellectual atmosphere decidedly favourable to a practical inquiry into the criminal manifestations of individual and social life.<p xv> <p xvi> To these general conditions must be added the plain and everyday contrast between the metaphysical perfection of criminal law and the progressive increase of crime, as well as the contrast between legal theories of crime and the study of the mental characteristics of a large number of criminals.