Criminality and economic conditionsBonger, Willem Adriaan
General
Criminality and economic conditions
Bonger, Willem Adriaan
Crime -- Economic aspects
This doctrine has been entirely supplanted by the theories of Lamarck
and Darwin. “In the place of attributing to the environment the rôle of
a simple player of a hand-organ, Lamarck sees in it a true musician
playing upon his instrument any airs suited to its complexity and
qualities. Further, the quality and characteristics of the instrument
can be modified, transformed under the influence of this marvelous
musician and that of the music executed. This was the ruin of
craniomancy. The diagnostics of phrenology found themselves limited at
once and for always to the faculties, the elementary dispositions that
Gall and Spurzheim had tried in vain to discover, and which are
consistent with the execution of acts indefinitely variable.
“The phrenologists are right in connecting the ‘properties of the soul
and mind’ with organization, but they are wrong in connecting such acts
as theft and homicide with organic causes, as if these acts had the
value of real, irreducible functions.” [163]
Notwithstanding the bond between phrenology and the positivist school,
this school does not rely upon the theory in question, but upon the
transformist theory, i.e. upon the theory that gives its attention to
environment. The cause of this is that the fundamental error that forms
the point of departure is still universally prevalent. “This error
consists in believing that acts sociologically defined, like crimes,
can be connected with the anatomical conformation, without being first
referred by a psychological analysis to their psychological elements,
the only ones, whether normal or pathological, that depend directly
upon anatomy. The same error consists in confusing the combinations of
aptitudes formed under the influence of environment, with the
elementary aptitudes resulting from the native organization or its
successive modifications. It also leads to a misunderstanding of the
primary fact that two individuals similarly constituted can be led, in
consequence of the influence of dissimilar environments to which they
have been subjected since their birth, to conduct themselves in
different, and even quite opposite, ways, without their acts ceasing to
be, on that account, conformed to their anatomical constitution.” [164]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account