One of the most wide-spread objections to the proposition that crimes spring from social conditions is that if an improvement in these conditions leads to a decrease of the crimes against property, the crimes against persons increase. This is urged by Ferri, among others, as one of the most effective arguments against Turati and his partisans. But against this may be urged another fact brought out by Ferri, namely that while crime is increasing, it is becoming less intense and less brutal. We see clearly, then, that it is possible to have a powerful counter-determinant to the tendency to commit crimes against persons, i.e. education. As to sexual crimes, they increase when the food supply increases. This is the cause: sexual needs have a direct relation to nutrition. An increase of the sexual needs, however, has nothing to do with criminality. It is only the social organization that changes these needs that have become more intense, into crimes, by subordinating the satisfaction of them to economic considerations. There are, besides, other social causes, like bad housing etc., that lead the proletariat to commit the crimes in question. The author then points out the enormous influence of the abuse of alcohol upon criminality, the causes of this abuse being also found in the social organization. Another argument of Ferri’s must be refuted, i.e. that Turati and his followers attach too much weight to education. Notwithstanding the equality in the education of two brothers, says Ferri, one becomes a scamp and the other a hero. To which the author replies that we can say with just as good right, thanks to education the brother of a scamp becomes a hero. But in speaking of education Ferri has in mind that of the bourgeoisie, which is in opposition to morality, and can consequently have but little influence. From the day when the state of society shall have become sound, and the interests of all taken to heart, morality can be in harmony with reality. “The true, all-inclusive penal substitute is the equal diffusion, so far as is socially possible, of well-being and education, of the joys of love and thought.” II. B. BATTAGLIA. Before speaking of the influence of economic factors upon criminality, I feel obliged to point out, by the following quotation, what the author of “La dinamica del delitto” understands by crime: “Primarily it must be noted that crime is not, in itself, a phenomenon that assumes the criminal character from its own nature; but the criminal character is affirmed or denied according to certain purely accessory circumstances that accompany the act; and in all cases the crime is such with reference to social relations.” [231]