A recent work has just given scientific confirmation to our inductions: FORSINARI DI VERCE, _Sulla criminalita e le vicende economiche d'Italia dal 1873 al 1890_. Turin, 1894. The preface written by Lombroso concludes in the following words: "We do not wish, therefore, to slight or neglect the truth of the socialist movement, which is destined to changed the current of modern European thought and action, and which contends _ad majorem gloriam_ of its conclusions that _all_ criminality depends on the influence of the economic environment. We also believe in this doctrine, though we are unwilling and unable to accept the erroneous conclusions drawn from it. However enthusiastic we may be, we will never, in its honor, renounce the truth. We leave this useless servility to the upholders of classical orthodoxy." [17] A skin-disease endemic in Northern Italy. Tr. [18] See in this connection the famous monographs of Kropotkin, _Mutual aid among the savages_, in the "Nineteenth Century," April 9, 1891, and _Among the barbarians_, "Nineteenth Century," January, 1892, and also two recent articles signed: "Un Professeur," which appeared in the _Revue Socialiste_, of Paris, May and June, 1894, under the title: _Lutte ou accord pour la vie_. [19] ENRICO FERRI, _Omicidio nell' antropologia criminale_, _Introduction_, _Turin_, 1894. IV. THE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST. The third and last part of the argument of Haeckel is correct if applied solely to the purely biological and Darwinian domain, but its starting point is false if it is intended to apply it to the social domain and to turn it into an objection against socialism. It is said the struggle for existence assures the survival of the fittest; it therefore causes an aristocratic, hierarchic gradation of selected individuals--a continuous progress--and not the democratic leveling of socialism. Here again, let us begin by accurately ascertaining the nature of this famous natural selection which results from the struggle for existence. The expression which Haeckel uses and which, moreover, is in current use, "survival of the best or of the best fitted," ought to be corrected. We must suppress the adjective _best_. This is simply a persisting relic of that teleology which used to see in Nature and history a premeditated goal to be reached by means of a process of continuous amelioration or progress.