The Monist, Vol. 3, 1892-1893 : $b A quarterly magazineVarious
Philosophy
The Monist, Vol. 3, 1892-1893 : $b A quarterly magazine
Various
Philosophy -- Periodicals
The last publication of LOMBROSO and LASCHI, _Le Crime politique et les
Revolutions, par rapport au droit, à l’anthropologie criminelle et à
la science du gouvernement_ (Political Crime and Revolutions, in their
Relation to Law, Criminal Anthropology, and the Science of Government)
of which we here have a French translation, is, I will not say, the
worst written, but the most confused work imaginable. Its arrangement is
clear, but its examples are given without any order whatever. The facts
presented are abundant, but they are taken rather too much at haphazard,
and often too uncritically. The worst is that its very thesis is weak,
badly formulated or elusive in places. What a pity it is that so much
erudition should be expended, and so many valuable data be brought
together without better success in displaying to the best advantage
these riches, and also, let me say, without so many times having had
occasion to appear so clearly in the wrong! M. Lombroso remains unmoved,
unfortunately, in his high sounding and unqualified hypothesis of
“diseased genius.” He continues to develop it and to defend it in this
latest book of his, which is replete with instructive details, and
which is undoubtedly the first considerable attempt at an etiology of
revolutions and of political crime.
The complex doctrine of Lombroso could be sufficiently summed up, if I
am not mistaken, by uniting word to word—by the mathematical sign of
equality—philoneism (or the love of novelties) with the revolutionary
spirit, the revolutionary spirit with genius, genius with insanity,
insanity with criminality, and criminality, finally, with progress. But
what a detestable thing progress would then be! We should have to protect
ourselves against it as we do against a pestilence. The evolution of
societies does not take place without great waste and loss, as we all
know. It should be carefully shown what these losses are. The study of
the conditions of social progress ought to be made in greater detail
than is here found. The terms of the imagined equation, which here
hovers before our eyes, should in fine, if any comparison is to be
effected between them, be subjected to a much more exact quantitative and
qualitative analysis.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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