CRIMINAL JURISPRUDENCE—PELLAGRA—AGRARIAN REFORM
Lombroso’s occupation with the problem of criminals and crime extended
far beyond the bounds of criminal anthropology. He was led in this
direction, in part by the need for the establishment of a purely
anthropological characterization of the world of crime, and in part by
his controversies with lawyers, philosophers, and psychiatrists, by
which he was enabled to study other categories of criminal than the
“born criminal”—categories whose existence he had never denied.
Opportunities for investigation in this new field were offered him in
the year 1876, when he removed to Turin—a city in which psychiatric
studies were very actively pursued—by his observations as surgeon to the
Turin prison for the detention of prisoners awaiting trial, and by a
very exhaustive study of penal literature, by which he was led very
speedily to formulate a system for the reform of criminal law and penal
methods. He soon found himself in the position of chief of a school of
criminology, whose influence made itself felt in Parliament, in the
Courts, and in foreign countries. In Italy not long after, in the year
1880, Enrico Ferri, being appointed Professor of Criminal Jurisprudence
in Bologna, gave his powerful support to Lombroso, and there resulted a
rapid succession of works upon the insane criminal, the epileptic
criminal, the criminal by passion, the habitual criminal, and the
occasional criminal, which, in the year 1888, were published as the
second volume of “L’uomo delinquente.” The progress of Lombroso’s ideas
as chief of a “School of Positive Criminology,” from the year 1879, when
he had become firmly established in Turin, to the year 1894, is
indicated by his writings upon punishment, upon the increase of crime in
Italy, upon the proposals for a new code of criminal law, and upon
political crime and the revolution.[43]
In the middle of this fruitful period of twelve years (1884) was
published Ferri’s “Sociologia Criminale,” and about the same time the
reformatory and etiological ideas of Lombroso began to influence the
Italian lawyers; and, notwithstanding the violent protests of the
advocates of the “classical” jurisprudence (Lucchini, Brusa, Gabelli,
and others), the Italian Attorney-General, Baron Garofalo, in the year
1885, displayed his adhesion to the ideas of the Positive School by the
publication of his “Criminologia.”
In Germany there soon followed the celebrity of Mittelstaedt’s book,
“Gegen die Freiheitsstrafe” (“Against Imprisonment”) (Leipzig, 1879).
This was speedily followed by the yet more modern and humane work of
Kraepelin, “Die Abschaffung des Strafmasses” (Stuttgart, 1880), an echo
in many respects of the ideas of Garofalo and Lombroso.
In Kraepelin’s book it is impossible to overlook the influence of
Lombroso’s ideas; and the same influence can be traced also in Von
Liszt’s “Lehrbuch des Deutschen Strafrechts” (“Textbook of German
Criminal Jurisprudence”), of which the first edition was published in
1881; but it could be foreseen that in the psychiatric and legal circles
of Germany, this influence would be indirect and limited. I was myself
convinced of this fact at the time when, in the year 1886, after long
study of the writings of the Italian school, I had resolved to do my
best to diffuse the views of that school in Germany, both verbally and
in writing.
It is not possible to give a detailed account here of the diffusion of
the ideas and methods of the “New School” outside Italy. The
conservatism which inevitably results from a legal education gave rise
to violent opposition on the part of lawyers in Italy, as well as
elsewhere. It was, therefore, above all, necessary to approach the
scientific leaders of the legal circles with the ideas of the “New
School” of criminology. In this respect it was a fact no less impressive
than useful that Lombroso, at the outset of his activity as chief of a
school, published in the year 1881, in the first number of Von Liszt’s
_Zeitschrift für die gesamte Strafwissenschaft_ (_Journal of
Criminology_), an article upon the origin, the essence, and the aims of
the new criminal anthropological school in Italy. In this article he
insists upon the importance of the different causes of criminality, its
anthropological, social, and cosmic factors, upon the aim of repression
as a means of social self-defence, and upon the importance of the
substitutes for punishment (“sostituoi penali”), and the reforms
necessary in the application of punishment. Finally, he deals with the
“positive” character and the inductive methods of the new school.
Professor van Hamel describes this article as “The entrance of the
positive school and of its founder, Lombroso, into the legal world
through its chief portal—_i.e._, the German portal,” which was opened to
him by Von Liszt. Van Hamel’s intention was to indicate the great
importance attached at the outset by lawyers of the first rank to the
introduction of modern criminology into the circle of the legal
sciences. Van Hamel continues in the following terms: “Some years after
this there ensued the foundation of l’Union Internationale de Droit
Pénal, whose statutes have been recognized as providing the basic
principles alike for criminological science and for practical penal
methods.”
Since I estimate at a very high value Lombroso’s importance in relation
to the origin and growth of the present international movement for the
reform of our penal methods, I may be allowed to quote further from the
learned Van Hamel, and to join with him in saying, in this connection:
“Differences in matters of detail affect in no way the uniformity of
principles. Such differences must, indeed, be regarded, not merely as
inevitable, but positively as advantageous. They are inevitable owing to
the differences in human temperament and in national character. They are
advantageous because, owing to their existence, new ideas will find
their way into acceptance in certain forms, when, if they had sought
acceptance in other forms, they would certainly have been rejected.
Differences of detail must never lead us to overlook uniformity of
principle, nor to overlook the common origin of ideas thus differing in
matters of detail. The advocates of the modern penal methods must never
forget that these owe their very existence to the positive school of
Italian thought.”
How did it happen that Lombroso, the anthropologist and psychiatrist,
was led to a criticism of the science of law? He had discovered
intuitively, and believed he could establish inductively, the fact that
there exist “born criminals” or “criminal natures.” His whole course of
mental development—viz., the fact that he was strongly influenced by the
evolutionary theories of Vico and Marzolo, by the English utilitarians,
by the French positivists, and, to some extent also, by the German
materialists of the middle of the nineteenth century—had induced the
conviction that the first object of punishment should be the protection
of society, and the second the improvement of the criminal. It was for
these purposes, he considered, that law had come into existence.
This work, whose aim it is to describe Lombroso, the man and the
investigator, is not the place in which to describe his influence upon
the Italian school of positive penology, or to describe the subsequent
development of that school and its further influence upon the
legislation and penal methods of the civilized nations. Science grows
slowly; the study of the causes of crime demands time and patience,
brings disillusionment, and leads to ever-fresh restatements of the old
problems. The zeal of the reformer finds it difficult to tolerate the
gradual transformation of the old machinery. He wishes at one stroke to
rejuvenate old institutions, to sweep away the old rules. But science,
which has to provide a basis for his efforts, is in its nature patient.
The reformer’s zeal, which has to construct the new edifice, is not
patient. Lombroso was to learn this from personal experience. It was not
possible for him to remain at the standpoint of 1876. And, as reformer,
he himself experienced many changes, especially as a result of his
investigations into the categories of the criminal by passion, the
habitual criminal, the occasional criminal, the criminaloid, the
criminal lunatic, and the epileptic criminal.
He and his school, in their efforts at reform, worked along two main
lines: first, the reform of practical penal methods; and, secondly, the
systematization of the general theory of punishment.
The efforts of this school in relation to the system of punishment and
the reform of penal methods are too well known for it to be needful to
give here even the brief summary for which alone we should have space.
But it is important to point out that the Italians, under Lombroso’s
guidance, resolutely attacked the penal dogmas of the day, which it was
necessary to overthrow before a reform of penal methods in the sense of
social defence could possibly be effected. I shall merely make especial
reference to the powerful influence for good exerted by the positive
school in the direction of the amelioration and humanization of the
horrible function of punishment, which represses so many crimes, but at
the cost of so much suffering and of such numerous errors.
Lombroso gradually came to believe that no useful purpose is effected by
the provision of a great national apparatus intended to improve that
which is unimprovable—_i.e._, the criminal nature; and that society
could not be effectively safeguarded against its permanently dangerous
members—_i.e._, the criminal natures—by means of protective measures of
a transient duration.
Being thoroughly convinced of the existence of criminal natures, and
being, as a utilitarian, hostile to all metaphysics, it was inevitable,
when he came to consider the fundamental aim of the institutions of law
and the State, that he should be led to reject all methods of treating
criminal natures which did not involve their complete removal or
lifelong exclusion from the life of free society. Thus, a large
proportion of his subsequent life was spent in endless controversies
directly against the traditional legal systems and institutions which
did not harmonize with the position he had taken up. He did not seek
these controversies, but he could not and would not attempt to avoid
them. Throughout them, however, he remained the anthropologist, the
collector and investigator in the wide field of the natural history of
mankind, one more interested in studying the origin of the socially
significant varieties of mankind, of which civilized man is one, than in
the description of the differential characters of the races of mankind
now living in various parts of the world—although investigations in this
latter field were by no means repugnant to him.
Lombroso’s great synthetic studies of the natural history of the
criminal came to an end in the year 1902, with the publication of the
German edition of his book upon the Causes and Prevention of Crime. Some
months later appeared a work by Aschaffenburg on Crime and its
Prevention. Even after 1902 Lombroso continued to write upon this
subject, more especially in his periodical devoted to criminal
anthropology; and down to the last year of his life he followed closely
the progress of international research in this field. But it seems to me
that the book of 1902, published at the close of thirty years’ work,
marks the end of his inner development, whilst the Congress for Criminal
Anthropology held in the year 1906, in which he was able to hold a
review of his disciples, co-workers, friends and rivals, gave a fitting
outward conclusion to his career, when he had already passed his
seventieth year.
During the last years, and, above all, during the last months of
Lombroso’s life, a tendency to pessimism became clearly manifest; and
this tendency was, owing to his peculiar organization, closely connected
with a strong bent towards mystic contemplation. But this, in my
opinion, has no bearing whatever upon his crimino-anthropological
researches. His doctrine of the “born criminal” was in no way based upon
a pessimistic foundation. In the field of social reform, including
criminology, he was definitely optimistic. The weak, the sick, and the
degenerate, were regarded by him at once with the objectivity and the
philanthropy of the born physician. It was only in his moral valuation
of the genius, and of the great condottieri and conquistadores of modern
industrial life, that he lacked mildness; indeed, in this latter respect
he rather inclined to severity.
During the period 1879 to 1894 were held the first three International
Congresses of Criminal Anthropology; and the same period was signalized
by numerous other performances of Lombroso, which served for the
propagation, the development, and the application of his ideas. Thus it
happened that he was forced to leave the quiet of the laboratory and the
study; the greatest publicity was gained for the “new school”; and the
investigator who, until the age of one-and-forty, had lived at Pavia,
remote from the world, became involved in unending controversy. By the
best elements of Italian political radicalism Lombroso was now regarded
as leader; and a little later also, during the years 1880 and 1890,
through the support of the slowly developing Marxist School of
Socialism,[44] Lombroso found himself leader in a movement at first
dominated entirely by “intellectuals.” It soon appeared that the retired
and modest investigator was none the less a formidable opponent, whose
voice could make itself heard in all the great questions of public life,
and far beyond the bounds of Italy. I need mention here only the two
great epidemics of anarchism and anti-Semitism, whose flood-tide fell in
this period between 1880 and 1892.
Lombroso was a man of harmonious type, a radical through and through,
one who could not understand that anyone who had once grasped a truth
should be induced to conceal it from social class-considerations. What
those may have to suffer who are ill-adapted for the utterance of
half-truths, and who are averse from compromise, Lombroso had learned
when he came to publish his researches into the cause of pellagra, the
characteristic endemic disease of Northern Italy.
Pellagra is a chronic disease in Northern and Central Italy, which gives
rise to extensive disturbances of digestion and to cutaneous and nervous
disorders, and frequently leads to severe mental disturbance. In
Lombroso’s view it results from the frequent use of damaged maize,
containing toxins, which is consumed by the peasantry of Northern and
Middle Italy in the form of polenta and maize bread, whilst the ground
landlords and their bailiffs live upon the better qualities of maize
produced by the same peasants. I may quote here a passage from the
Preface to my German translation of Lombroso’s book on pellagra:
“This book is the result of researches which I have pursued for
twenty-nine years, often amid very tragic surroundings—tragic for the
reason that from these researches alone I am able to show how human
nature strives against every step towards progress, and regards it
almost as a crime. In Italy it is a secret to no one that my attempt to
show, in opposition to the dominant doctrine, and upon the foundation of
numerous experiments, that pellagra results from intoxication with
damaged maize, aroused so much hostility—I may almost say so much
scandal—in the majority of Italian hygienists and psychiatrists, that in
consequence of this my reputation as a practising physician, as an
investigator, and ultimately also as a teacher, was severely shaken. The
cause of this bitter opposition is perhaps to be found in the greater
cleverness of my opponents, who regarded my energetic advocacy of the
new theory in the light of a personal attack, whereas it was really the
consequence of my too earnest conviction, and of the thought that it was
only in this way that I could hope to save thousands and tens of
thousands from being unnecessarily sacrificed. But a greater cause of
opposition was undoubtedly the hatred of novelty—that deep-rooted
passion common to all humanity. At first, indeed, it seemed to me as if
the truth must always conquer, and conquer quickly, since in this case
it was an obvious truth, one easy to prove, and a very natural one. Nor
do I doubt that ultimately the truth will inevitably prevail, for the
cleverest machinations must in the end recoil from the granite walls
they endeavour to overthrow. But he who believes that this will occur at
once and universally is one who knows little of human nature. Indeed, we
must expect the contrary, for all truths which can only be proved by
means of a long series of experiments or by long-continued observations
rarely fail to encounter an almost insuperable obstacle; and when, in
addition, economic class-interests stand in the way—when _these_
co-operate with the influence of custom, of inheritance, and of natural
human short-sightedness—then woe to the innovator. As Macaulay said, if
the Newtonian law had been opposed to any class-interest, there would
have been no lack of opposition to the doctrine of universal
gravitation.”
It was in the prolonged struggle for his professional life with the
powerful interests he had challenged by the publication of his discovery
of the cause of pellagra that Lombroso became hardened and completely
insensitive to the detraction which is always manifested so freely when
scientific truths are displeasing to the economic or political
powers-that-be.[45]
Thus it was that Lombroso was forced into the arena of public life, and
although he did not become definitely attached to any particular party,
he never ceased to attack half-measures and corruption wherever he
encountered them. When the political corruption under the rule of Crispi
led to the bread-riots at Milan in 1898, the people had an opportunity
of experiencing the use of rifle-fire by the apostles of “order”; and
the dictatorial powers usurped during these weeks were utilized for the
banishment of troublesome political opponents, or to bring about their
disappearance in prison—the methods of South American experts in the
pursuit of political power being freely followed. The name of Lombroso
was upon the list of the proscribed, but they did not dare to lay hand
upon him; just as in Russia five years ago the authorities did not dare
to touch Tolstoy, notwithstanding his direct challenge to the Czar.[46]
Thus it was to the struggles amid which he was precipitated by his
investigations into the nature of pellagra that Lombroso owed the
development of his nature as a fighter, which enabled him to withstand
the most violent scientific and political opponents of his theory of the
“born criminal.” Experiences of life even more bitter than those of
Ibsen’s “Enemy of the People” were met by Lombroso in a spirit of lofty
stoicism.
Owing to his struggle to establish the truth of his views regarding the
cause and prevention of pellagra, Lombroso suffered from a recurrence of
the economic struggles which had embittered his childhood and youth. The
powerful agrarian interests of Lombardy and Venice established a boycott
against Lombroso as a physician amongst the well-to-do middle class and
also in the medical circle of Northern Italy; and as a result of this
his consulting practice, which had hitherto been enormous, and his
resulting comfortable circumstances, and therewith also the means he
needed for the prosecution of his researches, were all swept away.
“Cause and Prevention”—these two words sum up the whole life-work of
this man. Cause and prevention of pellagra, of crime, of anarchism,
prostitution, anti-semitism, political corruption, self-interested
parliamentarism; cause and prevention of lying, hypocrisy, oppression
and exploitation—these were the tasks to which Lombroso devoted his
whole life, and which he prosecuted without rest and without fear, until
at length, after so many struggles, a comprehensive understanding and a
calm, mature wisdom finally led him to recognize the manner in which the
evils affecting society are inseparably associated with wealth and
civilization.
The investigation into the nature of pellagra was of enormous importance
to the Italians, who continued to suffer severely from this evil down to
the present day. We might be justified here in giving a detailed account
of these studies, because it was in them that Lombroso, above all,
showed himself to be a careful experimenter—an experimental pathologist
of the first rank. But from the point of view of this book, the
significance of these investigations and struggles lies, not so much in
the enrichment and development of his knowledge—not so much, that is to
say, in the intellectual sphere—as in the light they throw upon the
man’s intimate life, and upon his character.
In my concluding chapter I shall give some account of the means employed
by those whose interests were affected by Lombroso’s discoveries (in
co-operation with those to whom, as a self-taught man, and one outside
the official and professorial ring, he was an object of dislike) to
annihilate this obnoxious investigator. To the extent of depriving him
of his means of livelihood in Pavia, they were to a large extent
successful. But after a struggle lasting thirty years, Lombroso’s
intoxication theory of pellagra has been finally victorious, and has
been officially recognized by the Italian Government. Moreover, this
theory has been confirmed by the most recent investigations of Tirelli,
Pellizzi, Gosio, and Ferrati, although other toxins of damaged maize are
now considered to be of greater importance than the one to which
Lombroso gave the name of “pellagrozeïn.”
Lombroso’s proposals in the province of agrarian reform were in part of
a purely technical nature, and in part based upon a profound (and in his
day, at least, well-grounded) distrust of the rival factions in the
Italian parliament. At one time he went so far as to believe that
nothing could be done to save the peasants and small farmers from
pellagra, as long as they remained in their North Italian homes; and he
recommended a wholesale emigration to North America.[47]
It is not improbable that Lombroso, notwithstanding the universality of
his talents and his enormous historical acquirements, would, in better
pecuniary circumstances, have confined himself to the study of
comparative philology and to the associated field of psychology. It was
to these studies that he was principally attracted in youth, and his
acquaintance with Marzolo further impelled him in this direction; but
precisely because of his poverty he was compelled to abandon a career of
learning, and to choose a means of earning his bread. For six years he
worked as an army surgeon on the battle-field, in the cholera hospital,
and in a small garrison town; until, finally, in the problems of the
psychical life of the criminal, the lunatic, and the genius, this born
collector of human documents found within the domain of the medical
profession, whose humane duties he fulfilled unweariedly as prison
surgeon, a field in which his intellect could exercise its powers, in
which his character could manifest its strength, and in which his
temperament could display its treasures of modesty, love of humanity,
and inexhaustible patience.
At length, however, this “enemy of the people,” this audacious
formulator of hypotheses, this innovator and rebel, found himself in
advanced life recognized by his fellow-countrymen as a benefactor, by
his colleagues as the pride of their national science, and by his King
as the enlightener of his country.[48]