Now, open any work inspired by the classic school of
criminology, and ask the author why 3,000 men are the victims of
manslaughter every year in Italy, and how it is that there are not
sometimes only as many as, say, 300 cases, the number committed in
England, which has nearly the same number of inhabitants as Italy; and
how it is that there are not sometimes 300,000 such cases in Italy
instead of 3,000?
It is useless to open any work of classical criminology for this
purpose, for you will not find an answer to these questions in than. No
one, from Beccaria to Carrara, has ever thought of this problem, and
they could not have asked it, considering their point of departure and
their method. In fact, the classic criminologists accept the phenomenon
of criminality as an accomplished fact. They analyze it from the point
of view of the technical jurist, without asking how this criminal fact
may have been produced, and why it repeats itself in greater or smaller
numbers from year to year, in every country. The theory of a free will,
which is their foundation, excludes the possibility of this scientific
question, for according to it the crime is the product of the fiat of
the human will. And if that is admitted as a fact, there is nothing left
to account for. The manslaughter was committed, because the criminal
wanted to commit it; and that is all there is to it. Once the theory of
a free will is accepted as a fact, the deed depends on the fiat, the
voluntary determination, of the criminal, and all is said.
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