But if, on the other hand, the positive school of criminology denies, on
the ground of researches in scientific physiological psychology, that
the human will is free and does not admit that one is a criminal because
he wants to be, but declares that a man commits this or that crime only
when he lives in definitely determined conditions of personality and
environment which induce him necessarily to act in a certain way, then
alone does the problem of the origin of criminality begin to be
submitted to a preliminary analysis, and then alone does criminal law
step out of the narrow and arid limits of technical jurisprudence and
become a true social and human science in the highest and noblest
meaning of the word. It is vain to insist with such stubbornness as that
of the classic school of criminology on juristic formulas by which the
distinction between illegal appropriation and theft, between fraud and
other forms of crime against property, and so forth, is determined, when
this method does not give to society one single word which would throw
light upon the reasons that make a man a criminal and upon the
efficacious remedy by which society could protect itself against
criminality.
It is true that the classic school of criminology has likewise its
remedy against crime--namely, punishment. But this is the only remedy of
that school, and in all the legislation inspired by the theories of that
school in all the countries of the civilized world there is no other
remedy against crime but repression.
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