Even Socialism, which looks forward to a fundamental transformation of
future society on the basis of brotherhood and social justice, cannot
elevate itself to the absolute and naive faith that criminality,
insanity, and suicide can ever fully disappear from the earth. But it is
our firm conviction that the endemic form of criminality, insanity, and
suicide will disappear, and that nothing will remain of them but rare
sporadic forms caused by lesion or telluric and other influences.
Since we have made the great discovery that malaria, which weighs upon
so many parts in Italy, is dependent for its transmission on a certain
mosquito, we have acquired the control of malarial therapeutics and are
enabled to protect individuals and families effectively against malaria.
But aside from this function of protecting people, there must be a
social prevention, and since those malarial insects can live only in
swampy districts, it is necessary to bring to those unreclaimed lands
the blessing of the hoe and plow, in order to remove the cause and do
away with the effects. The same problem confronts us in criminology. In
the society of the future we shall undertake this work of social
hygiene, and thereby we shall remove the epidemic forms of criminality.
And nine-tenths of the crimes will then disappear, so that nothing will
remain of them but exceptional cases. There will remain, for instance,
such cases as that of the bricklayer which I mentioned, because there
may always be accidents, no matter what may be the form of social
organization, and nervous disorders may thus appear in certain
individuals.
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