About: The Positive School of Criminology by Enrico Ferri

THE POSITIVE SCHOOL OF CRIMINOLOGY

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THE POSITIVE SCHOOL OF CRIMINOLOGY

Three Lectures

Given at the University of Naples, Italy on April 22, 23 and 24, 1901

By Enrico Ferri

Translated by Ernest Untermann

Chicago

Charles H. Kerr & Company

1908

THE POSITIVE SCHOOL OF CRIMINOLOGY

I.

My Friends:

When, in the turmoil of my daily occupation, I received an invitation,several months ago, from several hundred students of this famousuniversity, to give them a brief summary, in short special lectures, ofthe principal and fundamental conclusions of criminal sociology, Igladly accepted, because this invitation fell in with two ideals ofmine. These two ideals are stirring my heart and are the secret of mylife. In the first place, this invitation chimed with the ideal of mypersonal life, namely, to diffuse and propagate among my brothers thescientific ideas, which my brain has accumulated, not through any meritof mine, but thanks to the lucky prize inherited from my mother in thelottery of life.

And the second ideal which this invitation called upbefore my mind's vision was this: The ideal of young people of Italy,united in morals and intellectual pursuits, feeling in their sociallives the glow of a great aim.

It would matter little whether this aimwould agree with my own ideas or be opposed to them, so long as itshould be an ideal which would lift the aspirations of the young peopleout of the fatal grasp of egoistic interests. Of course, we positivistsknow very well, that the material requirements of life shape anddetermine also the moral and intellectual aims of human consciousness.But positive science declares the following to be the indispensablerequirement for the regeneration of human ideals: Without an ideal,neither an individual nor a collectivity can live, without it humanityis dead or dying. For it is the fire of an ideal which renders the lifeof each one of us possible, useful and fertile.

And only by its help caneach one of us, in the more or less short course of his or herexistence, leave behind traces for the benefit of fellow beings. Theinvitation extended to me proves that the students of Naples believe inthe inspiring existence of such an ideal of science, and are anxious tolearn more about ideas, with which the entire world of the present dayis occupied, and whose life giving breath enters even through thewindows of the dry courtrooms, when their doors are closed against it.

* * * * *

Let us now speak of this new science, which has become known in Italy bythe name of the Positive School of Criminology. This science, the sameas every other phenomenon of scientific evolution, cannot beshortsightedly or conceitedly attributed to the arbitrary initiative ofthis or that thinker, this or that scientist. We must rather regard itas a natural product, a necessary phenomenon, in the development of thatsad and somber department of science which deals with the disease ofcrime. It is this plague of crime which forms such a gloomy and painfulcontrast with the splendor of present day civilization.

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