Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 23.pdf/569

 The Modern Science Of Criminology

531

France and Germany likewise. We may now, at last, be at the beginning of a

on the present status of criminology is

wholesome cosmopolitan tendency which will eventually lead to the production of theoretical and scientiﬁc work in America worthy to rank with that of European

illuminating, and the writer, inclining

A

neither to the position of the anthro pologists nor of the sociologists, but fusing the two tendencies after the fashion of the best thinkers of Italy and France, is able to set forth a fairly good interpretation of the goal and methods of the science. At the same time, he approaches the subject from the standpoint of the Latin race, and to round out the discussion the idealistic

sound system of criminal law can exist

philosophy of Germany might require

only with the principles of the science of criminology as its foundation. The

to be noticed; at all events, a little more of Teutonic thoroughness in work ing up his materials would have increased the value of his treatise. The book

philosophical jurists.

In countless ways the problems of law are intertwined with those of the social sciences, but in no ﬁeld is this dependence more strikingly apparent

than in that of the criminal law.

science

of criminology

thus has an

immediate practical usefulness, in help ing to solve the numerous problems of the indeterminate sentence, probation and parole, criminal insanity and juve nile delinquency which are being agitated on every hand, and in assisting the de

velopment of a humane penal system which shall not merely reﬂect the senti mental prejudices of society, but shall be based on inexorable scientiﬁc facts. The ﬁrst volume in the Modern Criminal Science Series is the best existing Spanish work on criminology, ﬁrst published in 1898, and its value con

sists not in the independent theories of the author, which he in fact chooses to repress, but in the exposition of recent

history of the various elements which have been uniting to form the new science of criminology. De Quiros re views the work of leading writers par ticularly of France, Spain and Italy. Of German investigation he has little to say. His summaries are brief, being designed to extract only the meat of each theory considered. His criticisms

serves admirably, however, as an intro

duction to the series, and will be prized. for its bibliographical information. The writer does not overrate the

claims of that criminal anthropology which, starting a generation ago in Italy, Austria and England in the works of Lombroso, Benedikt and Maudsley, is gradually adjusting itself to normal relations with the science of which it

forms a part. The name of Lombroso, he tells us, will form a landmark in history. His work has given rise to many opinions, many favorable, many unfavorable, and everywhere to great

interest.

“In spite of errors and hasty

conclusions, the book contains pages of real value, which will survive and be recorded in the future digest of science. Its future merit, however, will consist

in having inﬂuenced thousands of men to unite in the study of a subject of supreme importance.” Its importance, he says, is seen in the fact that attention

is centred in the study of the nature of

are not copious, but adequate to present his materials in orderly perspective,

in the revision of modern criminal law.

and while his book suﬂers somewhat from desultoriness of treatment and

that De Quiros is a believer in a speciﬁc

inattention

criminal type, distinguished by psychic

to minutiae,

the section.

the delinquent as one of the chief factors These

observations

would

suggest