which we call Criminal Sociology. So that this science, applying the positive method to the study of crime, delinquency and the environment in which they are manifested, only, gives to classical criminal science the life-giving breath of the sublime and irrefragable discoveries made in the science of man and society, reconstructed by the doctrine of evolution."[1] We may here call attention incidentally to the false manner in which sociology, in this definition, is conceived. Instead of being a science it reduces itself to a simple method of investigation, but the wonderful activity of the authors of this school widened the application of the positive method in penal law, so that its beneficent influence made itself felt even in the other social sciences.
Thus, little by little, on account of the various circumstances already mentioned, sociological studies in Italy became more and more familiar. While some authors treat questions of pure sociology, others make use of an essentially sociological method. To the latter class belong such men as Carle, Cognetti di Martini, Enrico Morselli, Enrico Cimballi, Bengi, Vadata-Papale, Bertolini, Cesca, Marselli, Garofalo, Rabbeno, Vaccaro, and many others.
Among these authors Prof. Achille Loria deserves particular mention. In 1886 he published a valuable work on the Teoria Economica della Costituzione Politica, which was republished in 1893 in France under the more comprehensive title of Teoria Economica della Costituzione Sociale. Loria endeavored to show that economic phenomena dominate all other social phenomena. It is the same theory of the superiority of the economic factor accepted by Carl Marx and socialists in general. This theory, however, is also accepted by some authors not socialists as, for instance, Roscher, whose splendid work on the "Economic Interpretation of History" is well known. In Italy it is accepted by Johanni, by Nitti and by Flamingo. Assuming the truth of this theory, Loria attempts to show the utility, even the necessity of founding a sociology based on political economy.
F. S. Nitti is well known by his critical exposition of Catholic Socialism, and by a volume on the social problem of population.
- ↑ Enrico Ferri, La Sociologia Criminale, Turin, ed. 1892, p. 49.
