Chapter 13

Let us disregard, my dear Baron, the famous "moral order" of that society which enriches and honors the well-dressed wholesale thieves of the great and little Panamas, the banks and railways, and condemns to imprisonment children and women who steal dry wood or grass in the fields which formerly belonged to the commune.

But to say that socialism is without an _ideal_, when even its opponents concede to it this immense superiority in potential strength over the sordid skepticism of the present world, _viz._, its ardent faith in a higher social justice for all, a faith that makes strikingly clear its resemblance to the regenerating Christianity of primitive times (very different from that "fatty degeneration" of Christianity, called Catholicism), to say this is truly, for a scientist, to blindly rebel against the most obvious facts of daily life.

M. Garofalo even goes so far as to say that "the want of the necessaries of life" is a very exceptional fact, and that therefore the condition of "the proletariat is a _social condition_ like that of all the other classes, and the lack of capital, which is its characteristic, is a permanent economic condition _which is not at all abnormal_ FOR THOSE WHO ARE USED TO IT."[94]

Then--while passing over this comfortable and egoistic quietism which finds nothing abnormal in the misery ... of others--we perceive how deficient M. Garofalo is, in the most elementary accuracy, in the ascertainment of facts when we recall the suffering and ever-growing multitude of the _unemployed_, which is sometimes a "local and transitory" phenomenon, but which, in its acute or chronic forms, is always the necessary and incontestable effect of capitalist accumulation and the introduction and improvement of machinery, which are, in their turn, the source of modern socialism, scientific socialism, so different from the sentimental socialism of former times.

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But the fundamental fallacy, from which so many thinkers--M. Garofalo among them--can not free themselves, and to which I myself yielded, before I had penetrated, thanks to the Marxian theory of historic materialism--or, more exactly, of economic determinism--into the true spirit of socialist sociology, is the tendency to judge the inductions of socialism by the biological, psychological and sociological data of the present society, without thinking of the necessary changes that will be effected by a different economic environment with its inevitable concomitants or consequences, different moral and political environments.

In M. Garofalo's book we find once more this _petitio principii_ which refuses to believe in the future in the name of the present, which is declared immutable. It is exactly as if in the earliest geological epochs it had been concluded from the flora and fauna then existing that it was impossible for a fauna and flora ever to exist differing from them as widely as do the cryptogams from the conifers, or the mammalia from the mollusca.

This confirms, once more, the observation that I made before, that to deny the truth of scientific socialism is implicitly to deny that law of universal and eternal evolution, which is the dominant factor in all modern scientific thought.

On page 16, M. Garofalo predicts that with the triumph of socialism "we shall see re-appear upon earth the reign of irrational and brutal physical force, and that we shall witness, _as happens every day_ in the lowest strata of the population, the triumph of the most violent men." And he repeats this on pages 209-210; but he forgets that, given the socialist premise of a better organized social environment, this brutality, which is the product of the present misery and lack of education, must necessarily gradually diminish, and at last disappear.

Now, the possibility of this improvement of the social environment, which socialism asserts, is a thesis that can be discussed; but when a writer, in order to deny this possibility, opposes to the future the effects of a present, whose elimination is the precise question at issue, he falls into that insidious fallacy which it is only necessary to point out to remove all foundation from his arguments.

* * * * *

And it is as always by grace of this same fallacy that he is able to declare, on page 213, that under the socialist regime "the fine arts will be unable to exist. It is easy to say, they will henceforth be exercised and cultivated for the benefit of the public. Of what public? Of the great mass of the people _deprived of artistic education_?" As if, when poverty is once eliminated and labor has become less exhausting for the popular classes, the comfort and economic security, which would result from this, would not be sure to develop in them also the taste for æsthetic pleasure, which they feel and satisfy now, so far as that is possible for them, in the various forms of popular art, or as may be seen to-day it Paris and Vienna by the "_Théâtre socialiste_" and at Brussells by the free musical matinées, instituted by the socialists and frequented by a constantly growing number of workingmen. It is just the same with regard to scientific instruction, as witness "University Extension" in England and Belgium. And all this, notwithstanding the present total lack of artistic education, but thanks to the exigence among the workers of these countries of an economic condition lees wretched than that of the agricultural or even the industrial proletariat in countries such as Italy.

And from another point of view, what are the museums if not a form of collective ownership and use of the products of art?

It is again, as always, the same fallacy which (at page 216) makes M. Garofalo write: "The history of Europe, from the fifth to the thirteenth centuries, shows us, _by analogy_, what would happen to the world if the lower classes should come into power.... How to explain the medieval barbarism and anarchy save by the grossness and ignorance of the conquerors? _The same fate_ would inevitably await the modern civilization, if the controlling power should fall into the hands of the proletarians, who, assuredly, _are intellectually not superior to the ancient barbarians_ and MORALLY ARE FAR INFERIOR TO THEM!"

Let us disregard this unjustified and unjustifiable insult and this completely erroneous historical comparison. It is enough to point out that it is here supposed that by a stroke of a magic wand "the lower classes" will be able in a single day to gain possession of power without having been prepared for this by a preliminary moral revolution, a revolution accomplished in them by the acquired consciousness of their rights and of their organic solidarity. It will be impossible to compare the proletarians in whom this moral revolution shall have taken place with the barbarians of the Middle Ages.

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In my book _Socialismo et Criminalità_, published in 1883, and which to-day my adversaries, including M. Garofalo (p. 128 _et seq._), try to oppose to the opinions which I have upheld in my more recent book, _Socialisme et science positive_ (the present work), I have developed two theses:

I. That the social organization could not be _suddenly_ changed, as was then maintained in Italy by the sentimental socialists, since the law of evolution dominates with sovereign power the human world as well as the inorganic and organic world;

II. That, by analogy, crime could not disappear _absolutely_ from among mankind, as the Italian socialists of those days vaguely hinted.

Now, in the first place it would not have been at all inconsistent if, after having partially accepted socialism, which I had already done in 1883, the progressive evolution of my thought, after having studied the systematic, scientific form given to socialism by Marx and his co-workers, had led me to recognize (apart from all personal advantage) the complete truth of socialism. But, especially, precisely because scientific socialism (since [the work of] Marx, Engels, Malon, de Paepe, Dramard, Lanessan, Guesde, Schaeffle, George, Bebel, Loria, Colajanni, Turati, de Greef, Lafargue, Jaurès, Renard, Denis, Plechanow, Vandervelde, Letourneau, L. Jacoby, Labriola, Kautsky, etc.) is different from the sentimental socialism which I had alone in mind in 1883, it is for that very reason that I still maintain to-day these two same principal theses, and I find myself in so doing in perfect harmony with international scientific socialism.

And as to the absolute disappearance of all criminality, I still maintain my thesis of 1883, and in the present book (§ 3), I have written that, even under the socialist regime, there will be--though infinitely fewer--some who will be conquered in the struggle for existence and that, though the chronic and epidemic forms of nervous disease, crime, insanity and suicide, are destined to disappear, the acute and sporadic forms will not completely disappear.

At this statement M. Garofalo manifests a surprise which, as I can not suppose it simulated, I declare truly inexplicable in a sociologist and a criminologist; for this reminds me too strongly of the ignorant surprise shown by a review of classical jurisprudence in regard to a new scientific fact recorded by the _Archives de psychiatrie_ of M. Lombroso, the case being the disappearance of every criminal tendency in a woman after the surgical removal of her ovaries.

But that the trepanning of the skull in a case of traumatic epilepsy or that ovariotomy can cure the central nervous system and, therefore, restore the character and even the morality of the individual, these are facts that can be unknown only to a metaphysical idealist, an opponent of the positivist school of criminology.

And yet this is how M. Garofalo comments on my induction (p. 240); this commentary is reproduced again on pages 95, 100, 134 and 291:

"It is truly extraordinary that M. Ferri, notwithstanding that criminal anthropology, of which he has so long been (and still is) one of the most ardent partisans, should have allowed himself to be so blinded by the mirage of socialism. A statement such as that which I have quoted at first leaves the reader stunned, since he sees absolutely _no connection_ between nervous diseases and collective ownership. It would be just as sensible to say that by the study of algebra one can make sure of one's first-born child being a male." How exactly like the remarks of the Review of jurisprudence concerning the case of the removal of the ovaries!

Now, let us see whether it is possible, by a supreme effort of our feeble intellect, to point out a connection between nervous diseases and collective ownership.

That poverty, _i. e._, inadequate physical and mental nutrition--in the life of the individual and through hereditary transmission--is, if not the only and exclusive cause, certainly the principal cause of human degeneration, is henceforth an indisputable and undisputed fact.

That the poverty and misery of the working class--and notably of the unhappy triad of the unemployed, the displaced [by machinery, trusts, etc.] and those who have been expropriated by taxation--is destined to disappear with the socialization of the land and the means of production:--this is the proposition that socialism maintains and demonstrates.

It is, therefore, natural that under the socialist régime, with the disappearance of poverty, there should be eliminated the principal source of popular degeneracy in the epidemic and chronic forms of diseases, crimes, insanity and suicide; this can, moreover, be seen at present--on a small scale, but clearly enough to positively confirm the general induction--since diseases [nervous], crimes, insanity and suicide increase during famines and crises, while they diminish in years when the economic conditions are less wretched.

There is still more to be said. Even among the aristocracy and bourgeoisie, no one can fail to see that the feverish competition and cannibalistic strife of our present system beget nervous disorders, crime and suicide, which would be rendered quite unnecessary by the establishment of a socialist régime, which would banish worry and uneasiness for the morrow from the human race.

There then you see established the relation between collective ownership and nervous diseases or degeneration in general, not only among the popular and more numerous classes, but also in the bourgeois and aristocratic classes.

It is, indeed, astonishing that the anti-socialist prejudice of M. Garofalo should have been strong enough to cause him to forget that truth which is nevertheless a legitimate induction of criminal biology and sociology, the truth that besides the congenital criminal there are other types of criminals who are more numerous and more directly produced by the vitiated social environment. And, finally, if the congenital criminal is not himself the direct product of the environment, he is indirectly its product through the degeneration begun in his ancestors, by some acute disease in some cases, but by debilitating poverty in the majority of cases, and afterward hereditarily transmitted and aggravated in accordance with the inexorable laws discovered by modern science.

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M. Garofalo's book, which was announced as an assault of science upon socialism, has been, even from this point of view, a complete disappointment, as even the Italian anti-socialists have confessed in several of the most orthodox Reviews.

It now remains for me to reply briefly to his observations--and they are few and far between--on the relations which exist between contemporary socialism and the general trend and tendency of thought in the exact sciences.

Disregarding the arguments which I had developed on this subject by pointing out that there is an essential connection between economic and social transmutation (Marx) and the theories of biological transmutation (Darwin) and of universal transmutation (Spencer), M. Garofalo has thought it prudent to take up for consideration only "the struggle for existence" and the relations between "evolution and revolution."

As to the first, five pages (96-100) are enough to enable him to declare, without supporting his declaration by any positive argument which is not merely a different verbal expression of the same idea, that the Darwinian law of the struggle for existence has not undergone and can not undergo any transformation except that which will change the violent struggle into competition (the struggle of skill and intelligence) and that this law is irreconcilable with socialism; for it necessarily requires the sacrifice of the conquered, while socialism "would guarantee to all men their material existence, so they would have no cause for anxiety."

But my friend, the Baron Garofalo, quietly and completely ignores the fundamental argument that the socialists oppose to the individualist interpretation that has hitherto been given of the struggle for life and which still affects the minds of some socialists so far as to make them think that the law of the struggle for life is not true and that Darwinism is irreconcilable with socialism.

The socialists, in fact, think that the laws of life are the following, and that they are concurrent and inseparable: _the struggle for existence_ and _solidarity in the struggle against natural forces_. If the first law is in spirit individualist, the second is essentially socialistic.

Now, not to repeat what I have written elsewhere, it is sufficient here for me to establish this positive fact that all human evolution is effected through the constantly increasing predominance of the law of solidarity over the law of the struggle for existence.

The forms of the struggle are transformed and grow milder, as I showed as long ago as 1883, and M. Garofalo accepts this way of looking at the matter when he recognizes that the muscular struggle is ever tending to become an intellectual struggle. But he has in view only the formal evolution; he wholly disregards the progressive decrease in the importance of the struggling function under the action of the other parallel law of solidarity in the struggle.

Here comes in that constant principle in sociology, that the social forms and forces co-exist always, but that their relative importance changes from epoch to epoch and from place to place.

Just as in the individual egoism and altruism co-exist and will co-exist always--for egoism is the basis of personal existence--but with a continuous and progressive restriction and transformation of egoism, corresponding to the expansion of altruism, in passing from the fierce egoism of savage humanity to the less brutal egoism of the present epoch, and finally to the more fraternal egoism of the coming society; in the same way in the social organism, for example, the military type and the industrial type always co-exist, but with a progressively increasing predominance of the latter over the former.

The same truth applies to the different forms of the family, and also to many other institutions, of which Spencerian sociology had given only the _descriptive_ evolution and of which the Marxian theory of economic determinism has given the _genetic_ evolution, by explaining that the religious and juridical customs and institutions, the social types, the forms of the family, etc., are only the reflex of the economic structure which differs in varying localities (on islands or continents, according to the abundance or scarcity of food) and also varies from epoch to epoch. And--to complete the Marxian theory--this economic structure is, in the case of each social group, the resultant of its race energies developing themselves in such or such a physical environment, at I have said elsewhere.

The same rule holds in the case of the two co-existing laws of the _struggle for existence_ and of _solidarity in the struggle_, the first of which predominates where the economic conditions are more difficult; while the second predominates with the growth of the economic security of the majority. But while this security will become complete under the régime of socialism, which will assure to every man who works the material means of life, this will not exclude the intellectual forms of the struggle for existence which M. Tchisch recently said should be interpreted not only in the sense of a _struggle for life_, but also in the sense of a _struggle for the enrichment of life_.[95]

In fact, when once the material life of every one is assured, together with the duty of labor for _all_ the members of society, man will continue always to struggle _for the enrichment of life_, that is to say, for the fuller development of his physical and moral individuality. And it is only under the régime of socialism that, the predominance of the law of solidarity being decisive, the struggle for existence will change its form and substance, while persisting as an eternal striving toward a better life in the _solidaire_ development of the individual and the collectivity.

But M. Garofalo devotes more attention to the practical (?) relations between socialism and the law of evolution. And in _substance_, once more making use of the objection already so often raised against Marxism and its tactics, he formulates his indictment thus:

"The new socialists who, on the one hand, pretend to speak in the name of sociological science and of the natural laws of evolution, declare themselves politically, on the other hand, as revolutionists. Now, evidently science has nothing to do with their political action. Although they take pains to say that by "revolution" they do not mean either a riot or a revolt--an explanation also contained in the dictionary[96]--this fact always remains, _viz._: that they are unwilling to await the _spontaneous_ organization of society under the new economic arrangement foreseen by them in a more or less remote future. For if they should thus quietly await its coming, who among them would survive to prove to the incredulous the truth of their predictions?

It is a question then of an evolution _artificially hastened_, that is to say, in other words, of the _use of force_ to transform society in accordance with their wishes." (p. 30.)

"The socialists of the Marxian school do not expect the transformation to be effected by a slow evolution, but by a _revolution of the people_, and they even fix the epoch of its occurence." (p. 53.)

"Henceforth the socialists must make a decision and take one horn of the dilemma or the other.

"Either they must be _theoretical evolutionists_, WHO WAIT PATIENTLY until the time shall be ripe;

Or, on the contrary, they must be _revolutionary democrats_; and if they take this horn, it is nonsense to talk of evolution, accumulation, spontaneous concentration, etc. ACCOMPLISH THEN THIS REVOLUTION, IF YOU HAVE THE POWER." (p. 151.)

I do not wish to dwell on this curious "instigation to civil war" by such an orthodox conservative as the Baron Garofalo, although he might be suspected of the not specially Christian wish to see this "revolution of the people" break out at once, while the people are still disorganized and weak and while it would be easier for the dominant class to bleed them copiously....

Let us try rather to deliver M. Garofalo from another trouble; for on page 119 he exclaims pathetically: "I declare on my honor I do not understand how a sincere socialist can to-day be a revolutionist. I would be sincerely grateful to anyone who would explain this to me, for to me this is an enigma, so great is the contradiction between the theory and the methods of the socialists."

Well then, console yourself, my excellent friend! Just as in the case of the relationship between collective ownership and human degeneration, which seemed so "enigmatical" to this same Baron Garofalo--and although he has not offered his gratitude for the solution of this enigma to the socialist Oedipus who explained it to him--here also, in the case of this other enigma, the explanation is very simple.

On the subject of the social question the attitudes assumed in the domain of science, or on the field of politics, are the following:

1st. That of the _conservatives_, such as M. Garofalo. These, judging the world, not by the conditions objectively established, but by their own subjective impressions, consider that they are well enough off under the present régime, and contend that everything is for the best in this best of all possible worlds, and oppose in all cases, with a very logical egoism, every change which is not merely a superficial change;

2nd. That of the _reformers_, who, like all the eclectics, whose number is infinite, give, as the Italian proverb says, one blow to the cask and another to the hoop and do not deny--O, no!--the inconveniences and even the absurdities of the present ... but, not to compromise themselves too far, hasten to say that they must confine themselves to minor ameliorations, to superficial reforms, that is to say, to treating the symptoms instead of the disease, a therapeutic method as easy and as barren of abiding results in dealing with the social organism as with the individual organism;

3rd. That, finally, of the _revolutionaries_, who rightly call themselves thus because they think and say that the effective remedy is not to be found in superficial reforms, but in a radical reorganization of society, beginning at the very foundation, private property, and which will be so profound that it will truly constitute a social revolution.