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
