From this point onwards, nothing could be more natural than the
rise of a new school, whose object was to make an experimental
study of social pathology in respect of its criminal symptoms, in
order to bring theories of crime and punishment into harmony with
everyday facts. This is the positive school of criminal law,
whereof the fundamental purpose is to study the natural genesis of
criminality in the criminal, and in the physical and social
conditions of his life, so as to apply the most effectual remedies
to the various causes of crime.
Thus we are not concerned merely with the construction of a theory
of anthropology or psychology, or a system of criminal statistics,
nor merely with the setting of abstract legal theories against
other theories which are still more abstract. Our task is to show
that the basis of every theory concerning the self-defence of the
community against evil-doers must be the observation of the
individual and of society in their criminal activity. In one
word, our task is to construct a criminal sociology.
For, as it seems to me, all that general sociology can do is to
furnish the more ordinary and universal inferences concerning the
life of communities; and upon this canvas the several sciences of
sociology are delineated by the specialised observation of each
distinct order of social facts.
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