No crime, whoever commits it, and in whatever circumstances, can
be explained except as the outcome of individual free-will, or as
the natural effect of natural causes. Since the former of these
explanations has no scientific value, it is impossible to give a
scientific explanation of a crime (or indeed of any other
action of man or brute) unless it is considered as the product of
a particular organic and psychical constitution, acting in a
particular physical and social environment.
Therefore it is far from being exact to assert that the positive
criminal school reduces crime to a purely and exclusively
anthropological phenomenon. As a matter of fact, this school has
always from the beginning maintained that crime is the effect of
anthropological, physical, and social conditions, which evolve it
by their simultaneous and inseparable operation. And if inquiries
into biological conditions have been more abundant and more
conspicuous by their novelty, this in no way contradicts the
fundamental conclusion of criminal sociology.
That being stated, we have still to examine the relative value of
these three classes of conditions in the natural evolution of
crime.
It seems to me that this question is generally stated
inaccurately, and also that it cannot be answered absolutely, and
in a word.
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