deaf-mute, whether it is a case of insanity, whether he was drunk at the
time the crime was committed. Only in these strictly defined cases does
the classic school occupy itself theoretically with the personality of
the criminal. But ninety times in one hundred these exceptional
circumstances do not exist or cannot be shown to exist, and penal
justice limits itself to the technical definition of the fact. But when
the case comes up in the criminal court, or before the jurors, practice
demonstrates that there is seldom a discussion between the lawyers of
the defense and the judges for the purpose of ascertaining the most
exact definition of the fact, of determining whether it is a case of
attempted or merely projected crime, of finding out whether there are
any of the juridical elements defined in this or that article of the
code. The judge is rather face to face with the problem of ascertaining
why, under what conditions, for what reasons, the man has committed the
crime. This is the supreme and simple human problem. But hitherto it has
been left to a more or less perspicacious, more or less gifted,
empiricism, and there have been no scientific standards, no methodical
collection of facts, no observations and conclusions, save those of the
positive school of criminology. This school alone makes an attempt to
solve in every case of crime the problem of its natural origin, of the
reasons and conditions that induced a man to commit such and such a
crime.

For instance, about 3,000 cases of manslaughter are registered every
year in Italy. Now, open any work inspired by the classic school of
criminology, and ask the author why 3,000 men are the victims of
manslaughter every year in Italy, and how it is that there are not
sometimes only as many as, say, 300 cases, the number committed in
England, which has nearly the same number of inhabitants as Italy; and
how it is that there are not sometimes 300,000 such cases in Italy