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Criminal Sociology by Enrico Ferri
page 17 of 307 (05%)
Nevertheless, it was only with the first edition of ``The
Criminal'' (1876) that criminal anthropology asserted itself as an
independent science, distinct from the main trunk of general
anthropology, itself quite recent in its origin, having come into
existence with the works of Daubenton, Blumenbach, Soemmering,
Camper, White, and Pritchard.

The work of Lombroso set out with two original faults: the mistake
of having given undue importance, at any rate apparently, to the
data of craniology and anthropometry, rather than to those of
psychology; and, secondly, that of having mixed up, in the first
two editions, all criminals in a single class. In later editions
these defects were eliminated, Lombroso having adopted the
observation which I made in the first instance, as to the various
anthropological categories of criminals. This does not prevent
certain critics of criminal anthropology from repeating, with a
strange monotony, the venerable objections as to the
``impossibility of distinguishing a criminal from an honest man by
the shape of his skull,'' or of ``measuring human
responsibility in accordance with different craniological
types.''[2]


[2] Vol. ii. of the fourth edition of ``The Criminal'' (1889) is
specially concerned with the epileptic and idiotic criminal
(referred to alcoholism, hysteria, mattoidism) whether occasional
or subject to violent impulse; whilst vol. i. is concerned only
with congenital criminality and moral insanity.


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