Science, today, admits without dispute that man is the sport of a multitude of forces to whose play he is subjected, and that free will does not exist. Environment, heredity, education, climatic and atmospheric influences, act upon man in turn, now clashing with each other, now combining, but exercising an undeniable influence upon his brain, and whirling him about under their impact as the teetotum spins under the gyratory motion of the fingers of the player who sets it agoing. According to his heredity, his education and environment in which he lives, the individual will be more or less docile to the stimulus of certain forces, more or less refractory to certain others; but it is none the less sure that his personality is but the product of these forces. Having stated these facts, a number of savants, whose acknowledged chief is C. Lombroso, tried to establish a criminal type. They applied themselves to a search for anomalies that should characterize this type, which they claim to have discovered; and after having wrangled a good deal over the aforesaid type, created by themselves, they decide for energetic repression, life imprisonment, etc.⁠—Man acts under the influence of causes external to himself; hence he is not responsible for his acts. The savants recognize this, and therefore decide for⁠—repression!

Hereafter we shall have occasion to explain this contradiction. For the present let us examine the principal anomalies designated by the criminologists as the characteristic of criminality:

• Old wounds;

• Anomalies of the skin;

• Anomalies of the ears and nose;

• Tattooing.

There are many others which seem to us to have no more relation to a person’s mentality than the foregoing, but our ignorance of anatomy does not permit us to discuss them thoroughly. Let us rest content with those we have just enumerated. Wounds:⁠—It is quite evident that a person who bears the marks of old wounds may be something else than a regular criminal, especially if he received those wounds in an accident, while at work, or in risking his life to save one of his fellows. Until now we had believed that criminality consisted rather in giving blows than receiving them; it appears that the contrary is the case for science⁠—that it is he who gets wounded! Brothers, let us bow! As to anomalies of the nose and ears, we have sought in vain for what relation they could have to the brain; we have not found it. But there is better to follow. Lombroso concedes that many cases which he instances as anomalies are frequently found among those whom he calls honest people. These, then, are anomalies tending to become generalities! Till now we had been inclined to believe that an anomaly was a case of departure from the generality. Lombroso’s science tends to prove the contrary. Sad inconsequence, which proves, more than anything else, that men who have gotten astride a hobbyhorse, shut themselves in one corner of science, finish by losing a proper conception of things in their entirety, and have but one object: to include all things under those particular studies which they have embraced.

To have an ear or a nose badly shaped⁠—the nose especially! Nothing can be more disagreeable⁠—above all if this defective conformation is carried to the extreme limit of the ludicrous! There is nothing very gratifying in carrying around a sack of lard on one’s face, or a wine-spot on one side of it; it is often unpleasant enough both to those who look at them and those who have them; however, we should have thought that persons so afflicted were affected painfully enough, without being regarded as criminals besides! But since Lombroso says so, stretching his theory to its furthest consequences, we are led to demand that midwives and accoucheurs be obliged to put to death all the newly born who shall come into the world with a pug-nose or a deformed ear. Every pigmentary spot, evidently, can be naught else but an indication of our black perversity. Thus I, too, (it seems to me I remember having some of these spots⁠—somewhere⁠—I am an Anarchist, which is by some people considered an indication of criminality to begin with)⁠—I⁠—the thing fits! I am destined to be but a common criminal! Death to him, death to him! The theory predicts that I shall die on the scaffold!

After applying the theory to all amenable thereto, there would probably be but very few survivors; but how perfect would humanity be, morally and physically! We should never recoil before the consequences of a theory founded upon observation as this is!

As to tattooing, we had not up to the present taken it as an indication of very elevated aesthetics. O no. It is a remnant of atavism which leads certain men “to heighten their natural beauty” by means of embellishments pricked into the skin, precisely as our ancestors of the stone age might have done. This same atavism still leads many women to have their ears pierced in order to hang pieces of metal or brilliant pebbles from them, exactly as the Botocudos of Brazil, or certain Australian and African tribes, cut their lips, the cartilage of the nose, or the lobes of the ears, in order to insert wooden or metal rings, which, so at least it seems to them, have the effect of bestowing unequaled beauty upon them. We decidedly look upon such proceedings as a trifle primitive; but we had not seen any character of ferocity in the custom. However, since Lombroso informs us that there is, we certainly hope that we shall get rid not only of those who tattoo themselves, but of those who have their ears pierced and dye their hair!

Lombroso has also tried very hard to discover a type of the political criminal, supporting the theory upon information quite as imaginary;3 but to follow him into this region would carry us too far away from our subject: we shall keep to the criticism of criminalism properly so-called.

For that matter, some few more enlightened savants themselves have not been slow to offer criticism upon the by far too fanciful theories of the criminalistic school, and have victoriously demonstrated the lack of consistency in the pretended criminal characters sought to be attributed to those designated by that label. Among others Dr. Manouvrier, in his course on “Criminal Anthropology,” before the Anthropological Society in 1890, ’91, refuted, in an admirable manner, the theories of Lombroso and the criminalistic school concerning the alleged born criminal. After having demonstrated the falsity of the observations upon which the Italian savant and his imitators depended in creating the criminal type, by taking as subjects of observation only individuals already deformed by prison life or by an abnormal existence, Manouvrier declared that persons might have such or such aptitudes as would adapt them to such or such acts, but that they are not, by the conformation of their brain or their skeleton, predestined to accomplish those acts and become what are called criminals. A certain sort of aptitudes might indifferently, according to the circumstances, prompt the person to do an act reputed honorable, as well as one reputed criminal. For instance a powerful muscular organization may, in a moment of fury, make a vigorous man a strangler; but quite as easily it may make one of the officers who arrest the criminal. Violent instincts, contempt of danger, carelessness of death, whether it be give or take, are indifferently the vices of the criminal or the virtues demanded of the soldier. A crafty disposition, inclined to deceit, cunning, and insinuating, may make the swindler who thinks of nothing but schemes for robbery and fraud; but they are also the qualities required to make an admirable detective or examining magistrate.

Drawn on by the truth of his argument the doctor did not, moreover, hesitate to acknowledge that, very often, it is difficult to distinguish the alleged criminal from the alleged honest man; and that many an individual out of prison ought to be in it, and vice versa. And after having, with the other savants, admitted that man is but the sport of circumstances, according to the sum total of which he acts at any given moment; after having denied free will; after having recognized that justice is but a figment, and is, in fact, nothing but revenge exercised by society, which substitutes itself for the individual wronged, the doctor unfortunately, stops short; after having given utterance to perceptions which bring him very nearly in touch with the Anarchists, he thence comes to the conclusion that present penalties are not severe enough and that they must be increased. He entrenches himself, it is true, behind social preservation. Those acts reputed criminal, he says, shake society; society has the right to defend itself, by substituting itself for individual revenge, and smiting those who trouble it with a penalty severe enough to take away from them any desire to continue. Whence comes this flagrant contradiction between perceptions so broad and conclusions so narrow, since the latter demand the maintenance of what is shown by the premises to be absurd? This contradiction, alas, is not to be ascribed to their authors; it is essentially in the nature of human imperfection. Man cannot be universal. The savant who devotes himself passionately to a study attains prodigies of sagacity in that particular groove of science which he has hollowed out. By deduction after deduction he succeeds in solving the most arduous problems coming under that domain, which he has undertaken the task of cultivating; but as he has not been able to keep abreast in the study of all the sciences, of all social phenomena, the result is that he remains behind the progress of the other sciences; therefore, when he seeks to apply the admirable discoveries which he has made to other human conceptions, it follows that he most frequently applies them wrongly and draws an erroneous conclusion from a truth which he has demonstrated. In fact if the anthropologists who have studied man, analyzed him, and reached some comprehension of his true nature, had studied sociology with equal success, passed all the social institutions which govern us through the sieve of reason, no doubt their conclusions would have been different. Since they have admitted that man acts under the impulse of external influences, they should be led to seek what these influences are. In considering the reputed criminal and his acts, the study of the nature of these acts should necessarily force itself upon their minds and make them seek to find out why they are in antagonism to the laws of society. Here it is that the influence of environment, the prejudices of education, comparative ignorance of scientific questions which they have not studied, unknown to themselves combine to dictate to them conclusions so favorable to the existing order of things. These make it impossible for them, though they recognize that order as bad, though they demand some ameliorations in favor of the disinherited, to conceive anything better outside of authority. Accustomed to stir only with the chain around their necks and under the stings of the whip of power, it seems the more independent ones should certainly like to be rid of these themselves, or that a small minority should; but their conceptions cannot allow that humanity is able to go forward without leading-strings, dungeons, and chains.

If we study what crimes are the most antisocial, most common, and against which the code is chiefly directed, we shall soon discover that outside of crimes of passion, which are very rare, and concerning which judges and physicians agree that leniency should be used, attacks upon property furnish the largest contingent of crimes or misdemeanors. Hence arises the question to which only those who have studied society in its nature and effects can reply: “Is property just? Is an organization which creates such a number of crimes defensible?” If this regime involves so many crimes as an inevitable reaction it must be very illogical, it must crush out many interests; and the social compact, far from having been freely and unanimously agreed to, must be distorted by arbitrariness and oppression. This is what we have undertaken to prove in this work; and the fundamental vice of the social organization being recognized, we shall show by the evidence that in order to destroy criminals we must destroy the social conditions which beget them. Let society once be so arranged that every individual shall be assured of the satisfaction of all his needs; that nothing shall fetter his free evolution; that in the social organization there shall be no more institutions of which he may avail himself to enslave his fellows, and you will see crime disappear. If there remain a few isolated natures so corrupted or degenerated through our existing society as to commit crimes for which no other cause than folly can be assigned, such cases will be taken up by science and not by the executioner, the paid assassin of capitalistic and authoritarian society.

You say you make war upon thieves and assassins; but what is a thief, or an assassin? Persons who claim the right to live without being useful, at the expense of society, you will say. But cast a glance over your society and you will discover that it is swarming with thieves, and that, far from punishing them, your laws are made for the express purpose of protecting them. Far from punishing laziness, society holds it up as an ideal, and awards the pleasure of doing nothing to those who can, by no matter what means, succeed in living well without being useful. You punish as a thief the unfortunate who, having no work, risks imprisonment to get hold of a piece of bread to appease his hunger; but you take off your hat and bow to the millionaire monopolist who by the help of his capital has cornered at a bargain those things necessary for the consumption of all, that he may sell them back at an enormous profit! You are eager to present yourselves, very humbly and submissively, in the antechamber of the financier who, by a stroke on the bourse, has ruined hundreds of families to enrich himself from the spoil! You punish the criminal who, to gratify his taste for idleness and debauchery, victimizes somebody; but who inculcated in him this idleness and debauchery, if not your society? You punish him who operates on a small scale, but you support whole armies that you may send them oversea to operate on a large scale against peoples unable to defend themselves. And the exploiters who kill not only a few persons, but exhaust entire generations, crushing them with overwork, cutting down their wages day by day, driving them into a corner with the most sordid poverty⁠—Oh, for such exploiters you reserve your sympathies, and will, if need be, put all the forces of your society at their service. And the law, whose timid guardians you are⁠—when the exploited, tired of suffering, lift up their heads and demand a little more bread, a little more rest, you make that law the humble servant of the privileged against the “untimely” demands of the barefooted mob. You punish the imbecile caught in your nets, but the adventurer strong enough to break through their meshes⁠—him you let go in peace! You imprison the tramp who steals an apple in passing, but you put at the disposal of the proprietor all the machinery of your law, that he may be enabled to rob the poor devil who owes him a few cents on the article which has cost him hundreds in labor, and which represents a part of his very life! Your justice cannot find rigors enough for the thieves in rags, but it protects those who operate upon a class, an entire nation! Have not all your institutions been established to assure to the possessors undisputed possession of what they have taken from the dispossessed?

But still more revolting to us are all these hypocritical forms employed to make us consider sacred the theatrical buffooneries, with which the bourgeoisie surround their sinister motives, and which they have not the courage to avow frankly. And what is most revolting to us is the attitude of all these mountebanks who, under pretense of attacking the existing regime, attack only the men who apply its texts and the manner in which they apply them, but take good care to respect the essence itself, making believe that there may be a number of methods of applying the law and that among that number there is but one good one; that among the men who climb into power some may be found honest enough, broad enough in their views, men, in short, the like of whom does not exist, who will be able to disentangle this one good method and make use of it to the satisfaction of all. Truly, we know not which to admire most: the knavery of those who utter these stupidities, or the naivete of those who continue to look up to this farce, the entire weight of which they alone support. It is hard to understand that, amongst the countless number of persons who have undergone the examinations of “justice,” not one has yet been found sufficiently free from prejudice to go and lift up the robes of those who had struck him and show the public that all these togs serve but to mask men subject to the same weaknesses and errors as the rest of humanity, not counting the crimes inspired by their class interests.

Hence for us Anarchists, who attack authority, legality is one of those hypocritical forms which we must most energetically assail, in order to tear off the tinsel which serves to hide the recantations and the shames of those who govern us. Too long have these mummeries been respected; too long have the people believed that these institutions emanated from some superior essence which, causing them to float in an ethereal sphere, enabled them to soar above human passions. Too long have people believed in men distinct from their fellows, men of a special mould, charged with distributing here below⁠—“from each according to his necessities, to each according to his needs”⁠—that ideal justice which each regards from his own point of view, according to the condition in which he is placed; justice which these men filled as they are with the most backward and superannuated ideas, have codified in order to defend the exploitation and enslavement of the weak by those who have managed to create and force upon others their own predominance. It is time to break with these absurdities and openly attack these worm-eaten institutions whose aim is to lessen human personality; the free man does not admit this claim of individuals arrogating to themselves the right to judge and condemn other individuals. The idea of justice, such as existing institutions imply, has fallen with that of divinity; the one involved the other. The idea of God’s inspiring magistrates with the verdict to be pronounced caused the infallibility of man’s justice to be accepted, as long as the masses were backward enough to believe in a super-terrestrial existence, in some benevolent being existing outside of the material world, busying itself with what went on on our planet, and regulating the actions of all the people who inhabited it. But the belief in God being destroyed, faith in the supernatural having disappeared, human personality alone remaining with all its defects and passions, this inviolability and supreme character which are the essence of divinity, and with which the magistracy re-invested itself in order to keep itself above society, must likewise disappear, and allow those whose eyes have been opened to see what is really hidden by these⁠—oppression and exploitation of one class by another, fraud and violence elevated into a principle and transformed into “social institutions.”

Science has helped us to lift the veil; it has furnished us with the weapons which have assisted to strip the colossus. It is too late for it to be able effectually to turn backward and endeavor to reconstitute in the name of the metaphysical entity, society, what it has wrested from the metaphysical entity, divinity. The savants must manage to eliminate from themselves, completely, the bourgeois education they have received, and study social phenomena with the same strictness and disinterestedness with which they have approached the study of any special science. Then, when they are no longer influenced by considerations or prejudices foreign to science, they will no longer conclude in favor of the condemnation of criminals, but like we, rather, in favor of the destruction of a social state which makes it possible that there should be within its bosom, and because of its own vicious organization, some persons reputed honest, and others reputed criminal.