If it is true that later on the Church, in proportion as it departed from the doctrines of the Master, preached in favor of the rich, leaving to the poor the hope of Paradise; and if it is true, as M. Garofalo says, that “the Christian philosophers exhorted the poor to sanctify the tribulations of poverty by resignation” (p. 166); it is also true that, for example, Bossuet, in one of his famous sermons, recognized that “the complaints of the poor are justified;” and he asked:  “Why are conditions so unequal?  We are all formed of the same dust, and nothing can justify it.”  So that recently, M. Giraud-Teulon, in the name of an hermaphrodite liberalism, recalled that “the right of private property is rather tolerated by the Church as an existing fact than presented as a necessary foundation of civil society.  It is even condemned in its inspiring principle by the Fathers of the Church."[91]

But apart from all this, it is sufficient for me to establish that the psychological premise, from which M. Garofalo starts, is erroneous in itself.

Studying elsewhere the influence of the religious sentiment on criminality[92], I have shown by positive documentary evidence, that religious beliefs, efficacious for individuals already endowed with a normal social sense, since they add to the sanction of the moral conscience (which, however, would suffice by itself) the sanctions of the life beyond the tomb—­“religion is the guarantor of justice"[93]—­are, nevertheless, wholly ineffective, when the social sense, on account of some physio-psychical anomaly, is atrophied or non-existent.  So that religious belief, considered as a regulator of social conduct, is at once superfluous for honorable people and altogether ineffective for those who are not honorable, if indeed it is not capable of increasing the propensity to evil by developing religious fanaticism or giving rise to the hope of pardon in the confessional or of absolution in articulo mortis, etc.

It is possible to understand—­at least as an expedient as utilitarian as it is highly hypocritical—­the argument of those who, atheists so far as they themselves are concerned, still wish to preserve religious beliefs for the people, because they exercise a depressing influence and prevent all energetic agitation for human rights and enjoyments here below.  The conception of God as a Policeman is only one among many illusions.

* * * * *

Besides these errors of fact in the biological and psychological sciences, M. Garofalo also misstates the socialist doctrines, following the example of the opponents of the new school of criminology, who found it easier to refute the doctrines they attributed to us than to shake the doctrines we defended.

On page 14, M. Garofalo begins by stating, “the true tendency of the party known as the Workingmen’s Party, is to gain power, not in the interest of all, but in order to expropriate the dominant class and to step into their shoes.  They do not disguise this purpose in their programmes.”  This statement is found again on page 210, etc.