instincts, capacities and potential strength or weakness. His nervous
system and his brain may be good or bad--most likely neither very good
nor very bad. All of his actions both as a child and as a man are
induced by stimulation from without. He feels, tastes, sees, hears or
smells some object, and his nerves carry the impression to his brain
where a more or less correct registration is made. Its correctness
depends largely upon the perfection of the nervous system and the
fineness of the material on which the registration is made. Perfect or
imperfect, the child begins to gather knowledge and it is stored in this
way. To the end of his days he receives impressions and stores them in
the same manner. All of these impressions are more or less imperfectly
received, imperfectly conveyed and imperfectly registered. However, he
is obliged to use the machine he has. Not only does the machine register
impressions but it sends out directions immediately following these
impressions: directions to the organism as to how to run, to walk, to
fight, to hide, to eat, to drink, or to make any other response that the
particular situation calls for.
Then, too, stimulated by these impressions, certain secretions are
instantly emptied from the ductless glands into the blood which, acting
like fuel in an engine, generate more power in the machine, fill it with
anger or fear and prepare it to respond to the directions to fight or
flee, or to any type of action incident to the machine. It is only
within a few years that biologists have had any idea of the use of
these ductless glands or of their importance in the functions of life.
Very often these ductless glands are diseased, and always they are more
or less imperfect; but in whatever condition they are, the machine
responds to their flow.
The stored-up impressions are more or less awakened under stimulation.
As life goes on, these stored impressions act as inhibitions or
stimulations to action, as the case may be. These form the material for
comparisons and judgments as to conduct. Not only are the impressions
imperfect and the record imperfect, but their value and effect depend on
the brain which compares and considers the impressions. From all this
mechanism, action is born.
That man is the product of heredity and environment and that he acts as
his machine responds to outside stimuli and nothing else, seem amply
proven by the evolution and history of man. But, quite aside from this,
logic and philosophy must lead to the same conclusions. This is not a
universe where acts result from chance. Law is everywhere supreme. Every
process of nature and life is a continuous sequence of cause and effect.
No intelligent person would ever think of an effect in the physical
world which did not follow a cause or causes. It has taken man a long
time to find this out. The recurrence of the seasons, the seed-time and
harvest, the common phenomena of Nature, were once supposed to be
outside the realm of cause and effect and due to the whim of some
powerful being. But the laws of matter are now coming to be understood.
Chance, accident and whim have been banished from the physical world.
The acts of men alone are supposed to be outside the realm of law. There
is a cause for the eternal revolution of the earth around the sun, for
the succession of seed-time and harvest, for growth and decay; but not
for the thoughts and actions of man.
All the teaching of the world is based on the theory that there is no
free will. Why else should children be trained with so much care? Why
should they be taught what is right and what is wrong? Why should so
much pains be taken in forming habits? To what effect is the storing of
knowledge in the brain of the child, except that it may be taught to
avoid the wrong and to do the right? Man's every action is caused by
motive. Whether his action is wise or unwise, the motive was at least
strong enough to move him. If two or more motives pulled in opposite
directions, he could not have acted from the weakest but must have
obeyed the strongest. The same motives applied to some other machine
might have produced an opposite result, but to his particular structure
it was all-controlling. How any special motive will affect any special
machine must depend upon the relative strength of the motive and make of
the machine. It is for this reason that intelligent people have always
taken so much pains to fortify the machine, so that it would respond to
what they believed was right. To say that one could ever act from the
weakest motive would bring chaos and chance into a world of method and
order. Even punishment could have no possible effect to deter the
criminal after release, or to influence others by the example of the
punishment. As well might the kernel of corn refuse to grow upward to
the sunlight, and grow downward instead.
Before any progress can be made in dealing with crime the world must
fully realize that crime is only a part of conduct; that each act,
criminal or otherwise, follows a cause; that given the same conditions
the same result will follow forever and ever; that all punishment for
the purpose of causing suffering, or growing out of hatred, is cruel and
anti-social; that however much society may feel the need of confining
the criminal, it must first of all understand that the act had an
all-sufficient cause for which the individual was in no way responsible,
and must find the cause of his conduct, and, so far as possible, remove
the cause.
IV
ENVIRONMENT
The acorn will inevitably produce the oak tree and it will grow true to
its pattern. All seeds and cells will do likewise. Still if the acorn is
planted in good soil, where it is properly nourished and in a spot where
it is sufficiently sheltered, the tree will be more likely to become
large and symmetrical, than if it is planted in poor soil or in an
exposed spot.
In one sense heredity is the seed, and environment the soil. The whole
structure and pattern and inherent tendencies and potentiality are in
the seed and cannot be changed. The child has nothing to do with its
early environment during the period when impressions sink the deepest
and when habits are formed. It is then that the meaning of facts is
interpreted. At this time the child is fashioned by the teachings and
environment in which it is placed. As the child receives its first
impressions, and all along through its development, it is forming habits
from those about it. These habits come to be strong, dominating forces
in its life. Very few people, if any, can trace definite views of
conduct or thought to their conscious effort, but these are born of
their structure and the environment that formed their habits after
birth.
The fact that an individual's political and religious faith depends
almost entirely on his place of birth and early youth, shows the
strength of environment in forming and shaping opinions and beliefs.
As the child grows and develops, it is influenced by all that surrounds
it. The human machine moves in response to outside stimulation. How it
will move depends upon two things, the character of the stimulant and
the machine to which it is applied. No two machines will act exactly
alike from the same stimulus. Sometimes they act in diametrically
opposite ways. For instance, under the same stimulation, one may run and
another may fight, depending perhaps on the secretions that the ductless
glands empty into the blood.
No machine can act except according to its make-up. Even an ignorant
person, who finds that the same stimulant produces different results on
different machines, would know that the structures are not the same.
Endless discussions have been devoted to the relative importance of
heredity and environment in human conduct. This is a fruitless task. In
a sense, each one is of supreme importance in the outcome of a life. It
is obvious that some structures are so perfect that almost no
environment will overcome them. Instances of strong men developing out
of poor environment are not rare. Many of these may be subject to doubt
as to whether the heredity caused the strength, for the smallest
particle of luck at some special or vital time may make all the
difference possible in the outcome of a life. While some heredities
withstand a poor environment, others are so poor that, no matter how
good the environment, the machine cannot survive. An idiot is an
illustration of one whom environment cannot change. No heredity will
overcome the hardest environment. The old saying, "every man has his
price," is true in this sense, that every machine will stand just so
much and no more. Some machines reach the breaking point soon and some
later, but all have their limit. Most people have a heredity that is not
the best nor yet the worst. Given an imperfect machine, they are thrown
into a certain environment, and then up to the capacity of their
machines the outcome depends entirely on the environment. Given an
environment easy enough they will succeed, or at least "get by." Given a
hard environment they will fail, or "go down." Tens of thousands of men
live in a comparatively easy environment and pass their lives as useful
citizens with no taint of criminality to their names, who under a hard
environment would be found in prison. On the other hand, perhaps most of
the inmates of prisons would have lived as respected citizens if their
environment had not been so hard. Heredity has everything to do with
making the machine strong and capable, or weak and useless; but when the
machine is made and thrown on the world in its imperfect shape,
environment has everything to do in determining what its fate shall be.
V
ADJUSTING HEREDITY AND
ENVIRONMENT
Most people live a narrow existence. Perhaps the great majority of men
and women find their safety in this kind of a life. The adjustment of
heredity and environment is not an easy task to one who lives an
unsheltered life. The ordinary person, thrown on his own resources, is
poorly equipped for existence. His opinions on most matters are not
sound. He uses poor judgment as to how he shall spend the little money
he gets. He is generally driven by debts and harassed in all his efforts
to get a living. A large family adds to his trouble and his existence is
a constant struggle with what, to him, is an almost hopeless fate.
Industrial conditions for the most part are relentless and hard. The
poor man is thrown into competition with his fellows for work. He may
get along when work is easy to get and wages are good, but in dull times
he falls behind, and is in hopeless trouble. His life is a long, hard
struggle to make adjustments to his environment, and it is not strange
that he goes down so often before the heavy task. Failure to make proper
adjustments directly and indirectly often means prison to him.
Again, the ordinary and especially the weak man is hopelessly puzzled by
his environment. It must never be overlooked that man has a lowly
origin. The marks of his humble birth are in his whole structure and
life. His make-up has been the work of the ages. He is a late
development of a life that knew nothing of law, as law is understood
today. His ancestors were hungry and went out after food, they killed
their prey and took their food by main strength whenever they had the
power. They were subject to certain customs which were very strict, but
which were few and did not seriously complicate life. They knew only the
law of force. Their existence was simple and primal, and they were
governed by no "rights," except such simple ones as were made by might
and custom.
Civilization is a constant building-up of limitations around heredity; a
persistent growth of environmental control as it progresses, or at least
moves along. This structure, especially the legal structure, is built by
the more intelligent and always by the strong men. It is always shifting
and moving, and it is impossible for the inferior man to adjust his
emotions and his life rapidly to the changes. Things which are not
condemned by his feelings of right and wrong are condemned by laws that
meet with no response from his emotions and moral ideas. To him at least
these are not different from the things that are done by others with
impunity and without rebuke. Especially is this true of the rapidly
growing class of property laws that have had no counterpart in the early
history of man. This list has grown so fast that it is beyond the power
of a large class of men to find in their feelings any response to many
of these criminal statutes. The ever-growing social restrictions are of
the same modern growth, and it is equally impossible to feel and
understand them. What we call civilization has moved so fast that the
structure and instincts of man have not been able to become adjusted to
it. The structure is too cumbersome, too intense, too hard, and if not
breaking down of its own weight, it is at least destroying thousands who
cannot adjust themselves to its changing demands. Not only are the
effects of this growing body of social and legal restrictions shown
directly by their constant violation, generally by the inferior and the
poor, but indirectly in their strain on the nervous system; by the
irritation and impatience that they generate, and which, under certain
conditions cause acts of violence.
VI
PSYCHOLOGY OF CRIMINAL CONDUCT
No one can understand conduct without knowing something of the
psychology of human action. First of all, it must be understood that
reason, which so many have idealized and placed in control of the human
machine, has little to do with the actions of men. It is a common habit
with most men to find fault with and bewail the fact that human beings
do not act from reason. However much the truth is impressed upon us, we
never seem to realize that the basis of action is in instinct and
emotion. It is really useless to quarrel with Nature. Whether it would
have been better to have made man some other way is not worth
discussing. He has been evolved in a certain way and we must take him as
he is. Our impatience with the method that Nature has provided for
influencing human conduct is largely due to our idea of the meaning of
life.
Man has fancied himself in a position in the animal world that facts of
life and nature do not sustain. We seem to feel that man has some high
calling; that he should make something of himself which cannot be
accomplished; that he should form some sort of a perfect order that he
never can reach; in short that man has a purpose and a mission. It is
manifest that all we know is but a mite compared with the unknown, and
it may be that sometime a purpose will be revealed of which man never
dreamed. Still from all that we can see and understand, Nature has but
one desire, and that is the preservation and perpetuation of life. This
is its purpose or, rather, its strongest urge not only with men but with
all animal life. Sometimes to create one fish a million eggs are
spawned. Nature is profligate both in spawning life and compassing its
destruction. In the human species the capacity for life is immeasurably
beyond its fruition. A large portion of those who are born die an early
death. And that human life shall not be extinct, Nature plants the
life-giving desire deep in the constitution of man. The creation of life
comes from an instinct so profound and absorbing that it carries a train
of evils in its wake. Many are overweighted by the sex instinct to their
positive harm. Nature somehow did not trust such a fundamental duty as
the preservation of the race to reason. If intellectual processes were
responsible for life, the world no doubt would soon be bare of animate
things. Neither could the care of the young be trusted to anything but
the deep-seated instinct that causes the mother to forget her own life
in the preservation of the life of her child.
The functions of body, on which life is founded, do not depend upon
reason. The heart begins to beat before birth; it continues to beat
until the end of life. The reason has nothing to do with the heart
performing its function. Man goes to sleep at night confident that it
will still be beating in the morning. The blood circulates in the veins
independent of the thoughts of man. The digestive processes go on
whether he sleeps or is awake. Many of his muscles never rest from birth
to death. Life could not be preserved through the intellectual
processes.
Human action is governed largely by instinct and emotion. These
instincts and emotions are incident to every living machine and are the
motor forces that impel the organism. They do not think. They act, and
act at once. All the mind can do is to place some restraint on such
instincts and emotions through experience, education and settled habits.
If the actions are never inhibited, the machine will tear itself to
pieces. If too easily inhibited, it will do no work. It is manifest that
the perfect machine does not exist.
Man is moved by his instinct of flight and his emotion of fear, which
are set in motion by apprehended dangers and by unaccustomed sights or
sounds. Terror sometimes becomes so intense that it prevents flight and
brings convulsions and death. It is idle to reason with one in terror.
It is idle to reason with a mob in terror or a nation in terror. One
might as well expect to calm a tempestuous sea with soft words.
The instinct of repulsion brings hatred and dislike and, combined with
the instinct of pugnacity, may lead to crimes of violence. When these
instincts are strong enough, the weak and superficial barriers cannot
stand against them. An electrical flash showing the scaffold with the
noose above it would have no force to stop an instinct and emotion fully
aroused. Through seeing, feeling, hearing, tasting or smelling, some
instinct is called into action. Many times several conflicting instincts
are aroused. The man is like a tree bent back and forth by the storm. If
the storm is hard enough, sooner or later it will break. Which way the
tree falls has nothing to do with the consciousness of the tree, but has
to do only with the direction of the prevailing and controlling force.
The instinct of gregariousness draws animals or men together into
communities and close relations. This is one of the strongest instincts
and not only preserves life but is fundamental to those human
associations that are the basis of civilization. Except for this,
animals would live a lonely life and probably perish from the earth.
Through this instinct, man builds his villages and cities and organizes
his states and nations. With the gregarious instinct and the parental
instinct drawing men together, and the instincts and emotions of flight,
fear and pugnacity, repelling and pushing them apart, conflict is
inevitable. All that can be done is to create and cultivate as strong
habits, customs and laws as possible to stand against the power of
instinct and emotion in time of need, and to remove the main inciting
causes so far as man has the intelligence and power to remove them. It
is evident that this can never be complete. There are too many weak
machines, too many defective nervous systems, too many badly organized
brains. Accidents are inevitable, and some accidents are called
"crimes." When the accident is international or world-wide, it means
war. Those who believe that there is any power to stop all the harmful
manifestations of man's instincts, either individually or _en masse_, do
not understand the fundamental nature of man.
Many and probably all instincts work both for good and ill. Flight,
pugnacity, repulsion, sex--all are life-preserving or life-destroying,
as the case may be. A certain degree of excitation brings life and
pleasure. A stronger or weaker may bring calamity and death. The
parental instinct, with the instinct of reproduction, is fundamental to
life. It is the basis of tenderness and sympathy, and is likewise the
foundation of jealousy and often of hatred and pugnacity. At one time it
may mean the deepest and most abiding pleasures of life, and at another
it may bring death. Life cannot exist without it, and yet, that it may
persist, Nature seriously overloads many machines with disastrous
results. History is replete with the helplessness of reason and judgment
in dealing with these emotions. Neither when they act for good nor for
ill can reason and judgment have the slightest weight when these
instincts and emotions are stirred to the depths.
The emotion to acquire and keep property is very strong and perhaps at
the base of the deep desire for wealth. This emotion is probably of a
comparatively late growth, but today it seems to have taken its place as
one of the strongest that move men. This emotion, like all others,
prompts man to get what he wants. It of course does not suggest the way,
but is simply an urge to acquire and possess. It is modified and hedged
about by customs and habits but, like all instincts, its strength is
always seeking ways to accomplish results regardless of the rules laid
down and thus urging their violation. With weak machines and imperfect
systems, where not only are the restrictions imperfect, the habits not
well defined, but where it is impossible to satisfy the instinct under
the rules laid down, there can be but one result; a large number will
take property wherever and however they can get it.
The instinct for acquisition is so strong that men are constantly
contriving new and improved methods for getting property. Often the new
methods come under restraint of the law. The enactment of the law does
not give man the feeling that a thing is wrong which before was right
and many continue their ways of getting property, regardless of the law.
The instinct is too strong, the needs too great, and the barriers too
weak.
Instincts are primal to man. He has inherited them from the animal
world. Their strength and weakness depend on the make-up of the machine.
Some are very strong and some abnormally weak, and there are no two
machines that emphasize or repress the same instincts to the same
degree. One need but look at his family and neighbors to see the various
manifestations of these instincts. Some are quarrelsome and combative
and will fight on the slightest provocation. Others are distinctively
social; the gregarious instinct is pronounced in many people. These are
always seen in company and cannot be alone. They readily adapt
themselves to any sort of associations. Others are solitary. They choose
to be alone. They shrink from and avoid the society of others. In some
the instinct at the basis of sex association is over-strong; they like
children; they are generally sympathetic and emotional, and the strength
of the instinct often leads them to excesses. Others are entirely
lacking in this instinct; they neither care for children nor want them;
they habitually avoid association with the other sex. The difference is
constituent in the elements that make up the machine.
Everyone is familiar with the varying strength and weakness of the
instincts of getting and hoarding as shown by his neighbors and
acquaintances. Some seem to have no ambition or thought for getting or
keeping money. Some can get it but cannot keep it. Some have in them
from childhood the instinct for getting the better of every trade; for
hoarding what they get, and accumulating property all their lives. In
this, as in all other respects, no two individuals are alike. History is
filled with examples of men who had the instinctive power of getting
money combined with the instinct for keeping it. Their names are
familiar, all the way from Midas and Croesus down to the prominent
captains of industry today. It is common for them and their adherents
who criticise new schemes of social organization to remark with the
greatest assurance that before wealth can be equal, brains must be
equal. The truth is that brains have little to do with either the making
or accumulating of money. This depends mainly, like all other
activities, on the strength or weakness of the instincts involved. One's
brain capacity cannot be measured by his bank account, any more than by
the strength of his body or the color of his hair. His bank account
simply shows his innate tendencies. There is no doubt that brain
capacity as well as physical perfection adds to power, but it is the
instinct that determines the tendency and strength of the activity.