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9781330305607: The Popular Science Monthly, Vol. 8 (Classic Reprint)

Sinopsis

Excerpt from The Popular Science Monthly, Vol. 8

HE first traditional crime, the fratricide of Abel, was a natural outgrowth from the conditions of,society, which, compared to the present relations of civilized men, existed germ-like around him. These conditions alone gave motive and direction to the deed. To all the after-centuries of human crime this primal offense has existed as a type. Both in cause and effect it is reduced to its simplest pro portions. The criminal represents the retrograde tendency of society; the savagism which exists in every community. Order and progress are preserved by an irrepressible conflict waged on the border-land, as it were, of civilization. Many of these crimes grow out of the artificial wants of society. Others are but relative and belong to particular conditions, or orders of men, and at other times and places are without meaning and void of offense. Thus society is ever eager for the warfare, and, at the time it creates the crime, prepares the weapons for its punishment.

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Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

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Reseña del editor

Excerpt from The Popular Science Monthly, Vol. 8

HE first traditional crime, the fratricide of Abel, was a natural outgrowth from the conditions of,society, which, compared to the present relations of civilized men, existed germ-like around him. These conditions alone gave motive and direction to the deed. To all the after-centuries of human crime this primal offense has existed as a type. Both in cause and effect it is reduced to its simplest pro portions. The criminal represents the retrograde tendency of society; the savagism which exists in every community. Order and progress are preserved by an irrepressible conflict waged on the border-land, as it were, of civilization. Many of these crimes grow out of the artificial wants of society. Others are but relative and belong to particular conditions, or orders of men, and at other times and places are without meaning and void of offense. Thus society is ever eager for the warfare, and, at the time it creates the crime, prepares the weapons for its punishment.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Reseña del editor

Excerpt from The Popular Science Monthly, Vol. 8

Those efforts which society has made to stamp out and confine this tendency to evil must, to an equal extent, spring from higher law; just as a breakwater is reared to protect an exposed harbor from the encroachments of storm and wave.

We have of late years come to look upon criminals as a special class of the community. We have come to complacently call them the "criminal class," just as we do the mercantile class or any other reputable order of men. This is so far true as to be capable of proof more by the exceptions than the rule. We have come to look upon crime as we do the typhus fever or the cholera, as prevailing mainly amid dirt and ignorance. I believe this to be true only so far as ignorance permits those good qualities in men to be undeveloped which require culture for their development; and the existence of such qualities has not as yet been demonstrated. It must be understood that while the word "ignorance" does not express a positive quantity, it yet expresses a positive quality which is true of the mass of people. This word with perfect fairness may be applied to the vast numbers which swell the aggregate of a census-table, without any qualification. I believe it can be shown that it is simply from excess in numbers that the ignorant classes furnish the recruits to the ranks of crime, and not from any tendency to crime dependent upon the negative quality of ignorance. A careful analysis of facts in this field induces Mr. Buckle to say that "the existence of crime, according to a fixed and uniform scheme, is a fact more clearly attested than any other in the moral history of man." Another high authority may be quoted in evidence to prove that this scheme is exempt from those laws which govern intellectual development: "It is one of the plainest facts that neither the individuals nor the ages that have been most distinguished for intellectual achievements have been most distinguished for moral excellence, and that a high intellectual and material civilization has often coexisted with much depravity."

All this seems to show us that there is a rhythm in human actions that forms a minor chord in the forever unwritten music which those who love Nature know as existing profoundly in all her works.

Since we are dealing with an element in human character which preserves a fixed value, it is evident that we may study the relation of any class in any community to these constantly-recurring phenomena, provided we can isolate this class from all others. In the study before us, this has already been done by the division of mankind into the sexes. I need draw no other line. Women stand out so clearly as a class, and, in relation to any series of acts which preserve a more or less constant periodicity, are so sharply defined from man, that they are easily contrasted with him in relation to any condition common to both.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

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