Note 46 — CRIMINALITY.

It is for the same reason that the sick and the aged were sometimes abandoned by the primitive peoples. They were driven to this because these feeble persons were unable to make long journeys, and because their economic means did not allow them to support those who could no longer work. Here again there could be no question of innate insensibility.46 In these cases then, there was an opposition of interests; the act that was egoistic toward the individual was altruistic toward the group. If different action had been taken in such cases all would have succumbed. Thus these acts have fallen into desuetude as the productivity of labor has developed.