Note 31 — Chapter IV · THE FRENCH SCHOOL (THE SCHOOL OF THE ENVIRONMENT).

And then it has not been proved that murder and theft were habitual with our ancestors; they had recourse to them only under stress of circumstances, quite like any normal man of today. Considered from an anatomical point of view our means of injuring our fellows have decreased; on the other hand we have now other means at our disposal (firearms, etc.). “As to the need of pleasure and of life, this can only have increased, and never can cupidity have been more aroused than in our civilized society. Never have the temptations to appropriate the goods of others been stronger and more frequent. Civilization tends to develop wants and appetites, whence there comes this colossal extension of the means of repression and of coercion employed to make criminal attempts dangerous, in order that crime may not be too easy a means of acquiring fortune. Except for purely pathological cases, the criminal is moved by his wants, by wants that have nothing extraordinary about them; when a man has an interest, or thinks he has an interest in committing a crime, he brings into play muscular and cerebral aptitudes which every normal man possesses, the same elementary aptitudes as those he might have made use of, under other circumstances, to pursue and punish a criminal.”31