Crime and Its Causes | Page 9

abolition of crime as it is to look forward to the cessation of war. At
the present moment the latter event, however improbable, is more
likely to happen than the former. War has ceased to be a normal
condition of things in the comity of nations; it has become a transitory
incident; but crime, which means war within the nation, is still far from
being a passing incident; on the contrary, a conflict between the forces
of moral order and social anarchy is going on continually; and, at
present, there is not the faintest prospect of its coming to an end.
What is the cause of this state of warfare within society? Which of the
combatants is to blame? Or is the blame to be laid equally on the
shoulders of both? In other words, are the conditions in which men live
together in society of such a nature that crime is certain to flow from
them; and is crime simply a reaction against the iniquity of existing
social arrangements? Or, on the other hand, does crime spring from the
individual and his cosmical surroundings; and is it the product of forces
over which society has little or no control? These are questions which
cannot be answered off-hand, they involve considerations of a most
complicated character, and it is only after a careful examination of all
the factors responsible for crime that a true solution can possibly be
arrived at. These factors are divisible into three great
categories--cosmical, social, and individual.[10] The cosmical factors
of crime are climate and the variations of temperature; the social factors
are the political, economic and moral conditions in the midst of which

man lives as a member of society; the individual factors are a class of
attributes inherent in the individual, such as descent, sex, age, bodily
and mental characteristics. These factors, it will be seen, can easily be
reduced to two, the organism and its environment; but it will be more
convenient to consider them under the three-fold division which has
just been mentioned. Before proceeding to do so, it may be as well to
remark that in each case the several factors operate with different
degrees of intensity. It is often extremely difficult to disentangle them;
and the more complex the society is in which a crime takes place, the
greater is the combination and intricacy of the causes leading up to it.
[10] Cf. E. Ferri. I Nuovi Orizzonti del Diritto e della Procedura
Penale.

CHAPTER II
.
CLIMATE AND CRIME.
Man's existence depends upon physical surroundings; these
surroundings have exercised an immense influence in modifying his
organism, in shaping his social development, in moulding his character.
To enumerate all the external factors operating upon individual and
social life is outside our present purpose, but they may be briefly
summed up as climate, moisture, soil, the configuration of the earth's
surface, and the nature of its products. These natural phenomena, either
singly or in varying degrees of combination, have unquestionably
played a most prominent part in making the different races of mankind
what they at present are. We have only to look at the low type of life
exhibited by the primitive inhabitants of certain inhospitable regions of
the globe to see how profoundly the physical structure of man is
affected by his natural surroundings. Even a comparatively slight
difference of environment is not without effect upon the population
subjected to its influence. According to M. de Quatrefages, the bodily
structure of the English race has been distinctly modified by residence
in the United States of America. It is not more than two and a half
centuries since Englishmen began to emigrate in any considerable
numbers to the American Continent, but in that comparatively short
period the Anglo-American has ceased to resemble his ancestors in

physical appearance. Alterations have taken place in the skin, the hair,
the neck, and the head; the lower jaw has become bigger; the bones of
the arms and legs have lengthened, and the American of to-day requires
a different kind of glove from the Englishman. Structural changes of a
similar character have taken place in the negroes transplanted to
America. M. Elisée Reclus considers that in a century and a half they
have traversed a good quarter of the distance which separates them
from the whites. Another important point, as showing the influence of
habitat upon race, is the fact that the modifications of human structure
resulting from residence in America are in the direction of assimilating
the European type to that of the red man.[11] In short, it may be taken
as a well-established principle that external nature destroys all
organisms that cannot adapt themselves to its action, and
physiologically modifies all organisms that can.
[11] The various types of Jews also afford a striking instance