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.
