probably the chief barrier to the commission of crime is the feeling of right and wrong connected with the doing or not doing of particular acts. all men have a more or less binding conscience. this is the result of long teaching and habit in matters of conduct. most people are taught at home and in school that certain things are right and that others are wrong. this constant instruction builds up habits and rules of conduct, and it is mainly upon these that society depends for the behavior of its citizens. to most men conscience is the monitor, rather than law. it acts more automatically, and a shock to the conscience is far more effective than the knowledge that a law is broken. for the most part the promptings of conscience follow pretty closely the inhibitions of the criminal code, although they may or may not follow the spirit of the law. each person has his own idea of the relative values attached to human actions. that is, no two machines respond exactly alike as to the relative importance of different things. no two ethical commands have the same importance to all people or to any two people. often men do not hesitate to circumvent or violate one statute, when they could never be even tempted to violate another.
ordinarily unless the response of conscience is quick and plain, men are not bothered by the infraction of the law except, perchance, by the fear of discovery. this is quite apart from the teaching that it is the duty of all men to obey all laws, a proposition so general that it has no effect. even those who make the statement do not follow the precept, and the long list of penal laws that die from lack of enforcement instead of by repeal is too well known to warrant the belief that anyone pays serious attention to such a purely academic statement. no one believes in the enforcement of all laws or the duty to obey all laws, and no one, in fact, does obey them all. those who proclaim the loudest the duty of obedience to all laws never obey, for example, the revenue laws. these are clear and explicit, and yet men take every means possible to have their property exempted from taxation—in other words, to defraud the state. this is done on the excuse that everyone else does it, and the man who makes a strict return according to law would pay the taxes of the shirkers. while this is true, it simply shows that all men violate the law when the justification seems sufficient to them. the laws against blasphemy, against sunday work and sunday play, against buying and transporting intoxicating liquors and smuggling goods are freely violated. many laws are so recent that they have not grown to be folk-ways or fixed new habits, and their violation brings no moral shock. in spite of the professions often made, most men have a poor opinion of congressmen and legislators, and feel that their own conscience is a much higher guide for them than the law.
religions have always taught obedience to god or to what takes his place. religious commands and feelings, are higher and more binding on man than human law. the captains of industry are forever belittling and criticising all those laws made by legislatures and courts which interfere with the unrestricted use of property. none of this sort of legislation has their approval and the courts are regarded as meddlesome when they enforce it. the anti-trust laws, the anti-pooling laws, factory legislation of all kinds, anything in short that interferes with the unrestricted use of property by its owner are roundly condemned and violated by evasion. on the other hand, so much has been written and said in reference to the creation of the fundamental rights to own property, and these rights depend so absolutely upon social arrangements and work out such manifest injustice and inequality, that there is always a deep-seated feeling of protest against many of our so-called property laws. from those who advocate a new distribution of wealth and condemn the injustice of present property rights, the step is quite short to those who feel the injustice and put their ideas in force by taking property when and where they are able to get it.
for instance, a miner may believe that the corporation for which he works really has no right to the gold down in the mine. as he is digging he strikes a particularly rich pocket of high-grade ore. he feels that he does no wrong if he appropriates the ore. elaborate means are taken to prevent this, even compelling the absolute stripping of the workman, and a complete change of clothes on going in and coming out of the mine.
many laws are put on the books which are of a purely sumptuary nature; these attempt to control what one shall do in his own personal affairs. such laws are brought about by organizations with a "purpose". the members are anxious to make everyone else conform to their ideas and habits. such laws as sunday laws, liquor laws and the like are examples. then, too, every state or nation carries a large list of laws that men have so long violated and ignored, that they virtually are dead. to violate these brings no feeling of wrong, but only serves to make men doubt the evil of violating any law.
it is never easy to get a legislature to repeal a law. generally some organization or committee of people is interested in keeping it alive, and the members of the legislature fear losing their votes. social ideas are always changing. no laws or customs are eternal. the ordinary man, and especially the man under the normal, cannot keep up with all the shifting of a changing world. there is always a fraction of a community agitating for something new and gradually forcing the legislature to put it into law, even against the will of the majority and against the sentiment of a large class of the community. the organization that wants something done is always aggressive. the man who wants to prevent it from being done is seldom unduly active or even alarmed. many organizations are eager to get statutes on the books. one seldom hears of a society or club that is active in getting laws repealed. the constant change of law, the constant fixing of new values in place of old ones, is necessary to social life. this means putting new wine into old bottles, and wine that is much too strong for the bottles. everybody can see why some particular law might be violated without a sense of guilt, but they cannot see how a law they believe in can be violated without serious obliquity.
apart from this, there have always been crimes that were not of the class that implied moral wrong. the acts of the revolutionist who saw, or thought he saw, visions of something better; the man who is inspired by the love of his fellow-man and who has no personal ends to gain; the man who in his devotion to an idea or a person risks his life or liberty or property or reputation, has never been classed with those who violate the law for selfish ends. the line of revolutionists, from the beginning of organized government down to the birth of the united states and even to the present time, furnishes ample proof of this. and still the unsuccessful revolutionist meets with the severest penalties. to him failure generally means death. men who are fired with zeal for all new causes are forever running foul of the law. social organization, like biological organization, is conservative. all things that live are imbued with the will to live and they take all means in their power to go on living. the philosopher can neither quarrel with the idealist who makes the sacrifice nor the organization that preserves itself while it can; he only recognizes what is true.
men have always been obliged to fight to preserve liberty. constitutions and laws do not safeguard liberty. it can be preserved only by a tolerant people, and this means eternal conflict. emerson said that the good citizen must not be over-obedient to law. freedom is always trampled on in times of stress. the united states suffered serious encroachments on liberty during the civil war. during the last war, these encroachments were greater than any american could have possibly dreamed; and so far there seems little immediate chance for change. still the philosopher does not complain. he sees human passion for what it is, a great emotion that holds men in its grasp, a feeling that nothing can stand against. opposition is destroyed by force, and often blind, cruel, unreasoning force. sometimes even worse, this force is created for selfish ends. there are always those who will use the strongest and highest emotions of men to serve their private, sordid ends. changing social systems, new political ideas, the labor cause, all movements for religious, social or political change have their zealots; they are met by the force of convention and conservatism ready to defend itself, and the clash is inevitable. it is easy to distinguish this sort of action from the things done by those who are known as criminals. their acts are done to serve personal ends. society may always punish both, but all men of right ideas will understand that the motive is different, the equipment and capacity of the men are different, and they are only in the same class because they each violate the law and are each responsive to emotions and to feelings that are of sufficient strength to compel action.
