For the
rich, who do not enjoy the advantage of manual or intellectual work,
suffer from the corruption of leisure and vice. Gambling throws them
into an unhealthy fever; the struggle and race for money poison their
daily lives. And although the rich may keep out of reach of the penal
code, still they have condemned themselves to a life devoted to
hypocritical ceremonies, which are devoid of moral sentiment. And this
life leads them to a sportive form of criminality. To cheat at gambling
is the inevitable fate of these parasites. In order to kill time they
give themselves up to games of chance, and those who do not care for
that devote themselves to the sport of adultery, which in that class is
a pastime even among the best friends, on account of sheer mental
poverty. And all because man's mind unoccupied is the devil's own forge,
as the English poet says.
We have now surveyed briefly the natural genesis of crime, as a natural
social phenomenon, brought about by the interaction of anthropological,
telluric, and social influences, which in any determined moment act
upon a personality standing on the cross road of vice and virtue, crime
and honesty. This scientific deduction gives rise to a series of
investigations which satisfy the mind and supply it with a real
understanding of things, far better than the theory that a man is a
criminal because he wants to be. No, a man commits crime because he
finds himself in certain physical and social conditions, from which the
evil plant of crime takes life and strength.
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