causes so far as man has the intelligence and power to remove them. It
is evident that this can never be complete. There are too many weak
machines, too many defective nervous systems, too many badly organized
brains. Accidents are inevitable, and some accidents are called
"crimes." When the accident is international or world-wide, it means
war. Those who believe that there is any power to stop all the harmful
manifestations of man's instincts, either individually or _en masse_, do
not understand the fundamental nature of man.

Many and probably all instincts work both for good and ill. Flight,
pugnacity, repulsion, sex--all are life-preserving or life-destroying,
as the case may be. A certain degree of excitation brings life and
pleasure. A stronger or weaker may bring calamity and death. The
parental instinct, with the instinct of reproduction, is fundamental to
life. It is the basis of tenderness and sympathy, and is likewise the
foundation of jealousy and often of hatred and pugnacity. At one time it
may mean the deepest and most abiding pleasures of life, and at another
it may bring death. Life cannot exist without it, and yet, that it may
persist, Nature seriously overloads many machines with disastrous
results. History is replete with the helplessness of reason and judgment
in dealing with these emotions. Neither when they act for good nor for
ill can reason and judgment have the slightest weight when these
instincts and emotions are stirred to the depths.

The emotion to acquire and keep property is very strong and perhaps at
the base of the deep desire for wealth. This emotion is probably of a
comparatively late growth, but today it seems to have taken its place as
one of the strongest that move men. This emotion, like all others,
prompts man to get what he wants. It of course does not suggest the way,
but is simply an urge to acquire and possess. It is modified and hedged
about by customs and habits but, like all instincts, its strength is
always seeking ways to accomplish results regardless of the rules laid
down and thus urging their violation. With weak machines and imperfect
systems, where not only are the restrictions imperfect, the habits not
well defined, but where it is impossible to satisfy the instinct under
the rules laid down, there can be but one result; a large number will
take property wherever and however they can get it.

The instinct for acquisition is so strong that men are constantly
co