which works in his own constitution subjects him _only in that
proportion which his abnormal liability bears to the total force of his
mind_. One letter in ten thousand, say, is mailed without direction. Our
historian of civilization infers hence that each individual is _totally_
subject to a social fate. My inference is, that, on the average, each
individual is _one ten-thousandth part_ subject to a fate in his private
constitution. There is the difference, and it does not seem to me
insignificant. Our way to the cases of crime is now somewhat more clear;
for it is already established beyond cavil that the mere fact of an
average, to which, without any discriminations, our philosopher appeals
with such confidence, proves nothing for his purpose.

The case of murders, however, differs from the foregoing in one
important particular. The persons who are detected in the commission of
this crime are commonly, by their punishment, withdrawn from the number
of active criminals; and consequently the average is kept up, not by the
same persons, but in part by different ones. Here is, therefore, more
appearance of the mediation of compulsory social law; and indeed the
action of social forces in the case I am far more disposed to assert
than to question. What we are to inquire, however, is not whether social
forces contribute to this result, but whether they are _such_ forces as
supersede and annihilate individual will. Let us see.

All men are liable to collisions of passion and interest with their
neighbors and contemporaries. All desire to remove the obstructions thus
opposed. All would labor for this end with brute directness, that is,
by lawless violence and cunning, were it not for the rational and moral
elements in their nature, which suggest noble pieces of abstinence and
self-restraint, thus securing a certain freedom, a certain superiority
to the brute pressure of interest and impulse. These rational and moral
elements are in variable counterpoise with the ruder desires,--sometimes
commanding them with imperial ease, sometimes overcoming them by
struggle, sometimes striving with them feebly and vainly, or even
ceasing to strive.

Suppose, now, a nation of thirty millions. Of these, twenty-nine
millions, let us say, are never consciously tempted to commit a felony.
Why? For want of opportunity? Not at all; good men, whom the police do
not watch, have more opportunities for crime than those whose character
causes them t