Page:Frank David Ely -Why defend the nation? Sound Americanism... (1924).pdf/41

Rh innate passions remain unchanged. They are roused by the same causes that have always roused them, and they are soothed by the same anodynes.

Man always was, is now, and probably ever will be largely the creature of his environment. With his body clothed and his stomach filled, given a soft bed and lulled by sweet music, man is a docile brute. Plunge him into adversity, and immediately discontent, dissatisfaction, resentment, anger, even viciousness, rise in him, in degree dependent on his training and education; but even these are not long proof in average man against those innate forces with which Nature has endowed him. Many a Christian martyr has died on the cross; but for every one who has so died there have been dozens, scores, hundreds—aye, thousands—in the jeering, unbelieving throngs who were guilty of sharing in the atrocity. Martyrs and murderers, all were men in the image of the Creator, and each was actuated and governed by his own strongest instincts. In the few, brute instincts had yielded to the hope of Christianity; but in the many the course of action was dictated solely by primitive instincts. It does not make a pretty picture, but it is not a pretty subject, and no picture is good which does not portray the truth.

Of all the factors useful in bringing primitive man to curb or control his instincts, the most compelling are Christianity and fear. And fear, too, of physical violence legally visited upon his person. Just as brutality is a primitive instinct in man, so is fear. One is a counter for the other. Fear is therefore the resort of law in controlling its criminal classes, in whom sentiment has little hold.

Various forms and degrees of physical punishment for crime are of necessity employed, from short restraint of personal liberty to imprisonment for the entire period of natural life, and up to the maximum penalty that can be imposed, that of forfeiture of life itself. This last punishment is never adjudged except for the willful taking of human life or of that which is esteemed even more precious.

In civilization man rises to great heights, and as surely sinks to bottomless depths. Every community has its schools and churches, marks of civilization and of the good instincts