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164 from activity. This alone I trust will serve to show the limits with sufficient clearness.

Now all prevention of crime must be directed to its causes. But these causes, which are so infinitely varied, might be generally expressed perhaps as the feeling, not sufficiently resisted by reason, by the disproportion between the inclinations of the agent and the means in his power for gratifying them. Although it might be very difficult to determine it in detail, there would be, in general, two distinct cases of this disproportion; firstly, that in which it arises from a real excess of the inclinations, and, secondly, when it is a consequence of a deficiency of means even for an ordinary measure of inclination. Both cases however must be accompanied by a want of strong reasoning power and of moral feeling, which fails to prevent that disproportion from break- ing out into illegal actions. Every effort of the State, then, to prevent crimes by suppressing their causes in the criminal, must, according to the difference noticed in these cases, be directed either towards changing and improving such positions of the citizens as may easily oblige them to commit crimes; or to limit such inclinations as usually lead to the transgression of the laws; or, merely, to gain greater force and efficiency for the arguments of reason and the operation of moral feeling. Lastly, too, there is another method of preventing crimes, viz. by legally diminishing the opportunities which facilitate their actual execution, or even encourage the outbreak of lawless inclinations. None of these different methods for effecting this object must be overlooked by us in the present inquiry.

The first of these, or that which is designed only to improve such circumstances as oblige the person to commit the crime, appears to be attended with by far the fewest disadvantages. It is of itself so beneficial, and calculated to enrich the means of power as well as of enjoyment; it does