Before closing our observations we must put the question, What is the object of punishment? It seems to me that there are elements of different nature in punishment as prescribed in our present penal codes. To begin with the object of punishment is to be found in the feelings of vengeance excited by the crime, for which satisfaction is desired. But after this punishment has three things in view:
First, To put the criminal where he can do no further harm, either permanently or for a certain period.
Second, To inspire the criminal, and other persons as well, with a fear of committing crime.
Third, To reform the criminal as far as possible.
Most criminologists do not admit that punishment is still in great part a manifestation of the desire for vengeance (although regulated). Nevertheless it is indubitable that he who desires that some one shall be punished solely because he has committed a misdeed, and without his punishment’s being of any use to the criminal or to others, wishes simply to satisfy his feelings of revenge. The most subtle theories cannot refute this fact. Those who from the height of their knowledge disdain the primitive peoples who practice the rule of “eye for eye, tooth for tooth”, are nevertheless on the same plane in this matter, as those they scorn.[7]
It is unnecessary to say that the minority that wishes to exclude all idea of vengeance from the penal code, and sees in it only a means of securing the safety of society, and, if possible, of reforming the criminal, is at present still very small, so that the ideas of this group are almost never realized in our present penalties.[8] [[381]]
This is our conclusion, then, that a crime is an act committed within a group of persons forming a social unit; that it prejudices the interests of all, or of those of the group who are powerful; that, for this reason, the author of the crime is punished by the group (or a part of the group) as such or by specially ordained instruments, and this by a penalty more severe than moral disapprobation.
To find the causes of crime we must, then, first solve the question: “Why does an individual do acts injurious to the interests of those with whom he forms a social unit?”, or in other words: “Why does a man act egoistically?”
B. The Origin of Egoistic Acts in General.[9]
What are the causes of egoistic acts? How does it happen that one man does harm to another? The answers that have been given to this primeval question may be divided into two groups. The first group attributes the cause to the man himself, the second to his environment.