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
contriving new and improved methods for getting property. Often the new
methods come under restraint of the law. The enactment of the law does
not give man the feeling that a thing is wrong which before was right
and many continue their ways of getting property, regardless of the law.
The instinct is too strong, the needs too great, and the barriers too
weak.
Instincts are primal to man. He has inherited them from the animal
world. Their strength and weakness depend on the make-up of the machine.
Some are very strong and some abnormally weak, and there are no two
machines that emphasize or repress the same instincts to the same
degree. One need but look at his family and neighbors to see the various
manifestations of these instincts. Some are quarrelsome and combative
and will fight on the slightest provocation. Others are distinctively
social; the gregarious instinct is pronounced in many people. These are
always seen in company and cannot be alone. They readily adapt
themselves to any sort of associations. Others are solitary. They choose
to be alone. They shrink from and avoid the society of others. In some
the instinct at the basis of sex association is over-strong; they like
children; they are generally sympathetic and emotional, and the strength
of the instinct often leads them to excesses. Others are entirely
lacking in this instinct; they neither care for children nor want them;
they habitually avoid association with the other sex. The difference is
constituent in the elements that make up the machine.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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