only the weak or the extremely conscientious or devoted that violate the law, and it does not follow that these or any other class really intend a wrong or consider it in any such light as their judge, when they commit an act forbidden by the law. A very large number of acts of individual violence come from sudden feeling and passion, which is purely a physical, or more properly, a mechanical act. Certain motives or feelings operating upon a given brain produce a given result; whereas operating upon another brain, they might produce a very different effect. It is like a body in mechanics operating upon another smaller or larger body. The laws of the universe are not at work in one place and held in abeyance in another. In these cases reason and judgment have no opportunity to act. Reflection and conscience in no wise enter into the affair. Feeling, emotion, passion alone are responsible for the deed. The human feelings as they sweep through that uncharted land the human soul, produce infinitely varied results, like the moving wind, whose sound depends entirely upon the unconscious instrument with which it toys. CHAPTER XIII NATURAL LAW AND CONDUCT Many of the crimes fixed by law are purely arbitrary. To commit them or to refrain does not necessarily imply innocence or guilt. Of such a character, for instance, are revenue laws, the observance of holy days and the like. A large number of forbidden acts that are generally supposed to imply moral guilt are also purely arbitrary. Most of the laws governing the taking and obtaining of property, which constitute the great burden of our penal code, are arbitrary acts, whose sole purpose is to keep the great mass of property in the hands of the rulers and exploiters and to send to jail those who help themselves and who have no other means within their power to sustain their lives. Most of the so-called thieves and other offenders against property dimly know this fact. Without being able to analyze or logically realize it, they, after all, feel that they have committed no wrong, and that they took the only road life had left open for their feet.