The Concrete Causes of Poverty.--It is necessary to inquire somewhat more minutely into the concrete conditions, social and individual, which give rise to poverty and dependence. Manifestly the poor do not constitute any single class in society. All classes, in a sense, are represented among the poor, and the causes of poverty which are manifest will depend very greatly upon the class of the poor that is studied. If, for example, we should study the causes of dependence among defective classes, naturally personal defects of various sorts would be emphasized. Again, if we should study almshouse paupers, we should expect to find the causes of their dependence different from the causes of the temporary dependence of those who are dealt with outside of institutions and largely by private societies, especially the charity organization societies of large cities. It is especially, however, this latter class of temporary dependents that we are most interested in, because they show most clearly the forces operating to produce the various classes of permanent dependents. There are two great classes of causes of poverty: objective causes, or causes outside of the individual, that is, in the environment; and subjective causes, or causes within the individual. We shall take up first the objective causes. _The Objective Causes of Poverty_. The objective causes of poverty may be again divided into causes in the physical environment and causes in the social environment. The causes in the physical environment should not be overlooked, even though to a great extent they may not be amenable to social control. Much poverty in certain regions is caused simply by the unpropitious physical environment, such as unproductive soil, bad climate, and the like. Added to these unpropitious factors in the environment we have also great natural calamities, such as tornadoes, floods, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions. Every one is familiar with the great amount of misery which is caused, temporarily at least, by such calamities. Again, certain things in the organic environment, particularly in the way of disease-producing bacteria, are also productive of much poverty. Certain bacteria exist, we now know, plentifully in nature, such as the malaria germ, to which rightfully has been ascribed the physical degeneracy of people living in certain sections of the earth. But the most important objective causes of poverty are undoubtedly those found in the social environment,--those which spring from certain social conditions or faults in social organization. Among these we may mention: