Crime is closely connected with social conditions. Society does not wish to admit this fact. Like the ostrich, that conceals its head in the sand not to see approaching danger, we deceive ourselves in regard to these conditions that should lead to self-accusation. We try to persuade ourselves that it is all due to laziness, love of pleasure and lack of piety on the part of the workingmen. This is self-delusion and hypocrisy of the worst kind. As social conditions grow more unfavorable for a majority of the population, crimes become more numerous and more severe. The struggle for existence assumes its most cruel and violent form and creates a condition in which men regard one another as mortal enemies. Social bonds are severed and human beings treat each other with hostility.[189] The ruling classes who do not see, nor wish to see, to the bottom of things, seek to remedy these evils in their own way. When poverty and need increase, and, as a result, demoralization and crime increase likewise, the source of the evil is not sought out in order to plug up this source, but the products of these conditions are punished. As the evils grow and the number of evil-doers increases, persecutions and penalties are made more severe. The belief seems to be that the devil can be driven out by Satan. Even Professor Haeckel deems it justifiable to punish crime with severe penalties and to resort to capital punishment.[190] On this point he is fully agreed with reactionaries of all shades who otherwise are his mortal enemies. Haeckel holds the opinion that incorrigible criminals and wrong-doers should be exterminated like weeds that rob the plants of air, light and the soil to grow in. If Haeckel had devoted himself partly to the study of social sciences instead of devoting himself to the natural sciences exclusively, he would know that these criminals could be transformed into useful members of human society, if society would offer them the needful conditions of existence. He would know that the extermination of individual criminals would no more prevent the perpetuation of new crimes, than weeds could be prevented from growing while their roots or their seeds remained. Man will never be able to prevent absolutely the formation of harmful organisms in nature. ~But he will be able so to improve the social order that he himself has created, that the conditions of existence shall be favorable to all, that each individual shall be enabled to develop freely, and shall no longer be compelled to satisfy his hunger, his desire for possessions, or his ambitions, at the expense of others.~[191] They who seek to remove crime by removing its causes cannot favor violent methods of repression. They cannot prevent society from protecting itself in its own way against criminals whom it can, of course, not give free scope, but they demand all the more urgently a transformation of society that would mean a removal of the causes of crime.