When the personnel of the Government of India from the bottom to the top has been reorganised on a basis of understanding of the people, it will begin to revise its laws, and the first will be its Penal Law, its Criminal Courts and Procedure.

To do this with any success it will be necessary first to study the causation of crime, because until you know how it is caused you cannot possibly frame any system of prevention that is likely to do less harm than good.

This is a subject that many men have been studying for some years past, but very little progress has yet been made. The old shibboleths that crime results from a desire for crime and that the only cure is savage punishment still hold good with all Governments, though quite discredited outside official circles. It is a most fascinating subject, and as it is one I have worked at for many years I may be excused for devoting a somewhat large space to it here.

It is more than twenty-five years ago that my attention was first attracted to the causation of crime. I was a young magistrate then, trying my first cases; very nervous, very conscientious that I should fulfil all the legal requirements as laid down in the Codes. It had never occurred to me then that there was any gulf between justice and law—I supposed that they were one, that law was only codified and systemised justice; therefore, in fulfilling the Law I thought that I was surely administering Justice.

I was trying a theft case. I cannot remember now what it was that had been stolen, but I think it was a bullock. The accused was undefended, and I, as the custom is, questioned him about the case, not with the view of getting him to commit himself, but in order to try to elicit his defence, if any. He had none. He admitted the theft, described the circumstances quite fully and frankly, and said he was guilty. I asked him if he knew when he took the bullock from the grazing ground that he was stealing it, and he answered "Yes." I asked him if he knew that the punishment for cattle theft was two years\' imprisonment, which practically meant ruin for life, and he replied that he knew it would be heavy.

Then I asked, "Why did you do it?"

He moved uneasily in the dock without answering, looked about him, and seemed puzzled.

I repeated the question.

Evidently he was trying to remember back why he had done it, and found it difficult. He had not considered the point before, and introspection was new to him. "Why did I do it?" he was saying to himself.

"Well?" I asked.

He looked me frankly in the face. "I don\'t know," he said. "I suppose I could not help it. I did not think about it at all; something just made me take it."

He was convicted, of course, and I forgot the case.

But I did not forget what he had said. It remained in my mind and recurred to me from time to time, I did not know why. For I had always been taught that crime was due to an evil disposition which a person could change, only he would not, and I had as yet seen no reason to question this view. Therefore the accused\'s defence appealed to no idea that was consciously in my mind. I did not reflect upon it. I can only suppose that, unconsciously to myself, these words reached some instinct within me which told me that they were true. And at last from the very importunity of their return I did begin to think about them, and, consequently on them, of the causation of crime in general. A curiosity awoke which has never abated, has indeed but grown, as in some small ways I was able to satisfy it.

What causes crime? Is it a purely individual matter? If so, why does it follow certain lines of increase or decrease, or maintain an average? That looks more like general results following on general causes than the result of individual qualities. Why is it not curable? It should have been cured centuries ago. Why does punishment usually make the offender worse instead of better? If his crime were within the individual\'s control, its punishment certainly would deter. It does not. Any deterrent effect it may have is rarely on him who is punished, but on the outside world, and that is but little. So much I saw very clearly in practice, and every book I read on the subject confirmed this. The infamous penal laws of England a hundred years ago did not stop crime; flogging did not stop garotting, it ceased for other causes. I began to think and to observe.

Some three years later my attention was still more strongly drawn to this subject.

I was then for a short time the Governor of the biggest gaol in the world, that in Rangoon. It was crowded with prisoners under sentence for many different forms of crime, from murder or "dacoity"—that is gang robbery—to petty theft.

The numbers were abnormal, and they were so not only here, but in all the gaols of both the Upper and Lower Provinces. The average of crime had greatly risen.

Why was this?

The reason was obvious. The annexation of the Upper Province six years before had caused a wave of unrest, not only there, but in the delta districts as well, that found its expression in many forms of crime. There was no doubt about the cause. But this cause was a general cause, not individual. The individual criminals there in the gaol did not declare the war. That was the consequence of acts by the King of Burma and the Government of India controlled by the English Cabinet, and was consequent on acts of the French Government. Therefore half of these individuals had become criminals because of the disagreements of three Governments, two of which were six thousand miles away from Rangoon.

There is no getting out of that. In normal times the average of convicts would have been only half what it was. The abnormality was not due to the convicts themselves.

Thus if A and B and C were suffering punishment in the gaol the fault is primarily not theirs. A special strain was set up from without which they could not stand and they fell.

But if this is true of half the prisoners, why not of the other half? There was no dividing line between the two classes. Political offences apart, you could not walk into the gaol and, dividing the convicts into two parts, say: "The crimes of this half being due to external causes, they must be pardoned; the crimes of the other half being due to their own evil disposition, they must continue to suffer." There was no demarcation.

Therefore, general causes are occasionally the cause of crime. Here was a long step in advance.

Again, four years later I was on famine duty in the Upper Province, and the same phenomenon occurred. There was an increase in certain forms of crime. Thefts doubled. Other crimes such as cheating and fraudulent dealings with money decreased. Here was again a general cause. Half of those thieves would have remained honest men all their lives, been respected by their fellow-men, and, according to religions, have gone to heaven when they died, but for the famine.

The causes of the famine were want of rain acting on the economic weakness of the people reared by the inability of government. Thus, had rain fallen as usual, had the people been able to cultivate other resources, had government been more advanced and experienced, half these thieves would not have been in gaol; and no one knew which half, for thefts of food did not increase. There was, in fact, no reason they should, as Government provided on the famine camps a subsistence wage for everyone who came.

On the other hand, certain individuals were saved from misappropriating money, or cheating in mercantile transactions, because there was little money left to misappropriate and not much business. If they lived honestly and went to heaven, the chief cause would be the failure of rain that year, not any superior virtue of their own. But no one knew who these individuals were who were so luckily saved.

But when you have acknowledged this, what is becoming of the doctrine of individual responsibility for crime? If a man has complete free-will to sin or not, if crime be due to innate wickedness, how does want of rain bring this on? And where is the common sense or common justice in punishing him for what is really due to a defective climate? He cannot control the rain. Manifestly then, as regards at least half of these thieves, there was no innate desire to steal, because that could not be affected by the famine. Had they desired to be thieves they would have been so in any case. The truth is that they did not desire to be thieves, but when the famine increased the temptation, and, through physical weakness, decreased their power of resistance, they fell. They sinned—not through spiritual desire of evil, but through physical inability to resist temptation.

But if this is true of half, why not of the whole? There is no line of demarcation. If true of some crime, why not of all? The doctrine of a man\'s perfect free-will to sin or not to sin as he pleases is beginning to look shaky. It will be as well to consider it.

What is free-will?

There is no necessity to discuss the meaning of "free"; we all know it; there is nothing ambiguous about it; but with "will" it is different. There are few words so incessantly misused as this word "will." Philosophers are the worst offenders, and the general public but follow their blind lead; yet unless you know exactly what you mean by it how can you use it as a counter of your thought?

What does will mean? "Where there\'s a will there\'s a way"—what does this mean? Does it mean wish? If, for instance, you are poor and stupid, can any quantity of wish make you rich? If you are weak will it make you strong? If you have no ear will it make you a musician? If you are a convict can it liberate you? That is absurd.

"Will," then means more than wish; to the desire must be added the ability—actual or potential. That is evident, is it not? Without the ability the wish avails nothing.

"Will," then, has two complements, both of which are necessary to it. Its meaning is not simple but compound; never forget this; never suppose that merely wishing with all your power can produce "will." It cannot unless the ability be developed to aid it.

And now we get back from words to human nature—Is the criminal so because he wants to be so? No, and No, and No a............