XXIV 



WILD ANIMAL CRIMINALS AND CRIME 



MANY human beings are "good" because they never 

 have been under the harrow of circumstances, nor 

 sufficiently tempted to do wrong. It is only under 

 the strain of strong temptation that human character is put 

 through the thirty-third degree and tried out. No doubt a 

 great many of us could be provoked to join a mob for murder, 

 or forced to steal, or tortured into homicidal insanity. It is 

 only under the artificial conditions of captivity, with loss of 

 freedom, exemption from the daily fear of death, abundant 

 food without compensating labor, and with every want supplied, 

 that the latent wickedness of wild creatures comes to the 

 surface. A captive animal often reveals traits never recognized 

 in the free individual. 



"Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do." 

 These manifestations are of many kinds; but we propose to 

 consider the criminal tendencies of wild animals both free and 

 captive. 



The persistence of the mental and moral parallelism between 

 men and wild animals is a source of constant surprise. In a 

 state of freedom, untrammeled by anything save the fear of 

 death by violence, the deer or the mountain sheep works out 

 in his own way his chosen scheme for the survival of the 

 fittest, — himself. In the wilds we see very few manifestations 

 of the criminal instinct. A fight between wild elk bulls for 

 the supremacy of a herd is not a manifestation of murder lust, 

 but of obedience to the fundamental law of evolution that the 

 the largest, the strongest and the most courageous males of 

 every herd shall do the breeding. 



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