much pains be taken in forming habits? To what effect is the storing of
knowledge in the brain of the child, except that it may be taught to
avoid the wrong and to do the right? Man's every action is caused by
motive. Whether his action is wise or unwise, the motive was at least
strong enough to move him. If two or more motives pulled in opposite
directions, he could not have acted from the weakest but must have
obeyed the strongest. The same motives applied to some other machine
might have produced an opposite result, but to his particular structure
it was all-controlling. How any special motive will affect any special
machine must depend upon the relative strength of the motive and make of
the machine. It is for this reason that intelligent people have always
taken so much pains to fortify the machine, so that it would respond to
what they believed was right. To say that one could ever act from the
weakest motive would bring chaos and chance into a world of method and
order. Even punishment could have no possible effect to deter the
criminal after release, or to influence others by the example of the
punishment. As well might the kernel of corn refuse to grow upward to
the sunlight, and grow downward instead.

Before any progress can be made in dealing with crime the world must
fully realize that crime is only a part of conduct; that each act,
criminal or otherwise, follows a cause; that given the same conditions
the same result will follow forever and ever; that all punishment for
the purpose of causing suffering, or growing out of hatred, is cruel and
anti-social; that however much society may feel the need of confining
the criminal, it must first of all understand that the act had an
all-sufficient cause for which the individual was in no way responsible,
and must find the cause of his conduct, and, so far as possible, remove
the cause.