on continually; and, at present, there is not the faintest prospect of
its coming to an end.

What is the cause of this state of warfare within society? Which of the
combatants is to blame? Or is the blame to be laid equally on the
shoulders of both? In other words, are the conditions in which men live
together in society of such a nature that crime is certain to flow from
them; and is crime simply a reaction against the iniquity of existing
social arrangements? Or, on the other hand, does crime spring from the
individual and his cosmical surroundings; and is it the product of
forces over which society has little or no control? These are questions
which cannot be answered off-hand, they involve considerations of a
most complicated character, and it is only after a careful examination
of all the factors responsible for crime that a true solution can
possibly be arrived at. These factors are divisible into three great
categories--cosmical, social, and individual.[10] The cosmical factors
of crime are climate and the variations of temperature; the social
factors are the political, economic and moral conditions in the midst
of which man lives as a member of society; the individual factors are a
class of attributes inherent in the individual, such as descent, sex,
age, bodily and mental characteristics. These factors, it will be seen,
can easily be reduced to two, the organism and its environment; but it
will be more convenient to consider them under the three-fold division
which has just been mentioned. Before proceeding to do so, it may be as
well to remark that in each case the several factors operate with
different degrees of intensity. It is often extremely difficult to
disentangle them; and the more complex the society is in which a crime
takes place, the greater is the combination and intricacy of the causes
leading up to it.