The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Falk by Joseph Conrad: your quarter deck."
I intimated my conviction that his love was so
great as to be in a sense cowardly. The effects of
a great passion are unaccountable. It has been
known to make a man timid. But Hermann looked
at me as if I had foolishly raved; and the twilight
was dying out rapidly.
"You don't believe in passion, do you, Her-
mann?" I said cheerily. "The passion of fear will
make a cornered rat courageous. Falk's in a cor-
ner. He will take her off your hands in one thin
 Falk |
The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from Criminal Sociology by Enrico Ferri: against crime already evolved, but to the elimination or diversion
of its natural factors.
This fundamental conclusion of criminal statistics is so important
that we must confirm it by adding to the statistical data the
general laws of biology and sociology. This is the more necessary
because my position as first stated has met with some criticism.
In the first place, it is easily seen, when we compare the total
result of crime with the varied character of its anthropological,
physical, and social factors, that punishment can exert but a
slight influence upon it. Punishment, in fact, by its special
effect as a legal deterrent, acting as a psychological motive,
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