The fact to be observed--the interesting and, broadly speaking, the astonishing fact--is that among a people like ourselves anybody should have a desire to kill.

It is even more astonishing than that the impulse should be yielded to so often if it comes.
This, then, is the real reason why men kill--because it is inherent in their state of mind, it is part of their mental and physical make-up--they are ready to kill, they want to kill, they are the kind of men who do kill.

This is the result of their heredity, environment, educational and religious training, or the absence of it.

How many readers of this paper have ever experienced an actual desire to kill another human being?
Probably not one hundredth of one per cent.

They belong to the class of people who either never have such an impulse, or at any rate have been taught to keep such impulses under control.