The emotion to acquire and keep property is very strong and perhaps at the base of the deep desire for wealth.  This emotion is probably of a comparatively late growth, but today it seems to have taken its place as one of the strongest that move men.  This emotion, like all others, prompts man to get what he wants.  It of course does not suggest the way, but is simply an urge to acquire and possess.  It is modified and hedged about by customs and habits but, like all instincts, its strength is always seeking ways to accomplish results regardless of the rules laid down and thus urging their violation.  With weak machines and imperfect systems, where not only are the restrictions imperfect, the habits not well defined, but where it is impossible to satisfy the instinct under the rules laid down, there can be but one result; a large number will take property wherever and however they can get it.

The instinct for acquisition is so strong that men are constantly contriving new and improved methods for getting property.  Often the new methods come under restraint of the law.  The enactment of the law does not give man the feeling that a thing is wrong which before was right and many continue their ways of getting property, regardless of the law.  The instinct is too strong, the needs too great, and the barriers too weak.

Instincts are primal to man.  He has inherited them from the animal world.  Their strength and weakness depend on the make-up of the machine.  Some are very strong and some abnormally weak, and there are no two machines that emphasize or repress the same instincts to the same degree.  One need but look at his family and neighbors to see the various manifestations of these instincts.  Some are quarrelsome and combative and will fight on the slightest provocation.  Others are distinctively social; the gregarious instinct is pronounced in many people.  These are always seen in company and cannot be alone.  They readily adapt themselves to any sort of associations.  Others are solitary.  They choose to be alone.  They shrink from and avoid the society of others.  In some the instinct at the basis of sex association is over-strong; they like children; they are generally sympathetic and emotional, and the strength of the instinct often leads them to excesses.  Others are entirely lacking in this instinct; they neither care for children nor want them; they habitually avoid association with the other sex.  The difference is constituent in the elements that make up the machine.

Everyone is familiar with the varying strength and weakness of the instincts of getting and hoarding as shown by his neighbors and acquaintances.  Some seem to have no ambition or thought for getting or keeping money.  Some can get it but cannot keep it.  Some have in them from childhood the instinct for getting the better of every trade; for hoarding what they get, and accumulating property all their lives.  In this, as in all other respects,