rence that rightly belongs to it. It no longer voices
the conscience of the whole community; it tends to be merely an
expression of the feelings of a small upper-class social circle; the
feelings and the habits and the necessities of the mass of the
population are altogether ignored.[194] Nor are such legislative
incursions into the sphere of morals any more satisfactory from the
point of view of the class which is responsible for them. It very soon
begins to be felt that, as Hagen puts it, "the formulas of penal law are
stiff and clumsy instruments which can only in the rarest instance serve
to disentangle the delicate and manifoldly interwoven threads of the
human soul, and decide what is just and what unjust. Formulas are
adopted for simple, uncomplicated, rough everyday cases. Only in such
cases do they achieve the conquest of justice over injustice."

It is true that no sharp line divides criminal acts from merely immoral
acts, and the latter tend to be indirectly, even when not directly,
anti-social. It would be highly convenient if we could draw a sharp
distinction between major anti-social acts, which may properly be
described as "crime," and justly be pursued with the full rigour of the
law, and minor anti-social acts, which may be left to the varying
reaction of the social environments since they cannot properly be
visited by the criminal law.[195] Such a distinction exists, but it cannot
be made sharply because there are a large number of intermediate
anti-social acts which some sections of the community regard as major,
while others regard them as minor, or even, in some cases, as not
anti-social at all. The only convenient test we can apply is the
strength of the social reaction--provided we are dealing with an act
which is definitely anti-social, injuring recognized rights, and not
merely an unusual or disgusting act.[196] When an anti-social act meets
with a reaction of social indignation which is fairly universal and
permanent, it may be regarded as a crime coming under the jurisdiction
of the law. If opinion varies, if a considerable section of the
community revolt against the punishment of the alleged anti-social act,
then we are not entitled to dignify it with the appellation of "crime."
This is not an altogether sure or satisfactory criterion because there
are frequently times and places, especially under the stimulation of
some particular occurrence evoking an outburst of increased public
emotion, w