Durkheim's (1984: 102) first law of penal evolution is that '[t]he intensity of punishment is the greater the more closely societies approximate to a less developed type - and the more the central power assumes an absolute character'. In developed (industrial) societies, although there are collective sentiments, these are constituted by law rather than being enshrined in religion so that even if the values violated by crimes are strongly and generally held, the fact that law is recognized as a human rather than divine construction means that crimes are seen as transgressions against fellow humans rather than as transgressions against the gods, and, as Durkheim (1984 :125) says, ‘[t]he offence of man against man cannot arouse the same indignation as an offence of man against God'. There is also, in crimes against fellow-humans, more similarity between victim and offender than there is in crimes against the divinity; the human sympathy which the crime arouses towards the victim is also present towards the offender, and pity for the offender is not overwhelmed by the need to appease the gods. Retribution, therefore, in more developed societies, will be tempered by mercy.