Note 35 — Chapter IV · THE FRENCH SCHOOL (THE SCHOOL OF THE ENVIRONMENT).

“We all know that, whatever our fundamental character may be and the honest habits that we have been able to form, our manner of conducting ourselves may vary considerably under the influence of changes in our environment, and in proportion to those changes. It is a temptation to which the most austere man would greatly dread to be exposed, and to which he would never voluntarily expose himself, because he knows that the tendencies imputed to criminals (said to be atavistic, but all simply human) are not lacking in himself. These tendencies, when they have found abundant and honorable means of satisfaction during long years, become so much the more to be dreaded on this account, and run great danger of becoming criminal as soon the legal means of satisfaction disappear. The man who comes to lack these means finds himself in a much more dangerous situation as far as the likelihood of his becoming a criminal is concerned, than one who had become accustomed to privations.”35