Note 19 — Chapter V · THE BIO-SOCIOLOGISTS.
Henry P. (Henry Pomeroy) Horton translation
“There is an unbroken gradation from the purest to the worst man. When we speak simply of ‘criminals’ we mean only those standing on the farthest step, who are not always, however, the worst. It is a question, then, of the refuse of the world, and not of real crime. In every environment there are always individuals who become evil-doers exclusively or chiefly through circumstances—this possibility no mortal can escape—and on the other hand there are those who owe this in part (seldom, however, exclusively) to their inferior psychic personality, which allows them to run counter to the prevailing morality and drives them to breach of the law; these last constitute the criminals in the narrow sense.”19