Note 249 — Chapter I

‘The vices of the psycho-physical organization manifesting themselves by acts prohibited, not only by morality—that aggregate of necessary rules elaborated by the secular experience of peoples—but also by their penal codes, are in discord with life in society, in the midst of which humanity can alone make progress.... A man, from his birth adapted to social life, can only acquire such vices as a consequence of certain pernicious conditions, through which his psycho-physical powers are set in opposition to the necessary exigencies of social life.’—Drill, Les Criminels mineurs, quoted by Lombroso in Les Applications de l’Anthropologie criminelle. Paris, 1892, p. 94. See also G. Tarde, La Philosophie pénale, Lyon, 1890, passim; ‘The morally deranged are not true lunatics. A Marquise de Brinvilliers, a Troppmann, a being born without either compassion or sense of shame—can it be said of such an one that he is not himself when he commits his crime? No. He is only too much himself. But his existence, his person, are hostile to society. He does not feel the same sentiments which we civilized people regard as indispensable. It is useless to think of curing him or of reforming him.’