d. The class-conflict. The property owners, whose economic position is already very influential, also control the political forces, and consequently the case of those who have nothing is made much worse. Taxes, indirect for the most part, weigh most heavily upon the poor; public property is exploited for the benefit of the rich, etc., etc. Hence it follows that in the districts where the non-possessors are unconsciously struggling against the possessors, this strife of classes engenders class-hatred, and consequent crimes. In the last part of his study the author speaks of indirect economic factors, among which he includes: a. The increasing decline in the altruistic feelings. The miner and the laborer, both ill-nourished, humiliated, and despised, dwelling in miserable hovels, are pariahs far removed from any feeling for their fellow men. b. Organic degeneracy. As a consequence of the economic conditions named, degeneracy is always increasing more and more among the poor, especially among the miners. This degeneracy becomes in its turn a factor of criminality, since it predisposes individuals to crime. See also: Virgilio Rossi: “Influence de la température et de l’alimentation sur la criminalité en Italie, de 1875 à 1883” (“Rapport Ier Congrès d’Anthropologie Criminelle. Actes”, pp. 295 ff.); N. Pinsero: “Miseria e Delitto” (“Scuola Positiva”, 1898). CHAPTER IV. THE FRENCH SCHOOL (THE SCHOOL OF THE ENVIRONMENT). I. A. LACASSAGNE. While the Italian school reigned supreme at the first congress of criminal anthropology at Rome, Professor Lacassagne opposed it with his so-called “hypothesis of the environment” in the following terms: “The important thing is the social environment. Allow me to make a comparison borrowed from a modern theory. The social environment is the bouillon for the culture of criminality; the microbe, that is the criminal, is an element which is only of importance when it has found a medium in which it can grow. “The criminal with anthropometric and other characteristics seems to us to have only a moderate importance. All these characteristics may be found elsewhere among honest men. “But you should look at the different social consequences of these two points of view. On the one hand is the fatalism which flows inevitably from the anthropometric theory; and on the other, social initiative. If the social environment is everything, and if it is so defective as to favor the growth of vicious or criminal natures, it is to this environment and its conditions of functioning that our reforms must be directed. “... This phrase ... sums up my whole thought, and is, so to speak, the conclusion of what I have been saying; societies have the criminals they deserve.” [138]