“As there is to be found no such thing as absolute bodily and mental soundness, so there is no such thing as an absolutely ‘honest’ man. ‘We are altogether sinners’, say the Scriptures with entire truth—and not in thought only—none of us is proof against becoming a criminal, and under certain circumstances, even a great one.” [196] “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.” [197] In chapter VI, “Zusammenhang von Verbrechen und Wahnsinn”, the author explains that in case an individual factor exists, it is not ordinarily this alone that leads to crime, but it must be coupled with a social factor. This is what Dr. Näcke says of the causes of this individual factor: “Indeed it is even probable that in the last analysis the individual factor is dependent upon the environment, since this so influenced the parents, grandparents, etc. that the germ of the next generation must have been injured directly or later through corrupted blood or narrow pelvis on the part of the mother (both again dependent upon the environment).” [198] Further along he makes this idea more specific, when he is examining the different causes of crime. Among these causes the author cites the following: 1. Lesion of the germ (favored especially by the marriage of degenerates). 2. Alcoholism. 3. Syphilis. 4. Malnutrition and unhealthy mode of life. 5. Excessive labor of women and children. 6. Bad domestic life. 7. Desertion in which children under age are left. The author sums up in the following terms: “In what has gone before we have attempted to pick out and follow up some threads of the complex social fabric, in the firm persuasion that only an improvement of the environment in its thousand-fold ramifications will be able effectively to combat crime, and gradually to exert a favorable influence upon the individual factors, which are certainly not to be undervalued. “If we survey the whole matter, everything comes in the end to the stomach-question; only so long as this is not solved—and perhaps it never can be satisfactorily solved—must we keep the point of view given above practically before us, which, upon the solution of the matter, becomes in large measure no longer necessary.” [199] V. HAVELOCK ELLIS. [200]