namely, that between the born and the occasional criminal
there is only a difference of degree and modality, as in all the
criminal classes.

To cite a few details of criminal psychology, it may be stated
that of the two physiological conditions of crime, moral
insensibility and improvidence, occasional crime is especially due
to the latter, and inborn and habitual crime to the former. With
the born criminal it is, above all, the lack or the weakness of
moral sense which fails to withstand crime, whereas with the
occasional criminal the moral sense is almost normal, but
inability to realise beforehand the consequences of his act causes
him to yield to external influences.

Every man, however pure and honest he may be, is conscious now and
then of a transitory notion of some dishonest or criminal action.
But with the honest man, exactly because he is physically and
morally normal, this notion of crime, which simultaneously summons
up the idea of its grievous consequences, glances off the surface
of the normal conscience, and is a mere flash without the thunder.
With the man who is less normal and has less forethought, the
notion dwells, resists the weak repulsion of a not too vigorous
moral sense, and finally prevails; for, as Victor Hugo says,
``Face to face with duty, to hesitate is to be lost.''[11]


[11] For instance, I will recall a fact which Morel has related of
himself, how one day, as he was crossing a bridge in Paris, he saw
a working-man gazing into the water, and a homicidal idea flashed
across his mind, so that he had to hurry away, for fear of