130 ANDREW JACKSON HOWE. 



evil doers. A man may inherit a predisposition to 

 gout, but by a rigid course of living may avoid the 

 disease. So it is in regard to the tendency to commit 

 crime. If an inherited impulse to do wrong be felt, 

 the feeling should be all the more resisted criminals 

 know when they are doing wrong ! 



Maudsley, in his Responsibility in Mental. Disease, 

 has taken a very rational view of the subject he has 

 ably treated, but may have gone too far in an attempt 

 to apologize for criminality. It is a mistake to think 

 that a suicide can not abstain from taking 1 his life. 



o 



In the majority of instances there is ability to turn 

 from the deed, but not the inclination. I know of a 

 suicide who wrote just before committing the deadly 

 act : " I do this deliberately, fearing that in an ap- 

 proaching state of senility I shall not have the resolu- 

 tion to do what I think is best for me and my friends." 

 Another wrote : " I have no purpose but to execute 

 a long-settled plan, that I have a right to take my 

 own life when threatening infirmities remind me that 

 I may not have the courage in later life to do what I 

 may know to be best." 



In neither case was there an inherited predisposi- 

 tion to suicide: and in both there was premeditation, 

 no maniacal influence being present. 



The strongest point made by apologists for crimes 

 and misdemeanors on hereditary grounds is that 

 drunkards inherit a predisposition to drink or tipple. 

 The argument made is that a love of temporary brain- 

 joy is transmitted from parent to child; and that the 

 predisposition can not well be resisted. Xow, it 

 seems to me that the drunkard returns to his cups 

 through a habit he has e>tablished a habit which 

 has become a disease, an abnormal state. The lover 



