iv THE FATE OF AFFECTED FAMILIES 203 



"The morbid disposition produced by either of these factors, 

 whether infirmity or actual disease, shows, according to the 

 biological law of heredity, a strong tendency to be transmitted 

 in some form or other to the descendants. 



" Thus the words of the Holy Scripture, ' I will visit upon 

 you the sins of your fathers unto the third and fourth genera- 

 tion,' have a profound significance, and the manner of life, the 

 lot in life, and the selection of the ascendants in great 

 measure determines the fate in life of coming generations. 

 The conventional German expression wohlgeboren acquires 

 from our point of view a sense full of importance. 



"The kind of transformation which takes place in the course 

 of hereditary transmission, the special form of the nervous or 

 psychical infirmity, depends on individual and external, often 

 accidental conditions. In this question science has not yet 

 attained to the formulation of laws. 



" It can only be said generally, that when two affected 

 individuals unite for reproduction, or when unfavourable 

 interfering conditions (drunkenness, debilitating influences, 

 etc.), are added to the unfavourable constitution of the gener- 

 ating individual, the morbid affection of the descendants 

 becomes continually more serious, and in the continued trans- 

 mission of psychopathic degenerative tendencies a progressive 

 aberration proceeds till the extreme forms are reached. 

 Psychoses are in such conditions developed from neuropathies, 

 at first still quite benignant and conforming to the type 

 of psychoneuroses, afterwards continually more degenerate 

 (cyclical, periodic, moral, impulsive insanity), till finally 

 idiocy occurs. Then nature extinguishes the pathological 

 family, which loses the physiological capacity for reproduc- 

 tion. Conversely, however, regeneration is possible up to a 

 certain stage through crossing with healthy blood from an 

 untainted, unaffected family, or through the effect of favour- 

 able conditions of life. The forms of disease then become 



