22O Human Physiology. 



nervous system. Consumption, gout, rheumatism, and many 

 other painful and fatal affections are hereditary. Why should 

 we not inherit the forms of our brains as well as the forms of 

 our noses? Every one can see in us the features of our pro- 

 genitors if they could see deeper they would find their physi- 

 cal, mental, and moral characteristics as well. It must, however, 

 be remembered that mental and moral idiosyncrasies modify, but 

 do not therefore destroy moral responsibility, which is always 

 conditional. There are sins of weakness as well as of ignor- 

 ance. The force of temptation must be measured with the 

 power to resist. Freedom to do or not to do certain things is 

 attested by consciousness, and asserted in our feelings of love 

 and hate, praise and blame, honour and dishonour, &c. The 

 languages of all peoples are full of words and phrases which 

 express our sense of right and wrong in ourselves and others. 

 We have the phrase "Moral responsibility," because we have 

 the fact which it expresses. Such words as right, wrong, good, 

 evil, can no more be blotted out of our dictionaries than what 

 they express can be taken out of our natures. 



Still, it must be recognised that some people are born with ten- 

 dencies to evil so strong that they can only be properly treated 

 as moral idiosyncrasies or insanities. A very common one is 

 the tendency to theft, which is a mere intensification of the 

 greed cultivated by the customs of a very selfish and largely 

 dishonest society. Another form of this is the mania for gam- 

 bling, from its outlawed phases of playing games for 'money 

 to the tolerated and even fashionable gaming of the turf, or 

 the highly respectable kind called speculation. Another is the 

 mania for intoxicating liquors, which is so extensive and dis- 

 astrous as to loudly call for the establishment of asylums for 

 inebriates. Every vice may be so intensified by hereditary 

 transmission as to become an idiosyncrasy, and so pass beyond 

 the control of judgment, conscience, and will, as to be properly 

 regarded as an insanity. 



