WHAT IT MEANS 67 



control or to the directing of their lives in an orderly 

 manner. 



The same lack is strikingly shown, if we turn our 

 attention to the question of alcoholism in this family. 

 We learn from a responsible member of the good branch 

 of the family that the appetite for alcoholic stimulants 

 has been strong in the past in this family and that sev- 

 eral members in recent generations have been more or 

 less addicted to its use. Only two have actually al- 

 lowed it to get the better of them to the extent that they 

 became incapacitated. Both were physicians. In the 

 other branch, however, with the weakened mentality, 

 we find twenty-four victims of this habit so pronounced 

 that they were public nuisances. We have taken no 

 account of the much larger number who were also ad- 

 dicted to its use, but who did not become so bad as to 

 be considered alcoholic in our category. 



Thus we see that the normal mentality of the good 

 branch of the family was able to cope successfully with 

 this intense thirst, while the weakened mentality on the 

 other side was unable to escape, and many fell victims 

 to this appalling habit. 



It is such facts as these, taken as we find them, not 

 only in this family but in many of the other families 

 whose records we are soon to publish, that lead us to 



