32 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS 



cannot explain the motives of their disorderly- 

 tendencies ; their existence is passed in the ex- 

 tremest apathy, the most absolute indifference, 

 and volition seems to be replaced by a stupid 

 automatism." 1 Dr. Elam says: ''Theoretically con- 

 sidered, this impulsive tendency may probably 

 not be absolutely irresistible, but practically, it is 

 almost, if not altogether so."^ 



What has been said of intemperance is still 

 more true of the opium habit. Sometimes the 

 use of opium manifests itself in a succeeding gen- 

 eration in the craving for intoxicating liquors, and 

 sometimes in a craving for opium. The elder 

 Coleridge was an opium eater, and he used to say 

 that in all his relations of life his will was power- 

 less. Hartley Coleridge inherited his father's 

 imperious desire for stimulants, and with it his 

 weakness of power to resist. His brother thus 

 wrote of him when he was young : " A certain 

 infirmity of will had already shown itself. His 

 sensibility was intense, and he had not where- 

 withal to control it. He could not open a letter 

 without trembling. He shrank from mental pain ; 

 he was beyond measure impatient of constraint. 

 . , . He yielded, as it were unconsciously, to slight 



1 A Physician' s Problems, Elam, p. 74. 

 * Ibid. p. 74. 



