y that we should endeavour to discover if
possible how far the influence of heredity extends, and especially to
disclose its powers as a factor influencing conduct. A man may be seen
to have the same peculiar carriage and gait as his father; but to argue
from that, that he will in obedience to a naturally transmitted impulse,
follow in his father's footsteps as a thief or a forger is to step
entirely out of the bounds of science. Gait and carriage belong to a
different sphere altogether from morals and conduct. But let it be at
once acknowledged that the morals and conduct of any given ancestry show
a tendency to be reproduced in the posterity. The drunkard is the father
of drunkards; the suicide is the father of suicides, and the parent's
crime is repeated by the child. Not in all cases is this by any means a
fact: but in a sufficient number to exclude the possibility of
coincidence accounting for them all, and to demonstrate conclusively
that some influence must be at work connecting the deeds of the
progenitor with those of his offspring. What is this influence? Can it
be at once declared to be the influence of heredity? The most usual way
of determining this question is by the process of exclusion. If
environment, education, imitation and other causes do not account for
the phenomena, then heredity must. Heredity thus becomes a convenient
name by which to denominate the insolvable. Sometimes the denomination
is correct and sometimes incorrect, and very often, even when correct,
it conveys a wrong impression. The impression being that the influence
of heredity is altogether irresistible and also ineradicable.

Now, whatever the influence of heredity may be, it must be determined
scientifically and not merely guessed at. Nor must the failure to find
an adequate cause for a certain crime be a sufficient reason for
accounting heredity as responsible. Heredity has limits to its range of
influence as well as any other cause for crime, and it may be found that
there are certain fears which it can never invade. For instance, one
sphere wherein its influence is manifestly great, is in the structure of
the nervous, osseous, muscular, circulatory and vascular systems. Again,
what is more common than to find intellectual ability running in
families? Ribot, in his work on heredity, gives long lists of the
world's most famous poets, artists, musicians, statesmen and soldiers,
all showing the tendency of ability, in these various d