has no liking for the taste of drink; but
declares that he is in a certain state of unsettlement which can only be
overcome by the use of liquor. A temporary calm is induced, only to be
followed by a more intense irritation or unsettlement afterwards, and
thus a circle of cause and effect is at once described.

This is then the degenerate state of the father's nervous system. Now,
it is undoubted that he may transmit this same degenerate nervous system
to his offspring and thus as his children grow up it is not to be
wondered at if the same craving for drink is to be found in them as was
existing in their parent. The influence of heredity has been at work
upon the nervous system. Has its influence been restricted to this
system, or has it invaded the moral sphere? The children's conduct is
immoral, for no amount of argument can determine drunkenness to be
anything else: but are the children themselves immoral? They are not
immoral so far as they are acting in obedience to an impulse which is
irresistible. The drunkard who is himself responsible for his habit, is,
strictly speaking, an alcoholic and is vicious and degraded. The
drunkard who drinks in spite of himself is, strictly speaking, a
dipsomaniac, and is diseased and insane. The alcoholic may become the
dipsomaniac; but the child who is the victim of a transmitted taint is
without doubt a dipsomaniac and not an alcoholic. He is insane. It may
not be an incurable form of insanity; nor need it be a very acute form;
but insanity it is, and therefore he cannot be called an immoral man
because he drinks, although he is guilty of immoral conduct. Heredity
has not invaded the moral sphere. It has given the man a diseased
nervous system, which, while weakening his will, has not perverted it.
Thus it is seen then that if any effort is to be made for the reform of
the dipsomaniac, the direct influence of heredity must be overcome by a
course of treatment which would be addressed to the nervous system.
Treatment which shall draw out the alcoholic poison and which shall
quicken and invigorate the nerve centres. When the influence of heredity
is discovered to be restricted within these limits, the case of the
hereditary dipsomaniac becomes far less hopeless than it appeared at
first sight, and it is for this reason that the causes of crime should
be thoroughly investigated. To moralise to the dipsomanic is but lost
effort, one may as well abuse a driver for not stopping his bol