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 bolting horses. Some reformatory schemes have trusted entirely to moral agencies, and their failure has been quoted as evidence that all such schemes are futile. But their failure has been due to an entirely wrong conception of the cause of crime. The primary cause is undoubtedly a reprobate will: but this cause is not found in every case. Where the consequences of the parent's conduct has been inherited we find not the primary, but a secondary cause, such as e.g. a diseased nervous system. Sometimes both the primary and the secondary causes exist side by side, and then treatment must be addressed to both the will and to the physical system. In fact whatever methods of treatment are employed, the moral temperament must not be neglected, for even if the will be not perverted, it is considerably weakened and needs strengthening.