So far, an attempt has been made to show that whatever the influence of heredity may be, it is restricted outside the sphere of morality. It cannot transmit an IMMORAL IDEA. So far as certain forms of vice and crime are concerned it most probably is limited entirely to its effect upon the physical structure of man. Combined with family tradition and working upon a diseased, or weakened will, it accounts for similarities of conduct. Suicides, murderers and assassins do not then receive by transmission from their ancestry any taint or tendency which may be called the direct cause of their crime. Another factor is present, a hypnotising power, and this is the final and directing power. It is a different influence to imitation, although its first result is the same, viz: the lowering of the moral idea. But crimes where the act is the imitation of another person's act are generally committed from the desire to become notorious and to be the centre of observation. The spirit of vanity, very strong in the low type, is appealed to and aroused. Or perhaps, the example of another's crime affords a suggestion for the method of accomplishing a certain desired end. On the other hand, the ancestral example, after having broken down the moral barrier depends entirely upon its power to fascinate. Those of weak will or guilty conscience, alone succumb to its influence. If we consider the cases of thieves, vagabonds and paupers we find their crimes and vices likewise running in families. It is nevertheless quite a mistake to jump at the conclusion that heredity accounts for all these coincidencies. Exempting all cases of transmitted mental alienation and observing only those who are quite responsible for their action, it is impossible to suppose that there is, somewhere in their organism, a power which will direct their lives into the channels of vice or crime just as irresistibly as the influence which makes the hair grow on the crown of their heads. It is unthinkable. It supposes a responsible person who cannot control himself. Which is a contradiction. M. Moleschott, at the International Congress of Criminal Anthropology held in Paris in 1889, "mentioned an influence towards crime that had not been noticed, to wit, the hereditary social influence, or that is, the tradition which is instilled into the mind of every child before he knows the difference between right and wrong, that by which he obtains the rudiments of his knowledge of right and wrong. Whether it be correct or not it is the child's standard. He gets it not from any knowledge of theory of justice, but from the tradition of his own neighbourhood, as it is taught by his parents and associates by the people, and as is believed by them." (Criminal Anthropology; the Smithsonian Report for 1891.)