With this view of heredity in mind, it is easy to see how the real basis of every mental breakdown may be and probably is simply an overdoing or perversion or other irregularity at some premature or "atavistic" stage of development; and that anything and everything which may have had to do in causing this should be considered as a primary step toward the insanity itself. But easy as it is to see this theoretically, it does not necessarily follow that it is easy to get hold of the real facts or to help the matter in any given case. Many times families are loath to reveal things which might indicate such a basis of the dreaded disease. Many times they do not recognize the necessity of telling what they would otherwise be willing enough to reveal. Many things are absolutely forgotten or have been at best only vaguely comprehended. Sometimes conscious deception is practiced; at others, the party who really has known the facts is dead or is otherwise inaccessible. But more often, and more interfering still, is the unconscious perversion of facts, either from the false meanings which, owing to specific views and predilections and fears, are read into them, not only by the laity, but often by the profession, or else from the wrong deductions derived from actual facts clearly understood. Try as one may, it is often most difficult to get a sufficient number of clearly defined facts to enable even the most expert to form a true and comprehensive idea of the case in hand.[B] This leads to the remark that what is now absolutely needed is some form of record-keeping which shall become a general practice on the part of heads of families and their physicians, and which may be handed down from generation to generation; and not only this, but that these shall be so accurately and fully kept that they may be worthy of consideration as the best and in fact the only basis of a scientific generalization in case of mental or moral emergency. That people as a rule would probably resent this, as constituting an undue interference with the sanctity of personal and family rights, while undoubtedly rendering it practically nugatory for the time being, does not in any good sense militate against either the scientific need or the great good which would accrue from the use of such family records faithfully and intelligently kept. It is encouraging to note that already the way for such records is being opened in the demands made by the various _questionnaires_ sent out by Dr. G. Stanley Hall and others who are interested in the scientific study of children. (See various issues of the American Journal of Psychology, and of the Pedagogical Seminary, for pertinent suggestions and results. Also an article by Dr. William H. Thomson, in the Yale Medical Journal for April, 1898.) Much more useful and in general satisfactory would this be than the blind staggering after elusory causation now so universally and yet so futilely pursued.