A striking illustration of this subject has been published in the report of the New York Prison Association for 1876. An inquiry was undertaken by one of the members of the association, to ascertain the causes of crime and pauperism, as exhibited in a particular family or tribe of offenders called ‘The Jukes,’ which for nearly a century has inhabited one of the central counties of the State. The investigation is carried back for some five or six generations, the descendants numbering at least 1,200, and the number of persons whose biographies are condensed and collated is not less than 709. The facts in these criminal lives, which have grown in a century from one family into hundreds, are arranged in the order of their occurrence and the age given at which they took place, so that the relative importance of inherited tendencies and of immediate influences may be measured. The study of this family shows that the most general and potent cause, both of crime and pauperism, is the habit of licentiousness, with its result of bastardy and neglected and miseducated childhood. This tribe was traced back on the male side to two sons of a hard drinker named Max, living between 1720 and 1740, who became blind in his old age, transmitting blindness to some of his legitimate and illegitimate children. On the female side the race goes back to five sisters of bad character, two of whom intermarried with the two sons of Max, the lineage of three other sisters being also traced. In the course of the century, this family has remained an almost purely American family, inhabiting the same region of country in one of the finest States of the Union, largely intermarrying, and presenting an almost unbroken record of harlotry and crime. ‘The Jukes,’ says the report, ‘are not an exceptional race; analogous families may be found in every county of the State.’[22] Conspicuous facts such as these, display in a striking manner the indubitable influence of mind in the exercise of the highest--the parental--function. We see as a positive fact that mental or moral qualities quite as much as physical peculiarities, tend to reproduce themselves in children. The mental quality or character of the parent must then be considered physiologically, as a positive element in the parental relation; thought, emotion, sensation, are all mental qualities. In human unions this great fact must be borne in mind. Any sneer at ‘sentiment’ proceeds from ignorance of facts. Happiness is as vivifying as sunshine, and is a potent element in the formation of a child. Hence arises the necessity of love between parents--love, the mental element, as distinguished from the simple physical instinct.