Of course there are cases of the drink habit in which, after a number of generations of family history of alcoholism, an individual seems to have the craving for stimulants born in him. In such cases it is not unusual to find that the patient, for such he must be considered, is able to avoid indulgence in liquor entirely, except at certain times. Every physician of any large experience has had under his care dipsomaniacs who had no difficulty in keeping away from liquor for weeks, or even months, but who had regularly recurring periods, sometimes as far apart as every three months, when they had an irresistible craving for stimulants come over them. The regularity of the interval in these cases is often very remarkable. Here, of course, we may be in the presence of some as yet not well-understood periodical law of cell life, with consequent depression, and then the irresistible craving for stimulation. {125} As a rule, however, it would seem that in most of these cases suggestion has great influence. As we have said elsewhere, with regard to suicide, when a man has constantly before his mind's eye the fact that a father, perhaps a grandfather, or other members of the family, have committed suicide, he is likely to be much more easily led to the thought of this way of escaping hard conditions in life than are other individuals. The man who knows that the fact that his father indulged too freely in stimulants will be looked upon by many as an excuse for his deviations in this matter is likely to be more easily led to take an occasional drink at moments of depression, or for friendship's sake, though he realises that it so weakens his will power over himself that he is likely to take too much before he stops. The passage in _Julius Caesar_ (Act. I. sc. 2) in which Cassius says: "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves," illustrates one phase of the subject. There are, of course, many other things besides the drink habit, with regard to which men are prone to find excuses in heredity, and to consider that somehow their ancestral tendencies make them not quite responsible for actions commonly considered the result of malice or passion, rather than hereditary influence, and our great English poet, knowing men so well, has stated the truth forcibly. In _King Lear_ there is an often quoted passage which properly stigmatises the opinion in this matter held by those who would find excuses for wrong-doing in hereditary qualities: