As to this type of heredity opinions are still very much divided. Great authorities are in conflict with one another on the question of tuberculosis. Some contend that it is hereditary, others declare that it is only transmitted by infection. Accordingly when a child is born of a tuberculous mother, and is taken away from her, there is no danger for the child. Views are also divided on the subject of cancer. Regarding other diseases, however, there is complete certainty. Legislation has already interfered in the case of epilepsy, although the law in practice is not always applied. But in the case of syphilis, alcoholism, and many kinds of nervous complaints, diseases which afflict children most certainly, in various ways, legislation has yet done nothing. There is an old axiom that we are obliged to thank our parents for life. Our parents, I know from my own experience, can themselves have been the heirs of bodily and mental health, resulting from the fact that maternal and paternal ancestors all made early, right, and happy marriages. But generally, parents must on their part, ask the children's pardon for the children's existence. It makes no difference, whether we talk with people sunken in necessity or crime, or with those suffering from nervous and other diseases, or finally with people who are spiritually maimed. In most cases we are convinced that the main cause of their condition as indicated by them, goes back to their birth, or to the time of their childish consciousness. Sometimes their parents have been too young or too old, their fathers or mothers invalids. Sometimes they are the offspring of intemperance. Again their mother may have been overburdened by the torment of work, or by a large family of children; or they may have received their life in marriages concluded without love, or after the cessation of love. They have been unwelcome, or born under feelings of revulsion, bearing in their blood the germ of discord or disgust of life. Numerous abnormal tendencies, among them misanthropy in women, can be traced back to these causes. Finally they have been brought up in a home where they have suffered from the burden of bad examples, or conflicting influences.