The base of the anterior lobes of the brain belong to the atonic region--the source of those languid, deranging influences which coincide with morbidity and disease. A disturbance of the corporeal organs, which especially influence this portion of the brain, naturally tends to the development of insanity or imbecility. Morel has traced, through four generations, the family history of a youth who was admitted to the asylum at Rouen while in a state of stupidity and semi-idiocy. The following summary of his investigations illustrates the natural course of degeneracy as it extends through successive generations: immorality, depravity, alcoholic excess, and moral degradation, in the great-grandfather, who was killed in a tavern brawl; hereditary drunkenness, maniacal attacks, ending in general paralysis, in the grandfather; sobriety, but hypochondriacal tendencies, delusions of persecutions, and homicidal tendencies in the father; defective intelligence in the son. His first attack of mania occurred at sixteen, and was followed by stupidity, and finally ended in complete idiocy. Furthermore, there was probably an extinction of the family, for the son's reproductive organs were as little developed as those of a child of twelve years of age. He had two sisters who were both defective physically and morally, and were classed as imbeciles. To complete the proof of heredity in this case, Morel adds that the mother had a child while the father was confined in the asylum, and that this child exhibited no signs of degeneracy. Statistics show that multitudes of human beings are born with a destiny against which they have neither the will nor the power to contend; they groan under the worst of all tyrannies, the tyranny of a bad organization, which is theirs by inheritance. We may represent the tendencies of the anterior portion of the brain by Fig. 79. The functional exercise of the anterior and superior portions of the cerebrum is _disintegrating_ and _devitalizing_, while the anterior and inferior portions coincide with mental and physical derangement, unless counteracted by opposing forces. It is therefore evident that in any organization, upon which is entailed a perverted or excessive action of this portion of the cerebrum, the tendencies are NON-VITAL, _i.e._, unfavorable to fertility and physical health. If the antagonizing regions are well developed, the tendencies are favorable to life. / SANITY, The volitive organs promote { TEMPERANCE, \ HARDIHOOD. / NUTRITION, The animal organs tend to { RESTORATION, \ CONSERVATION. / SECRETION, The basilar faculties instigate { CIRCULATION, \ VITALITY.