,
the _perpetuation_ of consanguineous unions in the same family is not
as a rule advisable.

=Restriction of Personal Liberty in Sexual Life Among Harmful or
Dangerous Individuals.=--The inability of men to distinguish, among
the motives of the acts of their fellows, what is abnormal, unhealthy,
impulsive or obsessional, from what is healthy and normal is one of
the most deplorable phenomena in social life, and greatly hinders the
action of reformatory civil legislation and rational administrative
measures.

The passionate, confused and unreasonable sentiments of the masses
give expression, according to the impulse of the moment, to two
contradictory absurdities and injustices. On the one hand, they cry
out against arbitrary constraint of individual liberty, against
illegal restriction or detention, when competent judges or experts try
to limit the movements of dangerous individuals affected with mental
disorders, but who appear sane to the incompetent public; or when, to
insure social safety, they send these individuals to a lunatic asylum,
or limit their dangerous liberty in some other way. On the other hand,
when such an individual goes free, thanks to the intervention of
incompetent meddlers, and commits assassination, violation,
incendiarism, or all kinds of sadic atrocities, or even only
terrorizes his own family, these same people, suddenly animated by
contrary sentiments of vengeance, imperiously demand an exemplary
expiation and all possible reprisals. This sometimes goes as far as
torture of the culprit or burning at the stake, as with the lynchers
in America.

It is very difficult for the psychiatrist, who is the competent expert
in these matters, to make truth and impartiality prevail. He is nearly
always suspected of seeing madness everywhere, and of being afflicted
with a mania for sending sane persons to asylums! In reality, he
desires to take measures which are at the same time humane for the
insane and protective for society, so as to treat as equitably and
reasonably as possible the unfortunates who are more or less
irresponsible for their acts; he wishes to see established laws and
organizations which will efficiently protect the insane against
themselves and against the exploitation and abuse of others, at the
same time preventing them from doing injury to society.

On the other hand, society and with it the old style of jurist, in
their ignorant dread of psychopathological matters, endeavor t