he early stages of education were absolutely
impossible. It is because the nerve centres controlling the muscles
employed have been brought to such a high state of activity that they
operate almost independently of the will. The nerve centres controlling
certain of our functions DO operate independently of the will. Breathing
is an example, and although an effort of the will is required to
correct bad breathing, yet when once the habit of correct breathing is
established, the directing influence of the mind ceases, and the nerve
centres discharge their functions automatically.

In the normal man the sexual instinct is inherited but the passion is
submissive to the control of the will. The will is supreme and
self-restraint is always possible. The immoral man has refused to
exercise this restraining power, he has, in fact, by his immoral
thoughts, lent his mind to the strengthening of the passion until it has
gained an ascendancy. Continual sexual excitement has resulted in the
nervous centres controlling the sexual organs becoming so powerfully
developed as to act almost automatically, and independently of the will.
In the normal man, sexual excitement results upon the mental vision; in
the sensualist the excitement precedes the vision. Another effect is
noticed in the physiognomy which changes in accordance with the
development of the nerve centres and presents all the appearances of the
typical sensualist or prostitute.

In some cases the sensualist transmits this highly organised or
disordered nervous system to his descendants, and consequently when they
arrive at a certain age they find their bodies invaded by a passion over
which they have small, and sometimes no, control. It is distinctly a
case of functional insanity with them. Their will power is weak because
of undue stress, but it has not been perverted. Perversion may follow;
but may also be avoided, and even the will sufficiently strengthened so
that it may re-assume control and subject the passion to control. The
influence of heredity is here also confined to the nervous system. That
is, the direct influence, the influence which was first felt and before
it received any support which the mind of the victim may give it. The
cases of hereditary suicides, murderers and assassins afford a very
large field for investigation, and we cannot do more than suggest some
causes which seem to give strong evidence of their existence. These
causes if their existence be a