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motive is included the nature of the moral design. It inaugurates reas-
oning and incites will; it is the incipient impulse to reason, and, while
it employs will, it is a medium to the attainment of the ulterior design
involved in the nature of motive. When a man of bad motives wishes to
injure the feelings or reputation of another, he employs his reason, his
will and physical energies to invent and disseminate slanders concerning
him. Slander is not the motive. Hate and revenge are the moral feel-
ings in his bosom, which he wishes to gratify by implanting pain in the
bosom of his enemy.
Bad motives are always intense y selfish, and
consist in seeking moral gratification through the misfortunes of others;
and, while good motives relate to self-gratification also, it is sought
through the pleasure of contributing to the happiness of others. So that
motive, besides being of the moral nature, using the intellectual faculties
merely as its instruments, operates upon the moral nature in the accom-
plishment of its final design. Alcohol, by radically impairing, and at
times destroying the physical basis of the moral nature, both as it is
associated with reason and the faculties of co-ordination, renders that
nature inoperative. Hence, motive ceases to act in its normal capacity
and character. The mere animal passions and instincts usurp the domain
of motive, and they incite the intellect and will to act in accomplishing
the behests of gross and sensual desires. Thus, in another distinct and
separate way, alcohol depraves or destroys the capacity of the mind for
the exhibition of the higher moral traits of honor, sympathy and civili-
zation-traits upon which all the real happiness of mankind depends.

In the third place, we approach some points of conclusion having
relation to the facts of heredity. The transmission of acquired constitu-
tional traits, both trophic and functional, presupposes a process of
change of long continuance in ancestry; a process, too, which is there
completed. It therefore implies that the morbid or toxic phenomena.
occuring in the progenitor, must be possessed of features which do not
appear in the descendent. The process of brain wreckage in the earlier
period of paresis, although it may sometimes be arrested, yet is attended
with mental exhibitions, such for instance as disagreeable hallucinations.
and delusions of persecution, which are not found in posterity. The
brain is not the subject of the disintegrating process in the children.
has passed through that in the parent; and its symptoms and peculiar
responsibilities are represented by ancestry alone.

It

In the two great classes of moral degeneracy from alcohol, that arising in consequence of hyperplasia of the interstitial tissue in the brain, and that induced by long continued anesthesia the symptoms in the progenitor, while presenting the characteristics of debased morality, may be attended also by some indications of insanity; while in the descend

ent, the heredity is manifested by moral decay only, and a consequent criminal proclivity, without symptoms of intellectual insanity.

It would not be reasonable to suppose that alcohol has no effect upon the interstitial tissue of the brain, unless there should appear manifest symptoms of chronic alcoholism. The fact is that few of the sum total of drunkards ever exhibit prominent symptoms of paresis. But there can be no doubt that, in a very great number of habitual inebriates, there actually do occur in the brain minor stages of interstitial hyperplasia, which, while insufficient to produce very remarkable changes in mental function, are yet sufficient to modify the character and disposition of the mind, and to reappear with distinctiveness in posterity. There are certain expressions of the countenance belonging to the inebriate, which are difficult to efface from the physiognomy, and while may be transmitted to a posterity; even when that posterity eschews drink. This fact shows that trophic changes have certainly occurred in the brain, of which these expressions in the physiognomy are the reflections and indices.

In the matter of the constitutional changes in mind and morals consequent upon the habitual anesthesia of the alcoholic inebriate, there are, most likely, trophic changes in the ultimate structure of the nerve centers. There is habitual repression of function by the inhibitory operations of alcohol upon the sensibilities; and there ensues, in the end, a relegation of nerve centers towards a rudimentary state. Of course this is a state very different from that of structural lesion, such as is presented in the disintegration of paresis. It is a state induced by a continuous suppression of function by habitual non-use. It is a state, too, that is amenable to improvement by steady and careful exercise and resumption of function, and not by vicarious action or substitution of function.

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strife for

There is a well-known law, that “function increases structure." is not necessary to dwell upon this point, nor upon the equally wellknown law, that absence of function interferes with the natural development of structure, inducing atrophy. It will be admitted that a defect in brain function, whether that deficiency is consequent upon structural lesions and disintegration of nerve substance, or whether it depends upon simple anæsthesia and suppression of function from causes not necessarily involving destruction of tissue, will, so far as outward mental exhibition is concerned, be attended by like symptons. In either condition the perceptive and ideational faculties will prove faulty, while the co-ordinating powers of the nervous system will also suffer impairment. The ultimate consequence will be, as we have seen already, a depraved moral nature. Here is the foundation of the criminal nature.

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here, when the defects in structure or function are a morbid inheritance, is the prime factor of the criminal nature inherent in the constitution.

Closely scanning the features of the criminal constitution, besides the palpable deficiencies in the moral sense, there is observed, very commonly, another very peculiar defect. I refer to the insuperable aversion to regular labor, and especially hand labor. This is generally attributed to the absence of correct moral principle, and is believed to simply be one of the undesirable and vicious sequences of a low moral capacity. There is an apparent incapacity for connected industrial pursuits. Criminals will often endure torture, and even death itself, rather than pursue a steady and regular course of employment. Punishments, rewards, advice and admonition, are wasted upon them. Sometimes they seem honestly to try. They begin with loud professions and solemn vows. Indeed they often plan elaborately, but they fail miserably in performance.

I am inclined to think that those who look upon this disposition in the criminal as being the natural outcome and consequence of a bad moral endowment, are, to a considerable extent, mistaken. Man is usually spoken of as a being comprised in the terms mental, moral and physical. I think the expression would best be mental, moral and motor; the physical partaking largely of the common animal, and even vegeta> tive nature. Looking then, upon man as characterized by motor properties of nerve, equally with mental and moral properties, what is to forbid us from assuming that the same cases, structural and functional, which destroy or obtund the functions of the ideational and moral faculties, also, and at the same time, debase and hinder the motor powers of the nervous system in their free and perfect manifestations? This view would abundantly explain what otherwise would seen inexplicable, namely, the frequent incapacity of the criminal to perform regular and continuous labor. We can now see how a large class of men are led, through hereditary constitutional predisposition, to pursue criminal courses in the strife for existence. Here is the explanation, in general terms, of the kind of influences that produce the thief, the burglar, the forger, the counterfeiter, the perjurer, the gambler, the tramp-in short, the professional criminal in all his varying qualities and proportions.

There is a fourth point in conclusion, which will close our discussion of the whole subject of the effects of alcohol upon the human constitution. I refer to the question of responsibility, as it is connected with criminal acts committed under alcoholic influence. I have no disposition to enter into the merits of the question at large. That would require great space and time, as well as great learning. reasonable course and direction of thought on the question, will be all

To indicate a

that is now necessary, and that will demand simply one or two brief illustrations.

To incur responsibility is to presume a cause of action. But cause is not really an "invariable antecedent." There are other elements of causation which introduce this particular kind of antecedent. Aristotle pointed out four distinct elements of causation, which to perfect the idea of cause must corporate together. These he designated, ist, material cause; 2nd, efficient cause; 3rd, formal cause; and 4th, final cause. And all the philosophers since his time have concurred in his idea of several separate and distinct elements, which, of necessity, enter into a just idea of causation.

Possibly an illustration of my meaning might be given in a more satisfactory manner in another direction. There is a principle which extends to all artistic and moral subjects that demands unity of design and unity of action in order to establish a claim to excellence. In poetry the unities must be preserved. So also in painting, and sculpture, and the same principle applies to all moral action where completeness and perfection are sought to be exemplified.

Now, if a crime is committed the elements essential to which arise in part, and indeed are to that extent founded in a generation anterior to him who commits the act, there must be at least a division of the total responsibility. The immediate actor may be held for his part in the transaction, but the ancestor should surely be esteemed responsible for the essential element of the criminal act which belonged to him, and which were wanting in the perpetrator. The action really commenced. in the pregenitor, and in that proportion at least, the progeny-the criminal-should be excused. The several forms of causation co-operate it is true; but they do not co-operate in the same person. The unity of action, so far as the particular criminal deed is concerned, does not inhere wholly in the immediate actor.

This principle is applicable in the case where, for instance, some traumatic event produced the periodic epileptoid advent of intermittent inebriety, with its unreasoning exhibitions of impulse springing from sensation. Here the criminal cannot be held accountable for the traumatism, or its unavoidable consequences. The same principle also is applicable where, from inherited defects of moral or motor faculties, the criminal commits depredations upon the rights of others. The action does not begin in the criminal himself, and he cannot be esteemed to be rightly responsible. The action which made the crime inevitable (with certain surroundings) commenced in ancestry; and the actor in the drama should be held to a reduced and limited responsibility.

Upon a survey of the whole subject, it seems to me, that in the case

of criminality growing out of alcoholic indulgence, either acute or chronic society at large, that is the state has no right to shirk its own proper share of responsibility. For the state can, if it chooses, remove the temptation to drink which beset the epileptoid inebriate. It can also remove that daily factor of irregularity in human conduct, alcohol, which operates with such deadly power in the destruction of honest and healthy motive, and in the substitution for it, of the passions and lust and apetities of mere sensuality.

In chronic inebriety when the moral faculties are overwhelmed, there is no adverse and bad nature really interposed. The passions and unrestrained appetites simply take possession of the intellectual faculties and direct and use them for selfish and dangerous and criminal purposes.

In conclusion I have only to say that the inebriate and his friends and kindred are equal sufferers from the evil power of alcohol. Let na one lightly say that fiction has been employed to color the scenes. Fiction and fancy pale before reality in depicting the effects of alcohol. No principle has been advanced, no conclusion made, but has had verification in the stricken hearts of innumerable sufferers. The glad and sunny smile of youth and hope, in the prospects of early life, becomes overcast and fades away in the presence of alcohol; while gloom and darkness and dispair enshroud the shrinking and skulking forms of the inebriate and his kindred alike, till languishing, sighing, waiting, the repose of death and the grave is welcomed in tears of thankfulness.-Detroit Lancet.

MISCELLANY

The

We begin with this number the third volume of the TIMES. price is only one dollar a year. We trust that every physician feeling an interest in a Colorado enterprise, will at once send in their name, address and one dollar. The TIMES is the only medical journal in the State; and while we have had some encouragement and a few warm friends and supporters during the past six months, yet may we not hope for more in the future?

The Woman's Hospital of Denver is now ready for the reception of patients. A few beds have been endowed, and these are the only free beds in the hospital. The price per week in the ward, including bed, nurse, board and medicine, but not medical attention, (except where they can not afford more,) is seven dollars ($7.00). In private rooms, from ten dollars ($10.00) to twenty-five dollars ($25.00) per week. All patients admitted to the hospital will be under the exclusive care of the attending surgeon.

The Colorado State Society, which recently held its session in

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