There is a growing disposition in some quarters to look on every criminal as an unsound person having a special neurosis; to discover, diagnostic evidence of the criminal nature in the conformation of the head and face, and in defective structure of brain; and to demand in consequence that criminals should not be punished as responsible, but treated as diseased, beings. It is a tendency against which, in the interests of true psychology, a timely protest may well be made; for its interests cannot in the end be served by pretensions to a knowledge which it is far from possessing and by unwarrantable claims to authority based upon such pretensions. If all criminals are, as the theory postulates, of defective or diseased mental organization, we must needs go on to acknowledge that few, if any, persons are well formed or sound mentally. Every Christian who listens reverently to the reading of the Ten Commandments and prays devoutly that God will incline his heart to keep them, feels, or ought to feel if he be in earnest, that he has in him the potentiality of committing every crime or sin forbidden by them. That he does not commit a particular crime which another person does is not owing always to a stronger and better nature in him, nor to an opportune infusion of prevenient grace, but to the absence of the adequate temptation in the circumstances of his life and calling. Time and the occasion count for much in the production of crime, as in the production of other human events; and it is quite possible that behind the crime of one who succumbs to an overwhelming temptation there may sometimes lie more merit than in the open virtue of another who has never been greatly tempted.

I think that the foregoing statistics, and those which follow, together with the large number of cases which I quote, and which connect general paralysis with almost every form of neurotic manifestation, will prove conclusively that neurotic inheritance is a striking feature in the causation of general paralysis. I question whether a distinction between “the cerebral and the insane element” in general paralysis can be maintained. If general paralysis is not a degeneration of the mind-tissue, then the pathology of insanity has no existence, and I would say that the subtle influence for evil, which is transmitted from parents, whose brains are deteriorated by neurotic outbursts, or soaked in alcohol, or wrecked by physiological immorality, tends strongly towards such degeneration. If insanity is, as Dr. Savage says, a perversion of the ego, then a general paralytic is the in-sanest of the insane. We know that the children of a melancholic parent, for example, may develop any form of neurosis—in other words, it is not that melancholia or general paralysis, or any other definite disease, is transmitted, but that a certain tendency to deviate from normal development is transmitted. This tendency to deviate is the neurotic diathesis, and the form of its development is determined by collateral circumstances, and a certain series of collateral circumstances determine the development of general paralysis. Perhaps neurotic inheritance may mean in some cases a limited capital of nervous energy, and if this is wasted recklessly the individual breaks down suddenly and pathologically, as we all do slowly and physiologically. I would also point out that considering the number of histories of insanity which owing to ignorance or reticence we, do not receive, and considering that we never receive information as to the existence of the slighter neuroses, it is marvellous that we get so high a percentage as 51. Of the 145 general paralytics with a reliable history, 38 had a family history of insanity, 28 a family history of drink, 8 of both, 43 had a personal history of drink, 8 of a previous attack too remote to be considered, at least, according to our present ideas, as part of the disease, and the vast majority had a history of some physiological irregularity which must be considered as conducive to the creation of an acquired neurosis. We may now pass to some further statistics.

The Commissioners in Lunacy have lately recommended the erection of detached hospitals for the treatment of infectious disease at most of the English County Asylums, and it would seem that at least twenty of these institutions are already equipped in this matter. These hospitals differ greatly as to size, form of construction, adjuncts, distance from the main building, and, in fact, in all their features. Some resemble villas rather than hospitals, others are attached by corridors to the asylum. The most of them are of one story only, but one or two are of two stories. Some are divided into blocks, others are in one continuous building. The causes of this endless variety are, firstly, that there are no model plans of asylum hospitals published, and, as far as I am aware, no plans published at all, if I except that lately built at the East Riding Asylum, described in this Journal for April, 1887; and, secondly, that these hospitals being for the most part small affairs, architects are rarely invited to send in plans, so that there is a total absence of the stimulus of competition.

The question of the relation of epilepsy and crime acquired considerable prominence in the early part of the present year in connection with the trial of “Regina v. Hitchins.”* The defendant in this trial, the epileptic lad, who fatally shot his sister at Weston-super-Mare, is now an inmate of Broadmoor Asylum. A short time after his admission three other male patients were received who were also the victims of epilepsy; they, too, had committed acts of homicide which had engrossed a considerable share of public attention.

I count much upon your indulgence in presuming that you are willing to listen to the somewhat desultory remarks I desire to make in response to your invitation to contribute a paper to the Psychology Section of the International Congress.