ABSTRACT
In every age and in every clime, under every divine dispensation and under every form of temporal government, the dogma of man’s responsibility has invariably been recognized. The human family may be said to be divided into two classes, viz., those who govern and those who are governed. The dogma of human responsibility is, indeed, older than all known temporal law and dates back to the first generation. In a state of society the right of punishing crimes is transferred from individuals to the sovereign power; whereby men are prevented from being judges in their own causes, which is one of the evils that civil government was intended to remedy. Dr. George Burr, of Binghamton, observes that “the evidence in favor of the hereditary transmission of inebriety is no less strong than that upon which the fact that mental disease is inherited is admitted. In one case intellectual mania or dementia is developed; in another dipsomania.”.
