THE PHYSIOLOGY OF ALCOHOL. 595 



The general point of view may be indicated in a few words. 

 For centuries opinion has been divided on the subject, and the 

 human experiment has been repeated, generation after genera- 

 tion, by individuals and on a national scale. But man is the 

 most highly complex, most variable, most adaptable of animals, 

 and the human problem has proved itself too complicated for 

 scientific interpretation. Some men fail with alcohol, others fail 

 as completely without it, and the same is true of success. Even 

 "statistics relating to inebriety are too confusing," we find ad- 

 mitted in the Quarterly Journal of Inebriety.* 



Some may contend that the alcohol problem does not depend 

 upon the science of physiology for its solution ; but rather upon 

 the moral, religious, or political functions of society. It should 

 be remembered, however, that physiology is a broad science, 

 whose ultimate aim is no less than to discover the laws and 

 conditions under which may be developed the highest possible 

 typo of man. By the intimate correlations between body and 

 mind, and under the recent outgrowths of the mother science into 

 modern psychology and neurology, physiology would cover the 

 whole man, body, mind, and soul. And it would have not only a 

 healthy soul and a sound mind in a sound body, but the most 

 perfect soul, mind, and body which can be developed under phys- 

 ical conditions. Thus problems touching human welfare, even 

 questions of ethics and social science, must ever draw important 

 factors for their solutions from this science which is fundamental 

 to the conditions and processes of life itself. 



Extreme difficulty in solving such complicated equations is in 

 part accountable for our lack of definite knowledge. But even 

 this, it seems to me, does not constitute the most serious hin- 

 drance to the progress of science. In this country our greatest 

 obstacle consists in a deficient notion as to what constitutes a 

 scientific answer to a question. We are far too prone to say we 

 "know" a thing is "true," when we lack sufficient evidence to 

 convince an unprejudiced person of the fact. We mean simply 

 that we " think," or we " guess," or we have a strong " prejudice " 

 that such and such is the fact. Affirmation and prejudice are 

 promptly met by contra-affirmation and prejudice, and with peo- 

 ple who are satisfied with this sori of procedure scientific advance 

 is at a standstill. We are too slow to realize that all progress in 

 knowledge depends upon accumulation of wholly impartial evi- 

 dence. Lacking this, no amount of legislating and voting and 

 vociferating, can lay a smallest gravel corn of truth in the road- 

 bed of human progress. As Bacon said so long ago, concerning 

 the man who loses sight of this distinction and clothes his own 



* Kinney, C. Spencer, M. D. The Quarterly Journal of Inebriety, 1896, p. 223. 



