738 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



enthusiasm of reformed inebriates also suggests a short life and 

 early oblivion, of which every temperance and church movement 

 for this end furnishes many illustrations. 



There can be no doubt of the fact that a certain number of 

 inebriates are restored by each and all these various methods of 

 cure, and a certain other number, always in the great majority, 

 are made worse and more incurable and degenerate by the fail- 

 ures of such means. But, above the mere curing of a certain num- 

 ber of cases, a great psychological movement is stimulated, and a 

 wider conception of the evil follows of permanent value. The 

 inebriety specifics are epidemics of empiricism that will pass 

 away soon, but they will rouse public sentiment and bring out the 

 facts more prominently as to the disease of inebriety and its cura- 

 bility. This second stage of this truth resembles the " squatter 

 period " of every new Territory a stage of occupation by squat- 

 ters, fortune-hunters, and irregulars of every description, who 

 rouse great expectations, build canvas towns, making a show of 

 permanent settlement, and attract crowds of credulous follow- 

 ers, only to prey on them. These persons always disappear when 

 the real settlers come. They never develop any lands or dis- 

 cover any new resources, but prepare the way and concentrate 

 public attention for the final occupation. The specific vaunter of 

 to-day is the squatter settler, who will soon disappear, and be fol- 

 lowed by the real settler and the scientists. 



Inebriety, its causes and possible remedies, are a vast, un- 

 known territory, the boundary lines of which have been scarcely 

 crossed. The facts are so numerous and complex, and governed 

 by conditions that are so largely unknown, that dogmatism is 

 ignorance and positive assertions childishness. 



The recognition of disease is only recently confirmed by the 

 accumulation of scientific facts, although asserted and defended 

 for a thousand years as a theory. The realm of causation is still 

 invested with moral theories, and moral remedies have been used 

 in the same way for a thousand years. While science has pointed 

 out a few facts and possible laws of causation, and indicated cer- 

 tain general lines of treatment, it gives no support to the possi- 

 bility of any specific remedy that will act on an unknown con- 

 dition in some unknown way. Inebriety is literally an insanity 

 of the border-line type, and a general condition of central brain 

 defect, unknown, and at present beyond the power of any 

 combination of drugs. To the scientists, all this confusion of 

 theory and empiricism hides the real movement, and is in itself 

 unmistakable evidence that somewhere in the future the entire 

 subject will be known, not as a statement or theory, but as 

 scientific truths established on scientific evidence beyond all 

 doubt. 



