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2. That the craving for alcohol is innate in the human race, and is 

 not an acquired character. 



3. That human beings differ in the degree in which they possess 

 this craving — that there are the more alcoholically inclined and the 

 less so. But if a man with a great alcoholic craving is able to satisfy 

 this craving with think, even to his own injury, or is prevented by 

 prohibition measures from satisfying it, his offspring will not in the 

 one case be the more drunken, or in the other case the more sober : 

 thev will only inherit the innate craving which he possessed. 



4. That the peoples who have had the most experience of alcohol are 

 the least inclined to excessive indulgence therein. 



5. That this result has been brought about because alcohol is such 

 a rank poison that it has effectually and constantly killed off' the 

 individuals of the nations who were most prone to excessive indulgence, 

 and so left the field free for the breeding of those who were less 

 alcohol ically inclined. 



It is hoped that this statement does full justice to the position 

 which Mr Beid takes up. It is a very extraordinary position, with a 

 maximum of surmise and a minimum of proof. It suggests a case of 

 a man seeing a flash of lightning and subsequently a house in ruins 

 jumping to the conclusion that the former was the cause of the latter, 

 because such events have been knowm to occur, without being able to 

 show (1) that the lightning did strike the house ; (2) that the house 

 was not in ruins before. 



Because the main argument of Mr Beid is that savages have drunk 

 themselves to death. And considering the raw, much adulterated 

 liquid fire with which Christian traders have taken so much pains to 

 supply them, there is not much wonder thereat. But to conclude 

 therefore that the nations of Southern Europe have become temperate 

 because all the alcoholically inclined individuals have been killed off'by 

 drink is most rash. What warrant is there for such an assumption in 

 our own case ? for, according to Mr Eeid, we are in the stage of 

 alcoholism that the southern peoples were in long years ago. But 

 what do we see? — that the most alcoholically inclined, the labourers 

 and artizans, breed in about the proportion of 3 to 1 in regard to the 

 less alcoholically inclined remainder of the population. Wherefore, 

 according to Mr. Reid, we should be getting a more drunken nation 

 with every generation. 



This is one of the missing links in Mr Beid's chain of evidence. 

 For in order to prove that alcoholic over-indulgence is an eliminator 

 <>f the unfit, he must shew that it is so deadly a habit as to kill off its 

 votaries before they have been able to produce as many offspring as the 

 rest of the population. This he does not do. He actually admits 

 that among women alcoholism is not manifest till late in life. But 

 for the purposes of elimination it does not matter in the least if a 

 woman who has passed the procreative period kill herself off in five 

 years with drink, or live to be ninety in soberness. And so with the 

 agricultural labourer, — he may kill himself with drink at forty-five; but 

 if he has at that age, as is not infrequent, added some twelve or fifteen 

 children to the next generation, he has done more to propagate his 

 kind than has the sober professional man who lives to be seventy and 

 has five children. 



