384 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



tendency to reacli certain ends by violence, if other measures do not 

 seem likely to be successful. In fact, we see the habitual self-restraint 

 slowly developed by the exertions of many ancestors, by the efforts of 

 the individual himself, aided by the training given by education, for 

 the time being withdrawn to a great extent. Every time this act is 

 repeated the greater the tendency for the character to manifest its low- 

 er rather than its higher forms. The character is indeed being slowly 

 modified, and that, too, in a most undesirable direction. It is being 

 gradually deprived of much that a slow process of civilization has 

 given it. 



It must be patent to all that the direction just depicted is that in 

 which our town populations are distinctly moving. I have sketched 

 elsewhere (the Alliance JVews, July 22 and 29, 1876) those circum- 

 stances in the condition of the masses which, in my opinion, render 

 something more than the mere removal of temptation necessary in 

 the practical treatment of intemperance. Whatever may be the ef- 

 fect of monotonous occupations, of bad hygienic surroundings, of im- 

 proper food in infancy, and the physical deterioration which results 

 from large aggregations of individuals, there can be no question but 

 that repeated alcoholic indulgence is gradually modifying the character 

 of the masses. It is seen in the growing insubordination, in the turbu- 

 lence, the impatience of control, in the tendency to assert their opinion 

 on subjects of which they are not in a position to judge ; it is demon- 

 strated in the growing thriftlessness, in the marked inclination to in- 

 crease the number of their holidays, in the spending of a large portion 

 of their weekly earnings on Saturdays and Sundays, till the middle of 

 the week is a time of comparative destitution. It is illustrated by the 

 columns of our daily press in the increased acts of violence perpetrated 

 under the infiuence of alcohol by men accustomed to be intoxicated ; 

 and by the increase of disease of the nervous system, especially exci- 

 table forms of mania, found most commonly amid the population of 

 certain industrial districts. Doubtless there are many thrifty, sober, 

 self-respecting, and industrious working-men ; but it caxmot be denied 

 that the proportion of such men to the whole body is less now than 

 it was in days not far gone by. The character of the masses has been 

 undergoing grave modifications in recent times ; and the fashioning 

 hand of alcohol can be clearly traced in the production of the results. 



There is, however, a still grimmer aspect of this subject than even 

 the effects of repeated indulgence upon the mental attitude of the in- 

 dividual himself, and that is the influence which such indulgence will 

 and must exercise upon the nervous system of his offspring. We are 

 all of us " the outcome of the cooperation of countless ancestral forces," 

 and each of us is individually indebted to his ancestors for every act of 

 self-restraint, every act of self-denial or control exercised by each of 

 them. Our forefathers, in forming their own character, were insensibly 

 fashioning ours. "The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and tlw chil- 



