THE DRINK PROBLEM 179 



a mental disease, an insanity whose origin, progress, develop- 

 ment, and decline can be traced and studied. 



This fact was unconsciously recognized at the beginning 

 of the 19th cent uiy in the organization of societies antl efforts 

 to break up and combat its influence. The drunkenness of the 

 past appeared in a new light, and with it came the growing 

 faith that it could l)e removed and prevented. From the 

 first temperance society in 1816, with eight members, down 

 to the present, there has been a steady increase of efforts and 

 means to check and prevent inejjriety. The armies of total 

 abstainers and temperance reformers have rapidly increased; 

 and literally no topic of civilization is more widely discussed 

 to-day in all circles of society. 



Although statistics may show an increase in the sale of 

 spirits proportionally greater than the increase of the popu- 

 lation, and the number of persons drinking may appear to 

 be larger for a time in certain sections, yet a wider study, ex- 

 tending over a series of years, will show that this drink army 

 is disbanding and disappearing. The tide-like oscillation 

 of inebriety to which we have referred is often traceable in 

 temperance revival movements which spring up suddenly 

 and disappear mysteriously; or, in other words, inebriety 

 increases up to a certain point and then recedes. The retro- 

 grade movement begins when the highest level is reached in 

 sudden temperance reformatory efforts which go on with 

 intensity for a time, then die away abruptly. 



Through all this, the same eternal laws of evolution are 

 moving the race upward and outward, and crushing out the 

 defectives and all who are or may become incompetent and 

 unfit to bear the burdens of humanity. 



It is startling to find that through all this movement and 

 agitation there has been no change in the theor}^ of the nature 

 and character of inebriety. This drink problem has changed 

 in form and prominence, and is the central topic of thousands 

 of moralists, reformers, and philanthropists, and yet the same 

 theories of a moral origin, the same explanations of a heart 

 deceitful and desperately wicked, the same story of vice and 

 moral depravity, are repeated and accepted as the true ex- 

 planation of its character and causes. All the literature and 



