THE DRINK PROBLEM 185 



faculties which diverge most widely are the moral and in- 

 tellectual senses. Often these are at different levels in the 

 same individual. In the alcoholic victim the moral sense 

 suffers first and is always the most diseased. The inel^riate 

 may have a complete palsy of this sense, and yet have all the 

 other faculties fairly acute or so slightly deranged as to be 

 unnoticed. This moral or ethical sense is the highest perfec- 

 tion of character, and always degenerates rapidly in all persons 

 who use spirits to excess. The capacity to think right and 

 act right is blunted, palsied, and destroyed, while the intel- 

 lectual sensibility may be apparently unimpaired. This in- 

 ability to adjust conduct ethically is the direct result in many 

 cases of the paralyzing action of alcohol. No doubt in some 

 instances this faculty was very feebly developed before spirits 

 were used, or it may have been wanting altogether. In that 

 case the degeneration from alcohol makes all efforts to build 

 this up impossible. 



The practical bearing of these facts is illustrated in many 

 ways, particularly in the failure to restore inebriates by ap- 

 peals to their moral sense alone. The influence of the pledge 

 and prayer on persons who have no sense of duty or moral 

 obligation is almost useless. Often such persons have an 

 intellectual sense keen enough to take advantage of the circum- 

 stances and exhibit a cunning characteristic of criminals, pass- 

 ing as reformers and martyrs, and arousing interest and enthu- 

 siasm only to profit by it in some unusual manner. 



In this way temperance revivalists, by passionate appeals 

 to the moral and emotional senses of inebriates, may secure 

 thousands of pledges and conversions to a life of total ab- 

 stinence, followed by relapses startling and unexplainable. 

 The moral or ethical sense of this new army of inebriates is 

 paralyzed or destroyed, and efforts directed to this side alone 

 are worse than failures. 



The only road possible to reach this class of cases is by 

 the physical, by the use of means and measures that appeal 

 to the entire organism. The degeneration of brain cells, 

 nerve tissue, and organic forces, combined with defective 

 and diseased moral and ethical senses, presents a condition 

 of individual disease that seems difficult to cure. This fact 



