CHANGE IN CHARACTER. 115 



where indulgence is due rather to abnormal influ- 

 ences than to inheritance,, there may be change for 

 the better (intellectual nerve helping) induced by 

 hope of good, or, more commonly, fear of evil. Un- 

 happily it is much more frequent to meet with 

 growing intemperance, growing disorganisation of 

 nerve substance, and growing degradation of character. 

 Alcoholic intemperance, and intemperance in certain 

 drugs, may be called violent circumstance sometimes 

 indeed as fierce and destructive, if more slowly so^ 

 as a pistol shot. So terrible is the train of evils 

 contingent upon it that , I for one am tempted to 

 ask the question is a startling one if it would not 

 be better for the individual, for his family, and for 

 the community that the third fit of drunkenness 

 should prove fatal to the drunken individual ? 



It is in the less stable elements of character, in weak 

 character generally, and in the weaker periods of life, 

 that we most frequently meet with change. If we 

 find our clean, truthful, and honourable neighbour has 

 become dirty, or untruthful, or shifty, we conclude 

 with rarely erring accuracy that he has ' taken to 

 drink/ No one, whatever may be his theories touching 

 circumstance and organisation,' expects to hear of 

 radical change of the stabler elements in the course 

 of normal circumstance ; he never expects to hear that 

 the dullard has become a wit, or that the taciturn 

 recluse has turned into a chattering cheap-jack. 



In assuming that the moral elements of character 

 are more unstable, I do not for a moment imply that 

 they are less important that they are less than of 

 paramount importance. Neither do I imply that with 

 a minimum of physiological change there is a maxi- 

 mum of ethical change : it is a greater facility, not a 



