QUESTION OF PHYSICAL DEGENERATION 269 



indirectly victims, the percentage is great. Probably Mr Archdall 

 Reid is not far wrong in attributing one death in ten to this 

 cause. 



Degrading as the excessive indulgence in alcohol is to the influence 

 individual, it admits, I believe, of no doubt that drink tends to p * n co 

 maintain the physical strength of the nation, and at the same time evolution 

 helps to develop the moral qualities on which civilisation depends. 

 The two tendencies work side by side in the same society. 

 When it is the fashion to drink much, all who have not the 

 strength of mind to resist the fashion have to submit to a 

 physical test that tries the heart, digestive organs, and the whole 

 constitution. The old-fashioned dinner with no heeltaps is 

 typical of the manners of a former day when it was expected 

 of everyone that he should drink, and drink much. And it is 

 obvious that the frequent application of such a test of physical 

 stamina must cause the disappearance of a number of weaklings. 

 And if the process were continued in each generation through 

 several centuries, it is evident that the race, though many of its 

 representatives might be morally degraded through excess, would 

 be characterised by physical strength, always assuming that the 

 conditions of life were in other respects reasonably favourable. 

 But no constitution can for very long stand largely excessive 

 potations repeated at short intervals. There has, therefore, 

 always been a selection of those who were capable of self- 

 restraint, as well as of those who had physical powers of resist- 

 ance. Very often the two tendencies are well illustrated by one 

 and the same person in whom we find the physical strength that 

 makes light of no small amount of alcohol, and the self-control 

 that pulls up short when near the dangerous margin. But in 

 the present day we see the one tendency more actively at work 

 among the upper classes, while the other acts with diminished, but 

 not very much diminished, potency among the lower. The greater 

 consumption of alcohol in the year 1897, as compared with 1885, 

 we may put down to an increase of wealth, which has more than 

 counteracted the growing tendency to moderation. Among people 

 of any social standing drunkenness is altogether tabooed, modera- 

 tion is the fashion. And thus those survive who have self- 



