LETTERS TO BROTHER JOHN. 255 



drinking is followed by a high degree of morbid 

 sensibility : witness the nervous and tremulous 

 anxiety of the debauche on the morning following 

 a debauch. But I have long since shewn you, that 

 increased sensibility and vigorous contractility are 

 incompatible: and that whatever augments sensi- 

 bility must have the effect of lowering contractility. 

 But health and strength depend on vigorous con- 

 tractility. If wine, therefore, heightens sensibility, 

 it must dimmish contractility ; and thus, by impair- 

 ing that property, impairs the health and strength, 

 which depend on that property. 



Again, if you allow it to be true, that it is the 

 sensibility of our organs which establishes the due 

 relation between ourselves and external objects 

 teaching us what is good for us, and what injurious, 

 by the pleasure or pain which the several external 

 objects confer or inflict then it again follow^s, par 

 necessite, that wine is hurtful ; because wine, when 

 tasted for the first time by unsophisticated palates, 

 always impresses them disagreeably. To him who 

 swallows a glass of raw spirit for the first time, the 

 effects are painful to a high degree almost suffo- 

 cating. And no child would like wine or beer, 

 unless taught to do so by precept, example, or 

 habit 



