THE MOKAL STATUS OF ALCOHOL. 389 



That class of temperance advocates, who only value the 

 sobriety which results from conviction wrought upon the 

 mind, have fair grounds for good augury as regards the 

 future of strong-liquor temperance in this country. When 

 the total change is reflected on that has come over the middle 

 and upper ranks of Great Britain, as to strong-liquor intem- 

 perance, since the accession of our gracious Queen, then 

 assuredly the hope and belief are not far strained, that the 

 lower middle and lower ranks wherein the habit of drunk- 

 enness unhappily now prevails may work out a similar 

 amelioration for themselves by a similar agency. And if the 

 nature of that agency be demanded, I reply : The feeling of 

 self-respect, awakened through an entire community; thus 

 establishing a fashion. 



In estimating the influence of social usage, of fashion, as 

 to temperance or its opposite, the point should be ever borne 

 in mind, that the tendency or inducement to hard drinking, 

 purely on its own account, is very rare. Solitary drunkards 

 can indeed be found, but they are not common : they never 

 have been common. Hard drinking, in by far the largest 

 number of instances, is altogether an indirect result of con- 

 viviality, of fashion, accepted in certain circles. 



When the habit of solitary hard drinking has been ac- 

 quired, the experience of all times and all societies is to the 

 effect, that such habit is the most difficult variety to alter 

 such a drunkard the most unfavourable to work any good 

 upon ; and this naturally, seeing that there is no strong influ- 

 ence of social usage, of fashion, to bring into operation. It is 

 quite easy, however, to effect a cure of solitary drunkenness, 

 under the condition of having the drunkard caught and put 

 in durance, to be dealt with according to the operator's will. 

 The treatment is decidely homoeopathic: it would furnish 

 perhaps the strongest confirmation of homoeopathy, if doctors 

 of this persuasion did not deprive themselves of the value of 

 its testimony by holding to a very peculiar dogma. They 



