VARIETIES OF DRUNKARDS 293 



most often fall, and that the excessive drinker, whether actual 

 inebriate or continuous soaker, is invariably one to whom deep 

 indulgence is a strong temptation ; whereas the moderate drinker 

 is almost as invariably one who is so constituted that his tempta- 

 tion is much weaker. All deep drinkers suffer from the immediate or 

 remote effects of poisoning, and know well to what their sufferings 

 are due. It is almost inconceivable that any man would incur the 

 inevitable penalties were he not greatly tempted. We never hear 

 of men deliberately making themselves poor, contemptible, miser- 

 able, and ill with something, for example sea-water, which has no 

 intoxicating effect. On the other hand, a moderate drinker who 

 has had an average experience of alcohol and has in him the 

 makings of a drunkard, is not common. The human will is 

 seldom strong enough to resist the steady pull of vehement 

 temptation when the latter is constantly fed by partial indulgence. 



488. Some drinkers, it is true, are so constituted that alcohol 

 affords them pleasure mainly as a relief from unhappiness. They 

 are one variety, but on the whole a somewhat rare variety of 

 excessive drinker. If the reader will again consult his own 

 experience of life, I think he will find that nearly all the inebriates 

 with whom he is well acquainted, slipped, after a longer or shorter 

 experience, according to the ease with which strong desires were 

 awakened in them, into bad habits under quite ordinary conditions 

 of life. Again, bad companionship is said to lead to intemperance, 

 and doubtless it often does. But usually the zest for such society 

 owes its origin to alcohol, which can furnish it only to those who 

 are susceptible to its charm. " Birds of a feather flock together." 

 A man who craves for drink would hardly choose the society of 

 abstainers or moderate men. The kind of pleasures that appeal to 

 a more or less inebriated man are not those which appeal to 

 respectable women, clergymen, scientific men, or athletes, as 

 such. 



489. Now, since susceptibility to the charm of alcohol is an 

 * innate ' character which develops with the growth of the in- 

 dividual under stimulus of nutrition, it tends as such to be 

 ' inherited,' in the same sense as, for example, the shape of his 

 head. In this connection it matters not whether the individual 

 does or does not drink. Awake or dormant, his susceptibility is 

 still present. On that account drunkenness tends to run in families. 

 The child is " by nature " similar to the parent, and under similar 

 conditions tends to acquire the same trait. Often, however, it 

 happens that a sober or a drunken parent is succeeded by a child 



