ALLEGED CAUSES OF INTEMPERANCE 313 



merely that the degree to which any individual indulges depends 

 on the interaction of two factors, one of which (susceptibility) 

 is innate, and the other of which is environmental. Proof that the 

 environment is influential is not proof that innate susceptibility has 

 no influence. 1 It is known that when men are gathered together in 

 large numbers in cities or manufactories they tend, owing to the 

 relative lack of restraint, to be more intemperate in every way than 

 when living in the country. The question, therefore, is not whether 

 the individuals of the same race are more intemperate in one 

 environment than in another, but whether, when individuals or 

 races are placed under conditions that are practically identical, 

 the one individual or race tends to be more intemperate than the 

 other. Compare, for example, Italian peasants with English 

 peasants, and Italian ice-vendors and organ-grinders in London 

 with English street musicians and costers. 



524. Strength of beverages. Races are supposed to be drunken 

 or temperate according to the strength of the beverages they 

 consume. No doubt a man who desires to get drunk will, as a rule, 

 if he have the opportunity, choose a strong solution of alcohol, 

 whereas one who is prompted mainly by thirst or taste will select 

 a more dilute and palatable drink. But it is quite as possible to 

 get drunk on a weak as a strong solution, and it is done very often. 

 More Englishmen are intemperate on beer than on spirits, and 

 on the average their alcohol is twice or thrice as dilute as the 

 wine of South Europeans. 2 Those savages who are able to manu- 

 facture only very dilute solutions or, indeed, no alcohol at all 

 are the most drunken people on earth when opportunity offers. 



525. Civilization is supposed to conduce to moderation. This is 

 certainly true, but not for the reason implied. North Europeans 

 are more civilized than South Europeans and West African savages, 

 but more drunken. Civilization has always implied abundance of 

 alcohol. Therefore all races capable of living under civilized condi- 

 tions have undergone alcoholic evolution. The incapacity of Red 

 Indians to resist alcohol is as much a bar to their survival under 

 modern conditions as their inability to withstand tuberculosis. 



526. The memory of past disasters. Races, like the Italians, 

 which have suffered much two or three thousands of years ago 

 are supposed to bear in mind so keen a recollection of their 

 miseries that they are now temperate in consequence. Whereas 

 races like the English who have suffered less but who are now 



1 See 693. 



8 See The British Medical Journal, i5th Dec. 1900, p. 1733. 



