336 THE PRESENT EVOLUTION OF MAN — MENTAL 



cassava intoxicant, and the Africans, with their pombe 

 beer, who are only able to manufacture alcohol so dilute 

 that it is difficult to drink an injurious (quantity of it, 

 crave ardently for a more concentrated beverage where- 

 with to gratify their desire for deep intoxication. If 

 the above topsy-turvy theory were correct such races 

 should be more abstemious than the Italians, while 

 savages, such as the North American Indians, who have 

 never been able to manufacture alcohol, should be more 

 abstemious still, whereas the contrary is the case. It 

 cannot be true, therefore, that the degree of concentra- 

 tion in which any race uses alcohol in any way deter- 

 mines the strength of its craving for drunkenness, 

 except in so far as results from the survival of the fittest ; 

 though, on the other hand, it is certainly true that the 

 strength of the craving for drunkenness determines in 

 great measure, when there is a choice, the degree of 

 concentration of the alcoholic beverages used. It is 

 quite possible, indeed quite easy, for the most resistant 

 individual, the most seasoned toper, to drink " natural," 

 i. c. unfortified wine, like that used by the South 

 Europeans, to such an extent as to produce the deepest 

 intoxication ; that is, to such an extent as to place him, 

 from loss of health, &c., at a great disadvantage in the 

 struggle for existence ; and therefore natural wines are 

 quite strong enough to be a source of considerable 

 elimination, and therefore of evolution. In fact, though 

 these natural wines do not possess the immediately 

 poisonous properties of much stronger solutions of 

 alcohol, yet, since alcohol is rarely, very rarely, drunk 

 at any place of such strength as to be immediately 

 poisonous, and since the deepest intoxication may be 

 produced by imbibing them, they are practically speak- 

 ing as efficient causes of elimination and therefore 

 of evolution as the strongest spirits. 



The degree of intoxication desired by the average 



