NARCOTICS 195 



excess, is a poison and the cause of a great mortality. It is, 

 therefore, an agent of elimination at once selective and very 

 stringent. It weeds out great numbers of individuals of a 

 particular type those most susceptible to its charm. It 

 follows that alcohol like disease should be a cause of pro- 

 tective evolution. A race afflicted by it should grow more 

 and more resistant, less and less prone to excessive indulgence. 

 If the principles of heredity we have laid down are correct, 

 this increase of resisting power, this lessened susceptibility, 

 should be the sole change caused by alcohol in the hereditary 

 tendencies of the race. Alcohol should not render the race 

 using it degenerate, nor affect its hereditary tendencies in 

 any other way. 



327. On the other hand, alcohol does immense injury to 

 the individual who takes it to excess. Judging by the statistics 

 of insurance companies and friendly societies, it does harm 

 even to those who take it in moderation. If, therefore, the 

 rival theory of heredity is correct, if variations are caused 

 through the action of the environment, then, as in the case 

 of malaria and other diseases, alcohol should be a cause, not 

 of evolution, but of degeneration. 



328. It is widely believed that the use or abuse of alcohol 

 does tend to alter the hereditary tendencies of the race. It 

 is supposed that alcohol, circulating in the blood of the 

 parent, so injures the germ-plasm that offspring and descend- 

 ants are rendered degenerate. This hypothesis is held by 

 many medical men, and finds constant expression in lectures 

 and in letters to professional journals, and occasionally in a 

 " manifesto " which is popularly supposed to be the fruit of 

 ripe knowledge and thought. Unfortunately the races that 

 have been rendered degenerate are never specified. 



329. Here again we light on the perpetual antagonisms 

 between the theory that variations arise spontaneously and 

 the theory that they are caused by the action of the environ- 

 ment. No better test could be imagined. Alcohol like a 

 toxin permeates the whole system and bathes the germ-cells 

 with poison. It has been used during many thousands of 

 years, by almost every individual of many races, often to 

 great excess. On either theory great changes should be 

 apparent. Other races that have had, practically, no experi- 

 ence of alcohol offer themselves for comparison. 



330. The races inhabiting the northern shore of the 

 Mediterranean Sea have used alcohol continuously as long, 

 probably, as any peoples in the world. Certainly they have 

 possessed a more abundant supply of it. We have docu- 



