204 THE PRINCIPLES OF HEREDITY 



alcohol are supposed to conduce to drunkenness. No doubt, 

 if a man wishes to get drunk he will, as a rule, if he have 

 the opportunity, choose a strong solution without being very 

 particular as to the taste of it. But if he have not the 

 opportunity he will get just as drunk on a weak solution. 

 Many savages are extremely intemperate on the very weak 

 solutions which alone they are able to manufacture. The 

 English consume three-quarters of their alcohol as beer and 

 less than one-quarter of it as spirits. They are much more 

 drunken than South Europeans, whose beverage is, on the 

 average, twice as strong. 



346. Environment. Wretched surroundings are supposed 

 to conduce to intemperance, and, to some extent, no doubt 

 they do. But the surroundings of Englishmen are not worse 

 on the average than those of South Europeans. Italians and 

 Jews are temperate under shocking conditions in the East 

 End of London. 



347. The memory of past disasters. South Europeans 

 are supposed to be temperate because they have much 

 knowledge, derived from old experience, of the evils of 

 intemperance. Englishmen and savages are supposed to be 

 less temperate because they have less knowledge. In other 

 words, South Europeans, whose evil experiences occurred 

 chiefly more than two thousand years ago, are supposed to 

 have a more vivid recollection of their misfortunes than 

 Englishmen, whose evil experiences have lasted through 

 many centuries down to the present day. They are supposed 

 to have a more vivid recollection than savages who actually 

 see their own generation melting away. The existence of 

 numerous temperance societies in the north of Europe, and 

 the almost complete lack of them in the south, is a striking 

 commentary on this hypothesis. 



348. Civilization is supposed to conduce to sobriety. 

 Undoubtedly it does do so, but hardly in the sense intended. 

 All highly-civilized races are able to provide themselves 

 with great quantities of alcohol, and, on that account, have 

 been more or less thoroughly purged of the craving for 

 intoxication. But North Europeans, who are more civilized 

 than South Europeans and West Africans, are more drunken. 

 They have been less able to supply themselves with abundant 

 supplies. We shall see later that it is impossible to exclude 

 alcohol from peoples living under civilized conditions of life. 

 It follows that no race is capable of achieving civilization 

 which has not previously undergone this particular phase of 

 evolution. When savages, who have had no experience of 



