206 THE PRINCIPLES OF HEREDITY 



self-restraint. Their feelings are not of that kind which 

 ruined a clergyman of the writer's acquaintance. This 

 unfortunate being, who had been an abstainer all his life, 

 was medically advised to take alcohol during an attack of 

 influenza. He went like a stone to the depths went in 

 despair, weeping and praying for Divine aid. Nor are they 

 of the kind that possessed a tippler who, as related by Dr. 

 Mussey of Cincinnati " A few years ago . . . was put into 

 an almshouse in this State. Within a few days he had 

 devised various expedients to procure rum, but had failed. At 

 length he hit on one which was successful. He went into 

 the wood-yard of the establishment, placed one hand upon 

 the block, and with an axe in the other struck it off at a 

 single blow. With the stump raised and streaming he ran 

 into the house and cried, ' Get some rum. Get some rum. 

 My hand is off/ In the confusion and bustle of the occasion 

 a bowl of rum was brought, in which he plunged the bleed- 

 ing member of his body, then raising the bowl to his mouth, 

 drank freely, and exultingly exclaimed, ( Now I am satisfied/ l 



350. " The craving for drink in real dipsomaniacs, or for 

 opium or chloral in those subjugated, is of a strength of 

 which normal persons can have no conception. t Were a keg 

 of rum in one corner of a room, and were a cannon constantly 

 discharging balls between me and it, I could not refrain 

 from passing before that cannon in order to get that rum. 

 If a bottle of brandy stood on one hand, and the pit of hell 

 yawned on the other, and I were convinced I should be 

 pushed in as sure as I took one glass, I could not refrain/ 

 Such statements abound in dipsomaniacs' mouths." 2 



351. It is evident that we can in no way account for the 

 difference between races with respect to alcohol except by 

 supposing that some races have undergone evolution an 

 evolution which, in every way, is as important to humanity 

 as that caused by disease, and which supplies evidence as 

 conclusive that variations arise spontaneously, and not 

 through the action of the environment on the germ-plasm. 



352. An interesting parallel obtains between diseases and 

 narcotics. Against some diseases, for example tuberculosis, 

 immunity cannot be acquired by the individual. Against 

 others, for example chicken-pox, it can be acquired with 

 great ease. Between the two extremes lie all other diseases. 

 The power of acquiring immunity is a short cut by means of 

 which the more tedious process of evolving inborn immunity 



1 Professor William James, Principle* of Psychology, vol. ii., p. 543, 



2 Ibid. 



