THE ALCOHOL MOTIVE 261 



Rome attracted enormous crowds of eager spectators because of the 

 primitive cliaractcr of the spectacles. The direct physical contjijct of 

 man with man or man with beast intoxicated the Komans, whose work- 

 a-day world was not unlike our own and far removed from the life of 

 the arena. Such spectacles awoke the echoes of the past, revived prim- 

 itive instincts and afforded perfect rest and relaxation. The behavior 

 of the spectators at a football game is an illustration of perfect relaxa- 

 tion. They act for a time like children or savages and return to their 

 work rested and purified.^ Mankind appears to be under the domi- 

 nance of two opposing forces. On the one hand we are driven on by 

 the relentless whip of progress, which demands ever greater and greater 

 specialization, application, concentration and powers of conceptual 

 analysis. On the other hand the tired brain rebels against this cease- 

 less urging and seeks rest and relaxation. 



But, now, even in the early history of the race, there was discovered 

 another means of relaxation, artificial to be sure, but quick, easy and 

 convenient. Drugs of various kinds, owing to their peculiar action 

 upon the brain, produce a kind of artificial relaxation. Ethyl alcohol, 

 produced everywhere whenever the ever-present yeast cells come in con- 

 tact with the sugar of crushed fruit or fermented grain, has the pe- 

 culiar property of paralyzing to a greater or less extent the higher and 

 later developed brain tracts which are associated with those peculiar 

 forms of mental activity accompanying work and the strenuous life. 

 The later developed and more delicate centers of the nervous system 

 are more susceptible to the attacks of an intruding destructive agency,, 

 such as alcohol. Thus it comes about that alcohol answers the demand 

 of the body and mind for relaxation and accomplishes in an artificial 

 way what is effected in a natural way by sport and play and other forms 

 of relaxation. The latter effect this end by turning the energy of the 

 brain into lower and older channels, leaving the higher centers to rest; 

 the former, by directly narcotizing the higher centers and thus libera- 

 ting the older, freer life of the emotions and the more primitive im- 

 pulses. 



It should not be understood that alcohol has any " selective affinity " 

 for any part of the nervous system. Its action, like that of other tox- 

 ins, is no doubt diffusive, but affects most seriously those parts of the 

 brain having less power of resistance, particularly the centers late in 

 the order of development. Its depressive effect is felt to some extent, 

 however, upon the lower reflex centers and as such results again in 

 physiological relaxation. This is owing to the fact that its depressive 

 action raises the threshold value of the reflex arc and so diminishes 

 reflex excitability. 



From this point of view, therefore, we see that while the action of 



^ For a fuller account of the anthropological theory of sport and play, see 

 the article by the present writer on "The Psychology of Foot-ball," in the 

 American Journal of Psychology, Vol. XIV., pp. lOJ^llT. 



