A NEW INTERPRETATION 315 



is comparatively free from restraint. Consequently, as might be 

 expected, industrial soakers consume more, and therefore suffer 

 more, than merely convivial drinkers. In point of fact, occupations 

 in which industrial drinking is easily possible show higher 

 proportions of illness and death from excessive indulgence than 

 occupations in which it is difficult or impossible. 



529. In every occupation, even the coarsest, excessive drink- 

 ing, owing to the expense and loss of efficiency, is a bar, and is 

 universally known to be a bar, to success. If, then, a man, in spite 

 of pains and penalties loss of health and efficiency, liability to 

 dismissal from employment, and the like drinks to excess during 

 his working hours, it is reasonable to conclude that he is greatly 

 tempted by alcohol. Indeed, we may fairly conclude that on the 

 average such a one is more susceptible to its charm, more tempted 

 by it, than his fellow who abstains from prudential motives and 

 drinks only in the evenings when he is at leisure. That, at any 

 rate, I think, is the conclusion which ninety-nine people of normal 

 intelligence out of a hundred would reach. But a belief that men 

 drink alcohol for enjoyment and that individuals vary in the 

 degree and kind of enjoyment conferred by it leads inevitably to 

 a theory of alcoholic selection, a conclusion greatly disliked by many 

 people, especially temperance enthusiasts. Recently, therefore, a 

 new interpretation of the facts has been formulated, 1 a considera- 

 tion of which will at any rate serve to demonstrate the dreadful 

 kind of thinking which finds favour with many earnest reformers. 

 We are told, in effect, that it is absurd to suppose that men differ 

 in the degree in which they are tempted by alcohol. 



530. " It has led some less responsible students of the question 

 to assume that the view conveniently expressed in the formula, 

 that inebriety is a symptom of disease offers a complete and valid 

 explanation of all the facts of alcoholism. Thus it has been 

 asserted that intemperance is always a manifestation of a definite 

 brain condition which creates a specific craving for alcohol. And 

 some enthusiasts have even gone further, and, assimilating this 

 hypothetical drink-crave to a peculiarity of anatomical structure, 

 have regarded the potentiality of being a drunkard as a simple 

 inborn trait, which, we are gravely assured, being clearly unfavour- 

 able to its possessor, must secure his early elimination in the 

 struggle for existence, and so lead through natural selection to the 

 evolution of a race immune from drink ! 



1 See, for example, Alcoholism, by W. C. Sullivan, M.D. London: James 

 Nisbet & Co. 



