458 INTEMPERANCE AND INSANITY 



suppress its use as a beverage, or at any rate its immoderate use. 

 Probably every one will agree that purely moderate drinking can- 

 not be enforced by law in a race many members of which are capable 

 of enjoying immoderate drinking. Human nature is unable to 

 resist the strong, steady pull of a constantly nourished temptation. 



747. There remains, then, the total suppression of alcohol as 

 a beverage. Suppose for a moment that this were possible, and 

 that a law enforcing it were passed. Then a race like the 

 British, which had undergone some evolution, would tend to retro- 

 gress towards that primitive state in which the average racial 

 susceptibility to the charm of alcohol was much greater than it is 

 at present. Therefore, if at any future period this law were 

 repealed or passed into abeyance, the last state of the race 

 would be worse than the first; for the race began its evolution 

 when alcohol was hard to procure, and, in any case, could be 

 obtained only in very dilute solutions. The longer the law was 

 effectually [enforced the worse would be the ultimate disaster. 

 Our literature, both ancient and modern, is full of references to the 

 delights of drinking, and the instinct of curiosity is strong in man. 

 Any one who could read and possessed fruit, sugar, or starch, 

 could manufacture alcohol for himself in secret. Many races, the 

 South Europeans, for example, derive great pleasure and little 

 suffering from alcohol. They could hardly be persuaded to pass 

 a self-denying law which forbade its use, and which benefited, not 

 themselves, but only distant races. The world grows increasingly 

 cosmopolitan every day. Merchants and travellers conveying 

 foreign products and habits pass more and more from every 

 quarter of the globe to every other. As surely as the sun shines, 

 travellers from lands where the use of alcohol has been suppressed, 

 would learn its use abroad, and seek, in the end successfully, to 

 reintroduce it to their own countries. Judging, then, from the 

 biological standpoint, external sanitation against alcohol cannot 

 be perpetually successful. Temporary success would merely 

 expose the race to dangers similar to those which would menace 

 it were a prevalent, lethal, and highly infectious disease banished 

 from the country but not from the world. Since alcohol cannot 

 be banished from civilized communities, great insusceptibility to 

 its charm, implying evolution and therefore selection, is essential 

 to the existence of a civilized race. 



748. However, it may be argued that " Our business as 

 practical men is with the present, and not with a remote and 

 problematical future. In the past, men have rarely sought any- 



