416 YEAST 



be the plant from which it was expressed, or having merely 

 the taste and the absence of smell of a solution of sugar ; 

 but by the time that this change that I have been briefly 

 describing to you is accomplished the liquid has become 

 completely altered, it has acquired a peculiar smell, and, 

 what is still more remarkable, it has gained the property 

 of intoxicating the person who drinks it. Nothing can be 

 more innocent than a solution of sugar ; nothing can be less 

 innocent, if taken in excess, as you all know, than those 

 fermented matters which are produced from sugar. Well, 

 again, if you notice that bubbling, or, as it were, seething 

 of the liquid, which has accompanied the whole of this 

 process, you will find that it is produced by the evolution 

 of little bubbles of air-like substance out of the liquid ; 

 and I dare say you all know this air-like substance is not like 

 common air ; it is not a substance which a man can breathe 

 with impunity. You often hear of accidents which take 

 place in brewers' vats when men go in carelessly, aud get 

 suffocated there without knowing that there was anything 

 evil awaiting them. And if you tried the experiment with 

 this liquid I am telling of while it was fermenting, you would 

 find that any small animal let down into the vessel would 

 be similarly stifled ; and you would discover that a light 

 lowered down into it would go out. Well, then, lastly, if 

 after this liquid has been thus altered you expose it to 

 that process which is called distillation ; that is to say, if 

 you put it into a still, and collect the matters which are 

 sent over, you obtain, when you first heat it, a clear trans- 

 parent liquid, which, however, is something totally different 

 from water ; it is much lighter ; it has a strong smell, 

 and it has an acrid taste ; and it possesses the same intoxi- 

 cating power as the original liquid, but in a much more 

 intense degree. If you put a light to it, it burns with a 

 bright flame, and it is that substance which we know as 

 spirits of wine. 



Now these facts which I have just put before you all 

 but the last have been known from extremely remote 

 antiquity. It is, I hope, one of the best evidences of the 

 antiquity of the human race, that among the earliest 

 records of all kinds of men, you find a time recorded when 

 they got drunk. We may hope that that must have been 

 a very late period in their history. Not only have we the 

 record of what happened to Noah, but if we turn to the 

 traditions of a different people, those forefathers of ours who 



