34. 



WORLD-POWER AND EVOLUTION 



is not a good plan. Therefore they drink only because they feel 

 the need of something to brace them up, or because they have 

 not the strength of mind to refuse invitations or to resist their 

 own desires. The steady drinker perhaps drinks most when out 

 of work. The far larger army of moderate drinkers use most 

 alcohol when they are physically or morally weak. This, then, 

 is the meaning of the agreement between the curves of health and 

 of temperance. When people's health is good they do not crave 

 liquor so much as when they are weak. They are weak at times 

 of many deaths ; each death means that perhaps ten times as 



Health 



1870 



1880 1800 1900 



Figure 3. Health and Mental Power 



many people are seriously sick and a hundred times as many have 

 some slight ailment. Is it not notorious that anaemic women 

 resort to so-called "vegetable" tonics which are really nothing but 

 disguised alcoholic liquors.'' Thus when poor health is widely 

 prevalent many people get the habit of drinking. When better 

 health and stronger wills prevail, people do not give up the habit 

 at once, for it takes longer to get rid of a bad habit than to form 

 it. Thus at the lowest ebb the curve of temperance generally lags 

 behind that of health. On the other hand, when people's health 

 is good they have the moral strength to say "No." Hence the 

 highest points of the two curves generally coincide. 



In the lower line of Figure 3, I have combined the curves of 

 Civil Service Examinations and of temperance, giving equal 



