NARCOTICS 205 



alcohol, are brought into contact with strong modern solu- 

 tions they are exterminated as quickly as when introduced 

 to tuberculosis under modern conditions. When the savage 

 ancestors of civilized peoples discovered alcohol they were 

 unable, like the most modern savages, to manufacture it 

 except in small quantities and in very dilute solutions. As 

 a consequence only those individuals who had the best 

 opportunities of obtaining alcohol could take lethal 

 quantities, and only those who had the strongest cravings 

 did take them. Evolution was thus possible. The primitive 

 conditions are illustrated by those which recently obtained 

 among the natives of Guiana, who manufactured a cassava 

 intoxicant, of which a debauch of three days was necessary 

 before intoxication supervened. 



349. Education. What is there in the education of Jews, 

 South Europeans, and West Africans that should render 

 them more temperate than North Europeans ? The upper 

 classes of England are said to be better educated than the 

 lower. Certainly they spend more time at their books. 

 They are less drunken. But it must be remembered that 

 the upper classes are, in general, derived from the upper 

 classes of former times. Their purchasing power has been 

 greater; they have been more completely weeded out. 

 Moreover, sober families from the lower classes have con- 

 stantly displaced drunken families in the upper. No doubt 

 habits of self-restraint may be taught and have some in- 

 fluence, and beyond doubt fashion has very considerable 

 influence. It is very probable, indeed, that the upper classes 

 on the whole exercise more self-restraint as regards alcohol 

 than the lower. The improvement in the habits of the 

 former which occurred during the last century was far too 

 rapid to be attributed wholly to evolution. Granting all 

 this, it must be remembered, nevertheless, that indulgence 

 in alcohol produces in people who are susceptible to its 

 charms a particular feeling, a sensation, a set of emotions 

 which to them is very delightful. Education cannot alter 

 sensations. Just as it leaves unaffected the sensations pro- 

 duced by heat, or cold, or mutton, or tobacco, so it leaves 

 unaffected the sensations produced by alcohol. It may, 

 indeed, induce a moral abhorrence, but that is altogether a 

 different matter. As we have already seen ; it is not a moral 

 abhorrence, not a strenuous resistance to temptation, which 

 restrains the majority of the upper classes, who seek pleasure 

 quite as eagerly and recklessly as the members of the lower. 

 They are temperate, but seldom, if ever, at the cost of great 



