THE CAUSATION OF DISEASE. 1 99 



the evil due to any doubt of its effects on life and health ? Has not 

 the potency of alcohol as an active agent of various diseases, as the 

 chief cause of that condition of body and mind in which both will 

 easily succumb to trivial forms of mischief, been established beyond 

 all question 1 And then is it exaggeration to say that, if the abuse 

 of alcohol were unknown, half the sin and three-fourths of the 

 poverty and misery of the world would disappear from it 1 Or, for 

 another illustration, let us recur to the subject of infection. Do we 

 avail ourselves of what is clearly known, and even generally recog- 

 nized, of the laws which regulate the propagation of infectious 

 diseases 1 Are we still waiting for the necessary knowledge ? When 

 will the time for action come 1 " * 



Wherefore we must conclude that man's guide is imperfect : 

 first, through his deficiency of knowledge, whether gained 

 through experience (personal or otherwise) or by an intellectual 

 process; and, secondly, through his inability! to act up to 

 what knowledge he has. 



Now, inasmuch as instinct secures to the dumb animal a 

 more perfect E than that with which reason provides man, it 

 follows that the brute creation is less afflicted by disease than 

 man, for an improper E is the great cause of disease. Disease, 

 no doubt, does exist among the brutes, as it does even in the 

 vegetable world ; it is, indeed, as I have already pointed out, 

 an a priori necessity. Nevertheless, there is a wide difference 

 between the standard of health in man, more especially civilized 

 man, and in the brutes. 



It is not fair to select the domesticated animals as standards 

 of comparison, because they have, in many cases, been largely 

 moulded by artificial selection. Not only have their instincts 

 become vitiated in this way, but they have further suffered 

 from prolonged domestication. The common domestic cow, 

 for instance, is a very different being from its wild progenitor, 



* W. S. Savory, " The Book of Health," pp. 96, 97. 



f A believer in the " Freedom of the Will " would preEer the word failure 

 here, and this word would better harmonize with the statement made on 

 p. 198, that a man " may know, but he may not choose to be guided by his 

 knowledge," since this statement implies a freedom of choice ; but whether 

 we have or have not such freedom of choice, the fact that we do not act up 

 to our knowledge must be accounted a mental defect — " a defect of reason " 

 us distinguished from instinct. 



r 2 



