INSANITY AND ALCOHOLISM. 75 



associated with a pride in the accomplishment itself. 

 At the present day, when drunkenness is looked down 

 upon as disgraceful by the better and more educated 

 classes, excessive drinking has vastly diminished. It 

 is fair, therefore, to conclude that, while what we may 

 term unbalanced temperaments and instincts of self- 

 indulgence are inherited, the actual way in which 

 these instincts will manifest themselves depends upon 

 the surrounding conditions which may happen to 

 prevail. Such unbalanced persons would under 

 certain surroundings of training and education fall a 

 prey to drink, as when they are associated with 

 drunken parents or friends ; under other surroundings 

 they may be guilty of crime or debauchery and tend 

 in any case to avoid the quiet, orderly routine of 

 citizenship. While, therefore, we can hardly say that 

 the tendency to drink is hereditary, yet we may affirm 

 that certain type variations, running, no doubt, in 

 families, are especially liable to drink and other forms 

 of vice. It follows, too, that drink may be looked 

 upon as a selective agency one constantly thinning 

 the ranks of those who are weak enough by nature to 

 give way to it, and leaving unharmed those with 

 healthy tastes and sound moral constitutions. 



