74 DARWINISM AND RACE PROGRESS. 



me it appears that the facts at our disposal seem 

 rather to warrant the conclusion that most of those 

 cases which are supposed to be examples of trans- 

 mission, are really due to the permanence of in- 

 temperate habits in the same family or district 

 perhaps for generations, and that in these cases the 

 children drink from the force of imitation. In other 

 cases I would rather infer that unbalanced vicious 

 temperaments are transmitted, but that as to the way 

 in which these will manifest themselves it depends 

 much upon the circumstances and surroundings of the 

 individual, who may become a drinker, an opium 

 eater, or a profligate, or perhaps a combination of all 

 three. 



Drink is a Selective Agency, 



Among the lower classes at the present day there 

 are, no doubt, whole families who generation after 

 generation have had a bad name for drunkenness; but 

 it would appear that in these cases the drunkenness 

 is but one manifestation of the same careless or vicious 

 temperament, which shows itself also in idleness and 

 crime. Among the middle and upper classes a 

 generation or two ago families of hard drinkers were 

 often known. In these cases, as one may learn no- 

 where better than from Harrington's " Sketches of 

 Irish Life," the drinking was a part of a general devil- 

 may-care temperament, or was even in many cases 



