INSANITY AND ALCOHOLISM. 85 



lives were taken by a custom which is the survival 

 of retribution, and in which the State takes the place 

 of the injured person or family, there is a growing 

 feeling that such a motive is not of the best or 

 highest, and that the only excuse for the disposal of 

 the life or person of the individual is that of the 

 seeking of the general well-being of the State. 

 When we consider the enormous sacrifice in modern 

 times of what were at one period thought to be 

 personal rights (such as the right of every man to 

 ill-treat and neglect his wife or children, or to live 

 in whatever insanitary house or room he pleases, or 

 to work as long as he wishes, etc. etc.), we can hardly 

 draw, even in imagination, a line beyond which the 

 State may not, at some future time, see its way to 

 make claim upon the individual. It is, however, 

 very improbable that the advanced politicians of 

 any century will ever call for a general battue upon 

 the inveterate drunkards or consumptives, nor is 

 there any likelihood of the work of preventive medi- 

 cine abating for one single instant, even for the sake 

 of the race. The love of the individual is antecedent, 

 both in the history of humanity and in the life his- 

 tory of each individual, to any regard for the race, 

 and the latter is but an extension of the former 

 feeling. While, therefore, there are certain and sure 

 means of improving the race by simple and unheroic 

 measures, no one would for a moment dream of de 



