

316 PSYCHOLOGICAL INVESTIGATION. [PART II. 



serted as regards many other uncivilized nations. We see 

 nothing in this but the irresistible power which sensual gratifi 

 cation exercises on man in a state of nature, careless of the 

 future and unconscious of the degrading consequences of the 

 vice. Without laying much stress on the efforts made by some 

 Indian chiefs to stem the progress of this vice, we would 

 mention that Europeans also perished in masses in consequence 

 of their drunken habits. Among the lowest class of the Cape 

 colonists there are but few who are not drunkards. 1 The 

 greater number of the first white settlers on the Derwent river 

 in Van Diemen's Land were prematurely cut off in consequence 

 of this vice, and Ross 2 asserts that half of the deaths were di- 

 rectly or indirectly the result of drunkenness. 3 Braim 4 denies 

 that drunkenness is at present prevalent in New South 

 Wales, but Byrne 5 asserts the contrary. In Sydney, says 

 Majoribanks, 6 there are from two hundred to three hundred 

 wine vaults, and there are consumed ten times as much spi- 

 rituous liquors as in other places ; for every adult spends on 

 the average about 20 per annum on this article. As regards 

 the natives of America, the Araucanians are considered the 

 most decided drunkards, but D'Urville 7 observes that the 

 Chilise differ very little from them in this respect. The old 

 Germans are somewhat differently judged, at least in Ger- 

 many ! At their drinking-bouts, when individuals frequently 

 gambled away their personal liberty, there still reigned "a 

 youthful dignity and force," and " this still life differs infinitely 

 from the brutish stupor in which other savages indulge when 

 they are satiated with fighting and plundering." 8 Butcheries, 

 cruelties, treachery, cunning, breaches of faith, were frequent 

 among them, from the exasperation caused by the Roman wars, 

 and yet they are represented to us as men in whom even at that 



1 Moodie, " " Ten Years in South Africa/' i, p. 53, 1835. 



2 " Hobart Town Almanac," 1831. 



3 Laplace, <f Voyage autour du monde," iii, p. 478, 1833. 



4 " History of New South Wales," ii, p. 317, 1846. 



5 Twelve Years Wanderings in the British Colonies," i, p. 136, 1848. 

 e " Travels in New South Wales," p. 31, 1847. 



7 " Voyage au Pole Sud," iii, p. 55. 



8 Ruckert, " Culturgeseh. des Deutschen Volkes," i, p. 77. 



