276 HEREDITY AND SELECTION IN SOCIOLOGY 



increased all round.^ Denmark, as already mentioned, once 

 more heads the list, but with an average consumption per head 

 of 13-9 litres instead of 8-9 litres. England, as we have like- 

 wise seen, attains an average consumption of 4*5 litres, as 

 against 2-7 litres twenty years previously. That of Germany 

 has risen from 4-1 litres to 7'9 litres ; that of France from 3"8 

 litres to 7'1 litres ; that of Sweden from 3"9 litres to 7*5 litres ; 

 and that of Belgium from 4-7 litres to 7-8 litres. In 1889, as 

 we see from the first of the above statistical tables, the con- 

 sumption in France was 4 litres per head of the population ; 

 fourteen years later it has nearly doubled. 



Thus we see that the increase in the consumption of alcohol 

 goes hand-in-hand with the increase of alcoholic insanity. The 

 figures which we gave concerning the latter phenomenon are 

 entirely in harmony with the figures concerning the former 

 phenomenon. And we must inevitably come to the conclusion 

 that, if the consumption of alcohol has thus increased during 

 the last fourteen or fifteen years, the figures of alcoholic insanity 

 must show a corresponding increase. When the cause increases 

 so greatly in intensity, the effect must follow suit. Thus we 

 may say that alcoholism, with its result, alcoholic insanity, is 

 the greatest curse of modern civilisation. 



But the statistics given above are instructive as throwing 

 light on the conditions of social life at the present day. There 

 is no phenomenon without a cause ; and alcoholism is not a 

 phenomenon produced by spontaneous generation, but has its 

 causes — deep-seated causes, which have their root in the con- 

 ditions of social life. It is a remarkable fact that the " balance 

 of drunkenness," so to speak, has shifted during the last century : 

 formerly it was the fashion for the upper classes to cultivate 

 inebriety ; to-day alcoholism is predominant among the working 

 classes. And even as the drink habit has been largely transferred 

 from the aristocracy and country gentry to the working classes, 



* Bevue de Statistique, vol. viii., No. 40, p. 313. 



