276 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 
destroys the sanity of life. All stimulants, narcotics, 
and tonics which affect the nervous system in whatever 
way reduce the truthfulness of sensation, thought, and 
action. Toward insanity all such influences lead; and 
their effect, slight though it be, is of the same nature as 
mania. The man who would see clearly, think truth- 
fully, and act effectively must avoid them all. Emer- 
gency aside, he can not safely force upon his- nervous 
‘system even the smallest falsehood. And here lies the 
one great unanswerable argument for total abstinence; 
‘not abstinence from alcohol alone, but from all nerve 
poisons and emotional excesses. The man who would 
be sane must avoid, emergencies excepted, all nerve 
excitants, nerve soothers, and “nerve foods,” as well as 
trances, ecstasies, and similar abnormal relations to the 
external world. If he would keep his mind he must 
never “lose his head” save in the rest of normal sleep. 
In general, great work is not accomplished under the 
influence of drugs or stimulants. The great thoughts 
and great deeds which move the world are those of men 
who live soberly and whose nervous systems record 
truthfully the facts of nature and of life. 
What is true of man is true of animals, and true of 
nations as well. For a nation is an aggregation of 
many men as a man is a coalition of 
many cells. In the life of a nation, 
Lowell tells us, “three roots bear up 
Dominion—Knowledge, Will, the third Obedience, the 
great tap-root of all.” This relation corresponds to the 
nervous sequence in the individual. And as in general 
the ills of humanity are due to untruthfulness in thought 
and action, so are the collective ills of nations due to 
national folly, vacillation, and disobedience. The laws 
of national greatness expand themselves from the laws 
which govern the growth of the single cell. 
The mind 
of nations. 
