THE CAUSES OF DRUNKENNESS 77 



colour, in their mathematical, artistic, and other 

 faculties, in their capacity for enjoying tobacco, or 

 salt, or sugar. There is no single character in 

 which men do not differ in degree. Judging by 

 analogy, it is therefore certain that they are not 

 equal in their enjoyment of alcohol, or, to put it 

 more precisely, in the amount of alcohol they are 

 capable of finding enjoyable. Just as some men 

 are satisfied with a single pipe of tobacco, so some 

 men are satisfied with the effect produced by a 

 single glass of alcohol at meal-times, or as a " night- 

 cap " before retiring to bed. Others desire deeper 

 indulgence ; they are not satisfied till distinctly 

 appreciable mental ill-effects are produced. Yet 

 others desire complete intoxication. 



Now it is only reasonable to say that, as a rule, 

 men drink in proportion to their desires, and that, 

 therefore, the deep drinker, generally speaking, is 

 one so constituted mentally that deep indulgence is 

 delightful to him,^ whereas the moderate drinker 

 is one to whom moderate indulgence is more 

 pleasant. To take an illustration : suppose two 

 men are equal as regards moral training, will-power, 

 opportunities of procuring alcohol, and all else, 



1 We may go even further and say that the habitual deep drinker 

 is always one to whom deep intoxication is pleasant ; for it is 

 inconceivable that any one would brave the many ill-effects of deep 

 indulgence, the physical and mental evil, the social and material loss, 

 unless intoxication were to him, in some way, a pleasure or a comfort. 



