THE CAUSES OF DRUNKENNESS 8i 



declaration of a proneness to drunkenness, that his 

 personal experience, supposing him to be an 

 average member of better-class society, is similar. 

 Let him also think of those with whom he is brought 

 into social contact, particularly of those with whom 

 he is most intimate, his own relatives. Has he 

 observed in his wife or mother, for instance, a 

 tendency to intemperance, checked only by a sense 

 of duty ? Are his father, his brother, and his sister 

 victims of this miserable craving, as they are 

 " victims," if I may use the word, of the cravings 

 for food and water. I think, if he and his relatives 

 are average people, he will recognise, on reflection, 

 that they are temperate, not in spite of their 

 inclinations, but because of them ; that, in fact, 

 alcohol does not tempt them to drunkenness, but, 

 at most, to a mild indulgence only. But he must 

 know people in his own class of life so differently 

 constituted that alcohol does greatly tempt them to 

 intoxication, notwithstanding that they have had 

 the same advantages of education and environment 

 that he has had. Deep indulgence affords them 

 keen pleasure, or, at least, surcease of mental pain. 



It is often argued, since no man begins life with 

 a craving for alcohol, and since a more or less 

 prolonged indulgence is usually necessary before 

 men acquire the drunkard's craving, that therefore 

 drunkards are of worse up-bringing, or of weaker 



