86 A STUDY IN HEREDITY 



quantity. It follows that alcohol, year after year, 

 eliminates from the race a great number of people 

 so constituted that intoxication affords them keen 

 delight, leaving the perpetuation of the race in 

 great measure to those on whom intoxication 

 confers little or no delight. Many "potential 

 drunkards " — as we may term those capable of 

 enjoying deep indulgence — escape of course. They 

 are saved by lack of opportunity, or by a strenu- 

 ous and brave resistance to temptation. But 

 among all the victims of alcoholism, there is prob- 

 ably not one who has not the "alcohol diathesis"; 

 for it is inconceivable that any one would accept 

 the penalties of deep indulgence if deep indulg- 

 ence were not delightful to him. Now, since 

 alcohol weeds out enormous numbers of people 

 of a particular type, it is a stringent agent of 

 selection — an agent of selection more stringent 

 than any one disease. Many diseases have been 

 the cause of great and manifest evolution. It 

 follows that alcohol, which has been used by 

 many races for thousands of years, should be the 

 cause of an evolution at least as great as that which 

 has been caused by any one disease. 



But, before attempting to estimate this evolu- 

 tion, let us return for the last time to the old 

 controversy between the Lamarckians and Neo- 

 Darwinians, and see how it bears on this par- 



