RACIAL DIFFERENCES 115 



than on wine. But men drink for different reasons.^ 

 He who desires to satisfy thirst or to gratify taste 

 will scarcely choose spirits as his beverages. He 

 who desires intoxication will not of choice distend 

 his stomach with lager-beer or a light wine. If a 

 race consists mainly of individuals who are so con- 

 stituted as to find intoxication unpleasant, it will 

 use if it have the opportunity — as it always has — 

 the less potent and better flavoured solutions of 

 alcohol. It will drink to gratify thirst or the taste. 

 If, on the contrary, its units find pleasure in in- 

 toxication, it will use, when it has the opportunity 

 — as it sometimes has — the more potent solutions. 

 A priori, therefore, people are not drunken because 

 they use strong solutions, but they use strong solu- 

 tions because they desire to be drunken — or, at 

 least, they use strong solutions because, instead of 

 merely trying to satisfy thirst or taste, they wish to 

 obtain, in however small degree, the effects of 

 alcohol on the central nervous system. Proof is 

 afforded by the fact that savages who have not 

 previously used alcohol, or only very dilute solu- 

 tions of it, eagerly drink spirits to the point of 

 extreme intoxication when they have the chance. 

 North Europeans are drunk when restricted to 

 the wines of the South, as in the case of English 

 and Russian sailors in southern ports. Welling- 



' Vide ante, pp. 72-5. 



