ii6 A STUDY IN HEREDITY 



ton's army in the Peninsula furnished an historic 

 example. His soldiers were much more intem- 

 perate on the country wines than the French, 

 and immeasurably more so than the Spanish and 

 Portuguese. On one or two occasions large cap- 

 tures of wine almost dissolved his army, and at 

 Vittoria the same cause deprived him of some of 

 the fruits of victory. On the other hand, Jews 

 and South Europeans are extremely temperate, 

 even in the cities of the North. Moreover, it is 

 not a fact that the more temperate races consume 

 the more dilute beverages. Savages are very 

 drunken even on the dilute solutions. Thus the 

 natives of Guinea have a cassava intoxicant, of 

 which a debauch of three days is necessary before 

 drunkenness supervenes ; yet even on it they con- 

 trive to become intoxicated. The English consume 

 three quarters of their alcohol as beer, and less than 

 one quarter as spirits, yet they are much less tem- 

 perate than South Europeans, whose wine on the 

 average is twice as strong as beer.^ The sober 

 races of the present day were anciently drunken 

 when their wines were no stronger. The Gothen- 

 burg system has substituted beer and wine for 

 spirit in Norway and Sweden. Drunkenness has 

 not declined, but rather increased, of late years. 

 Racial differences have been attributed to vary- 



1 Vide Appendix I. 



