132 A STUDY IN HEREDITY 



trained, who had had the best possible opportunities 

 for observation, declared before the late Royal 

 Commission on Opium that they had never or 

 rarely known opium productive of harm among the 

 peoples of India. On the other hand, numerous 

 witnesses, chiefly missionaries or others connected 

 with different religious bodies, asserted that every- 

 where in India it was productive of great harm. 

 But as regards this conflict of evidence, I do not 

 think that I overstate the case when I say, that in a 

 question of this sort the evidence of one expert 

 should outweigh that of a dozen enthusiasts, especially 

 when to the cause for which the latter are contend- 

 ing they apply the word "sacred." I am en- 

 couraged in this view when I remember how 

 strangely discrepant may be two versions of the 

 same event given by different and opposed bodies 

 of enthusiasts ; for instance, the narrative of this 

 or that event in Central Africa as severally related 

 by Protestant and Catholic missionaries when acting 

 in opposition. Moreover, even by the missionaries, 

 opium is said to be injurious chiefly from a " moral " 

 point of view. It is said by them to affect mentally 

 the natives of India and China much as alcohol is 

 said by people of the same type to affect the natives 

 of England. "The moral effect on the heathen 

 seems to be to rob them of all that little moral 

 sense they seem naturally to have, and it turns 



