THE SOLUTION OF THE PROBLEM 159 



forms of restraint. Autocratic government, fana- 

 ticism, and isolation are accompaniments of 

 barbarism. Individual freedom, intellectual tolera- 

 tion, and wide intercourse with distant nations 

 characterise higher states of society. It was 

 perhaps possible for Charlemagne to enforce 

 moderation. To-day the legal enforcement of 

 moderation is quite impossible. The Mahomedans 

 and Buddhists have enforced abstinence with some 

 success ; but at a heavy cost. I doubt whether 

 the most rabid reformer would willingly pay the 

 price for Prohibition that Mahomedans and 

 Buddhists have paid. The same influence, 

 religious fanaticism, which has rendered them 

 sober, has rendered them barbarous also. By 

 limiting intercourse with more free and en- 

 lightened, if more drunken, people, and enforcing 

 it by such means as the pouring of molten lead 

 down the throats of the drunken, they have, in 

 some measure, rendered Prohibition possible. But 

 who would pay that price? Archbishop Magee's 

 saying occurs to me : "I would rather see 

 E norland free than sober." We should have to 

 manufacture a new religion which, unlike Chris- 

 tianity, forbade alcohol.^ 



1 Notwithstanding the fanaticism of Mahomedans and Buddhists, 

 the secret and even open use of alcohol is by no means uncommon 

 amongst them. The Persians, for example, have been addicted to 

 drink for many centuries. Moreover, Mahomedans and Buddhists 

 have substituted opium for alcohol. 



