i6o A STUDY IN HEREDITY 



Two fundamental errors underlie the assump- 

 tions of temperance reformers. They believe (i) 

 that self-control is a principal factor in the causation 

 of sobriety, and (2) that parental drinking renders 

 offspring more prone to drunkenness than they 

 would otherwise be. We need not discuss the 

 latter point again. It has not a tittle of supporting 

 evidence, and its logical conclusion is the exploded 

 Lamarckian doctrine — if parental drinking so 

 affects offspring that, as a consequence, they are 

 more drunken than they would otherwise be, the 

 races that have longest used alcohol should be the 

 most drunken of all ; the contrary is the fact. But 

 we cannot too much or too often insist that the 

 belief that self-control is a principal factor in the 

 causation of sobriety is founded on absolute error. 

 Not self-control, but lack of desire, is the principal 

 factor. If once this all-important truth be firmly 

 grasped, it will be seen that the situation is 

 radically different from that imagined by temper- 

 ance reformers, and that the remedy likewise must 

 be different from the one advocated by them. 



In this instance, as in so many others, men have 

 thought too much in abstract terms. Parrot-like, 

 they have repeated the cry of "self-control," with- 

 out pausing to consider the concrete cases with 

 which they are surrounded. At the cost of reitera- 

 tion, but for the last time, let me beg my reader 



