APPENDIX M 275 



influenced by moral, 'religious, and other considerations. Yet 

 the fact remains that he who is greatly tempted more often falls 

 than he who is less tempted. 



X. Alcohol is a poison, as is abundantly proved by common 

 experience and the statistics of Temperance, Friendly, and 

 Insurance Societies. These prove conclusively that, as a class, 

 drinkers have shorter lives than abstainers, and afford a pre- 

 sumption that they also leave fewer descendants. 



XI. Alcohol, like every other toxic agent, has most effect on 

 those who are most exposed to its influence. In other words, 

 it continually weeds out from every race exposed to it the 

 individuals who most enjoy and indulge in it. 



XII. Races that have long been exposed to the action of 

 alcohol have grown more and more temperate. For example, 

 Greeks, Italians, South Frenchmen and Germans, Spaniards, 

 Portuguese, and Jews, who have been most exposed to the 

 action of alcohol, are very temperate. The nations of Northern 

 Europe, on the other hand, who have been less exposed to the 

 action of alcohol — for example, the British, Scandinavian, and 

 Russian — are more drunken ; whereas most^ savages, Esquimaux, 

 Red Indians, Pacific Islanders, Tierra del Fuegians, Australians, 

 and others who have had little or no racial experience of alcohol 

 are excessively drunken. West Africans form an exception to 

 the drunkenness of savages ; they are comparatively temperate, 

 but they have been long weeded out by alcohol in the shape of 

 abundant supplies of palm wine. — Dr Thomas Morton declining 

 to sign, and see comments of Dr Wynn Wesicott and Professor 

 Sims Woodhead. 



XIII. It must, however, be recognised that national differ- 

 ences are not wholly dependent on this age-to-age elimination. 

 Much must be allowed for national differences in temperament, 

 independent of this factor of elimination, and for ideals of 

 enjoyment, for differences in the kind of intoxicant used, for 

 social and industrial conditions, and for the want of self-control 

 in savage races. — Dr Archdall Reid and Dr Laing Gordon 

 dissenting. 



