APPENDIX M 283 



Comments ly Dr Wynn Westcott. 



Clause XIV. The opening statement of this Clause is true 

 as far as my study of the subject enables me to judge. The 

 Committee has adopted the remarks on national peculiarities 

 on the authority of the researches of Dr Archdall Reid, and 

 has itself not made any investigations on this subject. The 

 comparative sobriety of different races and nations at different 

 ages is hardly capable of any definite proof, although correct 

 inferences may possibly be drawn from literary sources. 



Wynn Westcott. 



Comments by Dr Thomas Morton. 



Although I do not like the form which either the proceedings 

 of the Committee or their outcome have taken, I sign the 

 Report with some reservations, because I agree generally with 

 its two contentions (IV., V., and VI.), that the inebriate con- 

 stitution, in so far as it is an acquired character, cannot be 

 transmitted to offspring, but only in so far as it is an inborn 

 character; and that (X. and XI.) elimination of families most 

 prone to inebriety must have been, as it certainly is, constantly 

 going on, whatever may be the value of the facts alleged in 

 Clause XII., as to which I desire to be considered as offering 

 no opinion. 



I believe all men (VII.) are more or less potential inebriates, 

 which is only another way of expressing the facts that all men 

 are more or less led by the desire of pleasurable sensations, and 

 that alcohol, among — and supreme among — certain other drugs, 

 is so marvellously related to the human body as to be capable 

 not only of exciting certain sensations in an exquisite degree, 

 but of establishing a morbid condition in which they are more 

 and more craved for. 



