340 THE PRESENT EVOLUTION OF MAN— MENTAL 



the stringency of Alcoholic Selection, e. g. by diminish- 

 ing or abolishing the supply of alcohol, whereby the 

 innately drunken are permitted to survive and have 

 offspring equally with the innately sober, that the 

 cravingfor alcohol will grow in generation after gener- 

 ation, till the race reverts to that ancestral condition in 

 which the craving was as strong as it is at the present 

 day among the North American Indians or the native 

 Australians, who have undergone no evolution in 

 relation to alcohol ; in other words, the success of every 

 scheme for the promotion of temperance, which depends 

 on the diminution or extinction of the alcoholic supply, 

 or on voluntary or involuntary abstinence from alcohol, 

 Total Abstinence, Local Veto, the Gothenburg System, 

 &c., will — must — result in an aggravation of the 

 craving for that state of mind which indulgence in 

 alcohol induces ; a craving which, in each stage, will be 

 proportionate to the degree of retrogression undergone 

 by the race, both in respect to the strength of the 

 craving, and in respect to the depth of the intoxication 

 desired ; and therefore it follows, that all such schemes 

 for the promotion of temperance are in effect nothing 

 other than schemes for the promotion of drunkenness, 

 or at any rate for the promotion of the craving for it. 



It cannot be too strongly insisted on, or too often 

 reiterated, that the craving for alcohol, like sexual love, 

 is an instinct, not an acquired trait. It is called into 

 activity, but is not created by appropriate stimulation, 

 by experience of that state of mind which indulgence in 

 alcohol induces. In this it differs radically from such 

 an acquired passion as that, for instance, for a particular 

 religious system, which is entirely created, not merely 

 called into activity by stimulation, and for which may 

 be substituted aversion or a passion for some other 

 religious system ; that is, which may be destroyed by 

 opposing acquired traits. The passion for alcohol 



