356 THE PRESENT EVOLUTION OF MAN — MENTAL 



sidered alcohol at length, it is not necessary to devote 

 much space to the other narcotics, opium among the rest. 

 The two processes of evolution — i. e. against alcohol and 

 opium — must have proceeded on very similar lines, 

 except in so far that immunity against opium was 

 probably much more easily and quickly achieved than 

 immunity against alcohol, for the reasons that a much 

 smaller divergence from the ancestral type apparently 

 suffices to protect against the latter, and because poison- 

 ous preparations of opium are much more easily manu- 

 factured than like preparations of alcohol — as is natural 

 since opium is a " toxin," a substance that protects the 

 organism producing it from other organisms to which it 

 is liable to become a prey. It must therefore have 

 been from the time it was first used as an intoxicant, 

 the cause of a much severer process of selection than 

 was alcohol when first used. 



The Greeks of the time of Hippocrates were ac- 

 quainted with the medicinal use of opium.^ and early 

 imparted their knowledge to the Arabs,^ who in turn 

 introduced the poppy with the knowledge of its medici- 

 nal properties to India and China,^ to the latter country 

 later than to the former, but yet as early as the eighth 

 century. But not till very long afterwards, not till five 

 hundred years or more had elapsed, was the unfortunate 

 discovery made that it might be used like alcohol to 

 produce pleasurable sensations. For some hundreds of 

 years its use as a narcotic has been prevalent in certain 

 parts of India, whence at the beginning of the last cen- 

 tury the Chinese acquired the knowledge and the habit 

 of using it, as a consequence of which the famous 

 import trade with India sprang up. The Burmese have 

 had far less experience of the drug, indeed they have 

 used it extensively only within the memory of living 



1 First Report, Royal Commission on Opium,, p. 147. 

 2 Ibid. p. 147. 3 jj^_ p. 148 



