592 REVIEWS. 
There is a healthiness of tone in them which commend them 
much to our admiration. 
Dr. Lay cock is not a total abstinence man. He takes a 
sound, moral, scientific, and common-sense view of the 
question. We might ascend higher still, and say a 
religious one ; thus adducing the highest motive for modera- 
tion in all things. He therefore strongly denounces all 
indulgence leading to intemperance, or even an approach 
thereto. With this we concur, for neither the Divine 
Founder of Christianity nor his Apostles condemned a 
proper or timely use of stimulants, but contrariwise, since 
there are periods and circumstances when they are not only 
required, but imperatively demanded; and we have no desire 
to be wise above that which is written. 
The present age would seem to be one of extremes, which 
are always dangerous. If we were to pen down all that has 
been said about what we may not eat and drink, we should 
be left with only a modicum of food for our daily sustenance. 
But all God’s creatures are good, partaken of with thank- 
fulness In wisdom He has made them all, and they are for 
our use. To abuse them, and thus to run into excess of riot, 
betokens an ungrateful heart, and degrades man lower than 
the brute. 
Drunkenness and gluttony are unquestionably great evils, 
viewed either morally or politically. Perhaps, the former 
is the more prevalent vice, since the means of accomplishing 
it are more easily and cheaply obtained. 
“A drunkard,” says Dr. Laycock, “ is a man who habitually impairs and 
abolishes his mental and bodily powers by the use of poisonous drinks, the 
effective constituent of which is a chemical compound known as Alcohol. 
Intoxication in its medical sense, means the morbid state induced by any 
poisonous agent ; so that strictly, a man who impairs his faculties by other 
drugs, as Ether, Opium, Tobacco, or Indian Hemp, intoxicates himself, and 
in fact the drugs I mention are used by mankind for the same purpose as 
alcoholic drinks. 
“Alcohol, in common with all poisonous agents, produces, when taken 
into the blood, results which vary in extent according to various circum- 
stances, but under any circumstances, if taken in sufficient quantity, it 
abolishes the functions of the brain. All consciousness and will is then sus- 
pended, and the man is said to be dead drunk. If the poison operates still 
more deeply and abolishes the functions of that part of the nervous system 
