591 
REVIEWS. 
“ Man’s highest pleasures, all the joys of sense, 
Lie in three words, Health, Peace, and Competence. 
But Health consists with Temperance alone, 
And Peace, oh, Virtue ! Peace is all thine own.” 
Advancing a step onward, he says — 
“ The higher classes of animals have, like man, a special apparatus for 
harmoniously combining all the machinery of the body ; a central telegraph 
office — the seat of the will and of consciousness. This is the brain and the 
nervous system. It is in the brain that those changes take place which are 
coincident with desire and aversion, and of all other changes in the con- 
sciousness. If the brain is sufficiently injured, the man becomes unconscious ; 
but for all that the soul may not cease to act; it certainly does not cease 
to exist. But we know nothing of it except as it is manifested through the 
body, so that we have to investigate the conditions of the brain if we would 
know the state of the soul. Now under ordinary circumstances, we know 
nothing of the working of each particular organ, nor even of their existence. 
It is only physiological science that teaches us the existence and structure 
and functions of these organs; without this, man knows nothing of his 
heart or lungs, or stomach or brain, nor need he, so long as all goes on har- 
moniously. So soon, however, as disease or disorder takes place, the play 
of the organs is revealed, he must eat the bitter fruit of the tree of know- 
ledge, and he now not only knows that he has organs, but he also finds out 
that he must seek and obtain a knowledge of the method by which the 
divine artificer has constructed them, and the duties he has allotted to each, 
if he would get relief from pain. This is medical knowledge. Medicine is, 
therefore, one of the blessings which God has given to fallen man to allevi- 
ate the consequences of the primal curse.” 
The desire for alcoholic fluids has, we are told, a two-fold 
origin: the exciting of a pleasant sense of health and vigour, 
and the removing of bodily languor and exhaustion, arising 
either from mental or physical causes. For the former 
they are uncalled for ; while for the latter, when used with 
judgment, they are both necessary and beneficial. Youth 
and manhood are the ages most tempted to indulge in 
convivial excesses. 
“ It is from this period of life that drunken habits date so often their be- 
ginning. Young men fall victims to intemperance in a far greater propor- 
tion (that of five to one) than young women; and the same holds good as 
to other vices. The tendency to intemperance and crime diminishes as life 
advances, after the age of fifty. According to Mr. Neison’s researches, a 
youthful drunkard of 20 has the chance of living 15 j years longer; a 
healthy temperate youth of the same age the probability of living 44 years 
longer.” 
But we have said Dr. Laycock is not a total abstainer. 
As a medical man and philosopher, he knew that there are 
