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STUDIES IN THE PSYCHOLOGY OF
INTEMPERANCE
STUDIES IN THE PSYCHOLOGY
OF INTEMPERANCE
BY
Qlala
E. PARTRIDGE, Ph.D.
Author of "An Outline of Individual Study," The Nervous
Life," and Genetic Philosophy of Education
Formerly Lecturer in Clark University
Rew Dork
STURGIS & WALTON
COMPANY
1912
Copyright 1912
By STURGIS & WALTON COMPANY
Set up and electrotyped. Published October, 1912
PREFACE
This book is an attempt to present, in as un-
technical a manner as possible, a psychological
view of the nature of intoxication, and of the
craving for alcoholic, and to a certain extent of
other, stimulants and narcotics. Anyone who
considers the problem of intemperance must
admit that before we can intelligently cope with
the practical questions of control, we must first
understand better the human nature that is in-
volved. Whether or not the reader will agree
with me that, since the causes of drinking are
largely social, the cure and control must also
be social, he must admit, I should think, that
the point of view here taken in collecting evi-
dence upon the alcohol problem is sound, and
that to be prepared to form practical conclu-
sions about temperance and intemperance one
must understand the psychological questions
involved. That these are both deep and inter-
esting, I hope I may convince the reader.
The work here reported is a continuation of
an investigation made some years ago, a part
of which was reported upon in the American
Journal of Psychology, Vol. XI. Owing to the
240666
PREFACE
technical nature of that publication, the views
there expressed seem to me not to have had so
wide a circulation as I hope they deserve. For
this reason the whole matter has been brought
up again and re-examined. The main thesis
has been expanded and more popularly pre-
sented, and practical conclusions have been
more fully worked out. Some new experi-
mental matter has been added, and a review
made of the literature that has accumulated
since the first study was published.
It would be a matter of regret to me if my
results were interpreted by anyone as antag-
onistic to the temperance movement. In this
work, if anywhere, there is need of harmonious
co-operation on the part of all. In regard to
the desired end we all no doubt think much
alike. Such differences as there are are differ-
ences about ways and means. Let anyone agree
with me that the main effort must be educa-
tional and constructive, rather than legal and
negative, and there will be, I think, little left to
dispute. If I do not place much emphasis upon
present total abstinence, it is rather because I
think that here is not the firing line of the con-
flict with alcohol, than that I wish to ignore the
dangers of drinking. So far as I know I never
met a man whom I thought the worse merely
for not drinking. I have met some men, how-
ever, whose moral usefulness I thought much
PREFACE
lessened by their complete lack of understand-
ing of the inner life of the drinker. We need a
revelation of human nature, and a sympathetic
interest in the problems and needs of individual
men; and we need a clearer perception of the
possibility of good that accompanies all great
evils. This, it seems to me, is the basis, both
of rational optimism, and of sound practical en-
deavour
Some of the many obligations to writers and
others which I have incurred, I have tried to
make plain in the book itself. Very many have
helped me whose names I do not know; some
who have aided me most I cannot mention at all.
In both the earlier and the more recent studies
my wife has assisted me in various ways: in
gathering materials, and in the troublesome de-
tails of revision and proofs. For assistance in
the experimental studies of the effects of small
doses of alcohol, I am especially indebted to
Professor C. F. Hodge of Clark University.
G. E. PARTRIDGE.
WORCESTER, June, 1912.
CONTENTS
PART I
THE INTOXICATION IMPULSE
OHAPTER
PAGE
3
PLES
I THE PROBLEM
II INTOXICATION AND EXCITEMENT IN ANIMALS 11
III DRINKING AMONG PRIMITIVE AND SAVAGE PEO-
22
er IV DRINKING AMONG CIVILIZED NATIONS
42
V THE INTOXICATION MOTIVES IN LITERATURE AND
LANGUAGE
71
F VI MENTAL AND PHYSICAL EFFECTS OF INTOXICANTS 82
VII THE STATE OF INTOXICATION
100
VIII A STUDY OF ABNORMAL CASES
133
IX THEORIES OF THE INTOXICATION IMPULSE
164
X SUMMARY OF FACTS AND INTERPRETATIONS
199
.
PART II
.
THE PRACTICAL PROBLEM
XI THE PRACTICAL PROBLEM
. 219
XII THE SALOON AND THE CLUB .
222
XIII PREVENTIVE AND EDUCATIONAL MEASURES
240
XIV THE CARE, CURE, AND CONTROL OF THE DRUNKARD 253
XV SUMMARY OF PRACTICAL PRINCIPLES
261
REFERENCES
. 267
THE INTOXICATION IMPULSE
STUDIES IN THE PSYCHOLOGY
OF INTEMPERANCE
CHAPTER I
THE PROBLEM
OUR problem is the origin, nature, course of
development and the meaning of those traits
of human nature and the social life which
have led men to use, to enjoy, to become
habituated to, and sometimes to be destroyed
by, intoxicating drinks. We are well accus-
tomed to incessant outcry against alcohol; we
hear much of both the physical and moral dis-
asters resulting from its excessive use; we have
statistics dealing with the consumption of alco-
holic beverages; there are many excellent in-
vestigations of the effects of alcoholic and
other intoxicants upon both mental and physi-
cal functions; the effects of alcohol in causing
weakness and disease in offspring have been
carefully studied :-but as yet we have very
little insight into the nature of the impulse to
use intoxicants, which is so deep-seated and
wide-spread among the nations of men; which
3
4 PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
is so intimately connected with so many of our
questions of morals, education, government,
and the social life; which is the cause, or at
least the accompanying condition, of so much
misery, poverty, and crime. Our effort has
been rather to cure, by the shortest possible
course, the most obvious evils of intemperance,
than patiently to study the whole problem.
This is natural enough, for the evils have
seemed pressing, and some palliatives at least
ready at hand; while the study of problems is
laborious, and too often appears impractical
and doubtful of issue.
It is quite natural, too, that our moral atti-
tudes toward such problems as intemperance
should sometimes be hastily formed, and un-
critical. We all have our standards of moral
values, based in part upon natural feelings, and
in part acquired from contact with others, and
reflecting the ideals of the society in which we
happen to be born and live. Such natural
judgments and practical wisdom do very well,
on the whole, for ordinary affairs. Feeling,
social sanction, ordinary observation and in-
terest must be the basis of most of our judg-
ments and actions—must provide the great
background of common sense and common mo-
rality by which we live. And yet, in many ways,
these native qualities are inadequate to cope
with great issues. Until the why of a situation
THE PROBLEM
5
is understood fully, the control can never be
entirely rational and effective. In all great
practical questions, the voice of science is
now respectfully heard. It must be so in
moral issues. We shall never be fully
equipped to pass moral judgments upon the use
of alcohol, or to devise means for controlling
its use, until we understand more fully why
alcohol has played such a part as it has in the
history of mankind. Without such insight we
shall always be empiricists, like the physician
who treats a disease by controlling the symp-
toms, without trying to understand the nature
of the disease.
We do not intend to carry our discussion into
the theory of ethics, but simply to point out
one truth, and apply it to the study of intem-
perance. We can never practically grasp any
great problem of morality, social economy, and
public hygiene until we understand the nature
of the human passions which cause such a prob-
lem to exist. Were there not something in
human nature that made the use of alcohol a
persistent and almost irradicable habit in so-
ciety, we should have no problem of intemper-
We must therefore try to understand
what the impulse behind the habit is, what the
nature of the effect of alcohol is upon bodily
and mental states, that makes the habit possi-
ble.
:
ance.
6 PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
cause.
The fundamental question of all is, What is
the intoxication impulse, or the craving for
alcohol? Why do men indulge in alcoholic
drinks? How is this habit related, if it is re-
lated, to other traits of human nature? Has
it had an origin in normal traits of body or
mind, or is it a disease or abnormality? And,
if we find it to be a disease, we must still ask
what its origin is, what its relations to normal
growth are. For a disease is never merely a
disease, to be considered by itself. It has a
We need to know also the causes of the
great variability of the influence of alcohol
upon different individuals—why some are safe
in its presence, and others are so affected that
all moral instincts are swept away before it,
and the most fundamental passions of self-
preservation and love of offspring made as
nothing. We must know what inner forces in
individuals produce the capacity for such pow-
erful habits, and what social factors are con-
cerned in their development and perpetuation.
No one need expect to find all these pressing
questions answered as yet by anyone. All we
can do at the present time is to lay out certain
evidence, follow to their conclusions some well-
grounded principles of human development,
construct an hypothesis that shall explain as
many of the facts as possible, and perhaps find
practical devises that will improve our present
3
THE PROBLEM
7
control of the situation. We do not look for
final conclusions.
We wish to know about the nature and origin
of the intoxicating impulses. The very fact
that these impulses seem so persistent and deep-
seated, and so difficult to eradicate from soci-
ety, shows that we must delve deeply into the
history of the human mind, if we are to get at
the root of the problem. The fact that those
who most freely admit the damaging effect of
alcohol upon their own bodies and minds are
the least able to escape its tyranny shows, in
itself, that we are not dealing with any lightly
acquired trait of human nature, against which
it is sufficient to turn a tide of fashion.
There are many lines of inquiry open to a
scientific interest in intemperance. We can
gather facts about the use of intoxicants among
primitive peoples, and in civilized nations.
Something may be learned from the attitude
of animals toward intoxicants, and the effects
of alcohol upon them. By studying simpler
forms of life than our present complex society
and individuals, we may be able to detect be-
ginnings, to relate the abnormal to the normal,
to find conditions out of which habits of in-
temperance have sprung.
In order to understand a desire or craving,
it is also necessary to know precisely what it is
that is craved. We can experiment upon ani-
8 PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
mals, and even upon the human being, to de-
termine what intoxication, or any effect of
alcohol, is. We can measure, test various
effects, gather reports of the feelings and
thoughts of those we test. We can accumulate
evidence from those who have succumbed to
habit, and learn the history of their experi-
ences. We can collect statistics about age,
social conditions, cures, and the like. Some-
thing will be learned from the medical reports
of typical and extreme cases of alcoholism.
Finally, the intoxication motives may be
studied in their expression in literature, lan-
guage, and art. Drinking songs, the writings
of men known to have used intoxicants to ex-
cess, the vocabulary of intoxication all these
can in one way or another be regarded as ob-
jective evidence of the traits we are trying to
study. In fact there are many promising ways
of approach to the problem of the nature of
the intoxication motives—some already well
opened, some as yet quite untried.
The attitude which we wish to take in this
study of intemperance, and intoxication gener-
ally, is, therefore, that of observation and in-
terpretation of facts—in other words, the sci-
entific attitude. We do not wish to begin with
pre-formed moral judgments, for the cate-
gories of science are not those of right and
wrong. Yet so strong is the tendency to
:
THE PROBLEM
9
evaluate that even sciences that ought to
remain purely descriptive are prone to di-
vide everything into two classes, the nor-
mal and the abnormal, the good and the bad-
making sciences of normal life, and sciences of
abnormal life. This tendency to classification
has done harm in preventing a study of the ab-
normal in its normal relations. This is in an-
other form precisely the limitation we com-
plain of in the uncritical in dealing with such
problems as intemperance. This attitude al-
ways sets up the two rigid classes, the normal
and the abnormal, the good and the bad; the
former to be fostered and encouraged, and the
latter to be suppressed. It is just this practi-
cal and easy manner of dealing with human
nature, whether instigated by feelings, or by too
narrow a science, that prevents a broad and
deep understanding of facts in all their rela-
tions. So long as the drinking of alcohol, for
example, is regarded by great numbers of our
population as merely harmful or sinful; a
product merely of the evil in man's nature; as
a result merely of social disease and disorder,
we shall never be able to cope with the great
evil of intemperance. It is irrational to legis-
late as though for all time, without knowledge
of the nature or the force of the instincts
against which the legislation is directed. And
how shall we know what to say to the child, or
10 PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
what interests and faculties to train, in order
to prevent his growing up to be a drunkard,
unless we know precisely out of what physical
and psychical elements the qualities of the
drunkard are made? Without the fullest possi-
ble understanding of the forces with which we
deal, it is quite likely that we shall be looking
far away for that which lies near at hand; that
we shall lose time and energy trying to do the
impossible, or quite as bad, the unnecessary;
that we shall cause evils we wish to cure, or put
others as bad or worse in their place.
CHAPTER II
INTOXICATION AND EXCITEMENT IN ANIMALS
SOMETHING may be learned about any human
trait, whether of body or mind, by studying its
beginning or antecedents in animals. There is
no longer need of justifying this approach to
human psychology. Genetic methods prevail
everywhere, and comparative psychology has
become a well-established science. So we may
safely start with the assumption that whenever
we find a deep-seated trait in the human mind,
we shall profit by trying to trace its origins in
animal life. Sometimes the trait, in its human
form, can be traced but a little way-for ex-
ample, the conscience--but we can always find
primitive traits related to the higher, and in
some way involved in producing them. Even
religion has in recent years been studied genet-
ically, and its roots found in primitive love and
fear: states of mind and habits which in turn
have come by an unbroken chain of steps from
the most elementary expressions of psychic
life.
We might well begin the study of intoxication
in an investigation of animal life with three
11
12 PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
questions in mind. We should like to know,
first, whether animals are affected by stimu-
lants and intoxicants in the same way that
men are; and if so how low down in the scale
of animal life the physical and mental capacity,
for intoxication may be found. It would be im-
portant, next, to know whether animals acquire
the habit of intoxication: whether they enjoy
intoxication as men do, and can be said to have
a craving for it, or for alcoholic or other in-
toxicating drinks as such. We should like to
know also whether among animals other states
may be found, or other impulses, cravings or
habits which can throw light upon the nature
of the intoxication motive; whether, if animals
have intoxication habits of any kind, reason
for the enjoyment of such states can be found
in their relations to activities that are useful
to the animal, and the presence of which we can
understand.
Animal psychology has as yet less to offer
than we might wish in the way of facts bear-
ing directly upon the intoxication impulse, and
these facts are often difficult to interpret,
especially facts about the formation of habit;
for, of course, we cannot secure introspective
reports of the states of feeling of an animal.
Apparently many animals are affected phys-
ically by alcohol in ways essentially like in-
toxication as we find it in the human species.
INTOXICATION IN ANIMALS
13
Romanes (1) made experiments upon jellyfish,
starfish, and sea-urchins. The first effect upon
sarsia, for example, was to cause a great in-
crease in the frequency of the swimming move-
ments: so much that the bell had no time to
expand properly between the successive con-
tractions. Gradually the movements grew less
and less frequent and forcible, until, finally, the
animal was no longer responsive to stimuli ap-
plied to its tentacles. Here are, then, the ex-
ternal signs of a series of steps, very like the
stages of intoxication in a man. Whether the
animal feels in any way as a man does: whether
there is a stage of heightened feeling and ex-
citement, followed by depression and a com-
atose condition, perhaps no one would feel
competent to say. It is not at all unlikely.
Whether or not the animal is capable of re-
membering the experience, and desiring its repe-
tition is more difficult still to decide precisely,
and yet it is less likely.
There is much evidence to show that the effect
of large doses of alcohol upon many species of
animals is essentially the same. A period of
increased activity is followed by lessened activ-
ity.* Insects are capable of becoming intoxi-
* But even upon this point there is not wanting contradic-
tory evidence. Kesteven (2) made tests upon amebæ by plac-
ing the animals in alcoholic solutions ranging in strength
from 1 per cent. to 7 per cent. He was not able to detect a
stage of stimulation in any case, and found that locomotion
14 PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
cated. Wasps have been observed apparently
intoxicated by the juices of over-ripe fruit.
They become excited, and finally crawl away in
a semi-somnolent condition, and lie in the grass
until they recover, and then return to the fruit.
Dogs show quite unmistakably the typical stages
of intoxication. Under the influence of large
doses of alcohol they become exalted in feeling
or, at least, motor activity and expressions of
social feeling increase; and following this stage
there is one of depression and fear, and the
animal skulks away and hides.
Do animals have, or can they acquire, a crav-
ing for intoxication or intoxicants as man does?
This is difficult to decide. Facts are not want-
ing, but the interpretation of them is difficult.
Stories are often told by reliable writers about
elephants, apes, and dogs that have acquired a
taste for alcoholic liquors. The fox terrier, a
favourite among sailors, is often credited with
a craving for alcohol. Hens and chickens will
eagerly devour bread soaked in brandy or
whisky. Stories are told about dogs that pre-
fer beer to meat, and when offered both together
will drink the beer and refuse the meat. All
such cases leave much to be desired in the way
of psychological interpretation. We do not
ceased as soon as the solution reached the animal. Though
the animals were able to live in a solution of 5 per cent.,
there was always some degree of paralysis.
INTOXICATION IN ANIMALS
15
know whether the animal merely becomes fond
of the taste of the drink, or whether the mental
state is remembered, and sought once more.
There is no doubt that animals can be trained
to drink alcoholic beverages, and to like them;
but whether a dog, for example, would be cap-
able of forming so complex an association as
to seek a drink that is disagreeable to the taste,
for the sake of a remote psychic effect, seems
doubtful. This is what happens often in the
case of man. The mental effect of the drink,
and not the drink itself, is what pleases, and
as we shall see later, forms the basis of the
habit.
On the other side there are numerous facts
showing that animals often dislike either the
taste or the effect of intoxicants. Darwin (3)
relates an instance of baboons being made drunk
with beer. The next morning the keeper found
them holding their heads tightly, and when
offered beer they refused to taste it again,
It is too much to assert that they rightly at-
tributed their feelings to their drink the day
before, for all the mental action needed is a
feeling of nausea at the smell of alcohol. It is
quite likely they would have refused food also.
Dr. Hodge's dogs, which were experimented
upon with alcohol for at least two years, never
showed a taste for it, although they had it daily
in large doses. One of these dogs, after two
16 PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
years' experience with alcohol skulked into a
corner and refused to come out again when she
scented a bottle of alcohol. In her case the
dose had never been sufficient to produce in-
toxication.
So far as these facts are concerned we have
evidence neither for or against the view that
animals are capable of enjoying and seeking
intoxication as a man does. It certainly is not
impossible that they do. They surely have the
expressive signs of enjoyment of the state while
it lasts, and if they can form the association be-
tween the drink and its effect, and retain a
sufficient memory of the state itself as different
from their ordinary experiences, they have the
mental equipment and degree of intelligence to
become drunkards in the real sense. Whether
the mental state of intoxication affords for
them a sufficiently rich experience to be so re-
tained and sought, may well, however, be matter
of doubt; but the difference between man and
animals, in these respects, must be one merely
of degree and complexity of experience, and
not of nature. We cannot suppose the animal
capable of the higher motives for intoxication,
such as a desire to drown sorrow, or to increase
the pleasure of his social relations; but he may
not be incapable of obtaining even these effects
in some degree from the state when it is once
attained.
INTOXICATION IN ANIMALS
17
We cannot leave the subject of animal intoxi-
cation without taking notice of certain states
observed among many species of animals, which
are very similar to alcoholic intoxication, usu-
ally, but not always, connected with the sexual
life. These states of exaltation appear to be
more common among birds, but are not wanting
in mammals. One or two examples will serve to
illustrate a phenomenon which occurs in all de-
grees of intensity, from slight increase in activ-
ity to the wildest excitement.
Besides the various plays of animals, in
which there appears to be a love of excitement
for its own sake, there are in some species
marked rhythmically occurring periods of in-
tense excitement. Chapman (4) describes a sky
dance of the woodcock as a succession of wild
rushes in the air, with always increasing speed
and with louder and louder cries, the object of
which seems to be to rise to the highest pitch of
excitement.
Worth (5) describes a dance of prairie chick-
ens or sharp-tailed grouse as follows:
“The birds, in companies of from six to twenty individuals,
assemble on some hillock or knoll fifty to a hundred feet
across, the floor being worn or beaten smooth by years of
tramping. After remaining for a time inactive, one of the
cocks lowers his head, spreads out his wings nearly horizon-
tally, and his tail perpendicularly, distends his air sacs and
erects his feathers, then rushes across the floor, taking the
shortest of steps but stamping his feet so hard and so rapidly
18 PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
that the sound is like that of a kettledrum; and at the same
time he utters a kind of bubbling crow which seems to rise
from his air sacs, beats the air with his wings and vibrates
the air with his tail, so that he produces a loud rustling noise
and thus becomes a really astonishing spectacle. Soon after
he commences, all the cocks join in, rattling, stamping, drum-
ming, crowing, and dancing furiously; louder and louder the
noise, faster and faster the dance becomes, until at last they
madly whirl about, leaping over each other in their excite-
ment."
Hudson (6) speaks of the screaming contests
of Platan rails, and remarks upon the striking
resemblance to the human voice exerted to its
utmost pitch and expressive of extreme terror
and despair. Wallace says:
“We see that the inferior animals, when the
conditions of life are favourable, are subject to
periodic fits of gladness affecting them power-
fully and standing out in vivid contrast to their
ordinary temper. Birds are more subject to
this universal joyous instinct than mammals,
and there are times when some species are
overflowing with it.'
Groos (1) also speaks of these strange
characteristics of the love dances and the play
of animals, and explains the intense excitement
of some of them on the ground that it is neces-
sary that the sexual impulse acquire tremen-
dous power and its fulfilment be rendered
difficult-hence the great and long-continued
excitement preceding the act of pairing.
Such facts suggest at the very outset many
INTOXICATION IN ANIMALS
19
problems; and although they cannot be probed
deeply at this point, one or two principles of
development may be mentioned, which will later
assist in understanding them.
We can assert, first, that whenever a habit or
capacity for a particular form of behaviour is
found to be deep-seated and widespread,
whether in animal or in man, it has a practical
meaning. This we find to be true of all play
and other seemingly purposeless activities.
And we should expect to discover, on this princi-
ple, that all states of extreme pleasure and
excitement-such as intoxication and the
capacity to attain them, would not prove to be
exceptions. We cannot readily believe that
they are mere chance phenomena, without mean-
ing, but should expect to discover in them a
deep origin and close connection with the prac-
tical life of the species.
Now, whenever we try to trace back the
higher emotions of man to their beginnings, we
usually find them connected with one or both
of two fundamental modes of behaviour, having
for ends the preservation of the life of the in-
dividual, and the continuance of the race by
reproduction. To carry on these activities
many structures, functions and impulses have
been established, and these fundamental struc-
tures and modes of action underlie all later de-
velopments. From them are created forms
20
PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
and functions sometimes seemingly very remote
in their purpose and mechanism from the primi-
tive mechanisms from which they are produced.
Often old structures and habits remain latent
in the organism, and are only in unusual circum-
stances utilised by being taken up into higher
functions.
We are justified in assuming, with a high
degree of probability, that in all exceptional
traits of consciousness, such as intense excite-
ment and intoxication, and the craving for these
states, old pleasure and pain mechanisms, once
connected with the practical life, are at work;
and that these states are somehow connected
with the mode of development of the individual
or the progress of the race as a whole.
Such a conclusion is not based upon precise
evidence in regard to any one function, and is
not to be taken as demonstrated truth; but the
testimony in its favor is so corroborative, part
to part, and this view now clarifies so many prob-
lems of the emotional life of man, that it must
be accepted as at least a co-ordinating point
of view from which such problems as intoxi-
cation may be investigated. We do not know
precisely to what extent either the reproductive
or other functions are involved in the history
of the intoxication pleasures and impulses; but
we shall see that it is difficult to avoid the con-
clusion that they are concerned in them, and it
.
INTOXICATION IN ANIMALS
21
is because of the connection of these states with
practical functions, that they have been pre-
served by selection, and that impulses to seek
such states of intensity have been established,
still further securing them. All this, however,
is at this point merely suggested as an illumi-
nating hypothesis, on the basis of which the
problems of intemperance in man may be
studied.
CHAPTER IIT
DRINKING AMONG PRIMITIVE AND SAVAGE PEOPLES
We can now see the full scope of the genetic
method of approach to our problem. Carried
out completely, it would be nothing less than a
study of the genesis of all the intoxication mo-
tives throughout the whole racial history from
the earliest animal life to the present time. It
would include the examination of both physical
and mental data, and their relations to one
another. It would go still further. It would
study, in the individual, the function of the
intoxication states and impulses, tracing these
from infancy upwards—and finally it would
try to correlate the two series of facts, the
racial and the individual.
In the study of the habits of primitive and
savage peoples we should expect to find much
valuable material for studying the nature of the
intoxication motive. Now we shall begin to
find data which are more psychological in
nature. The evidence is still not introspective,
but even the most primitive man has expressed
himself in symbols which we can interpret psy-
chologically with great confidence. We cannot,
22
PRIMITIVE PEOPLE'S DRINKING
23
it is true, reason directly from the savage to
civilised man; but the explanatory power of
facts about mere simple civilisations, in in-
terpreting the later and more complex, is now
so widely recognised that we can pass without
further argument to a review of the facts.
To present adequately the known facts about
the drinking habits of lower races, and the whole
history of the use of stimulants and narcotics
of all kinds, would require many volumes. The
purpose here is not to give such a detailed
history of drink, nor even to name and classify
the great number of intoxicants in use in the
world; but, if possible, to extract from suf-
ficient samples of the data psychological princi-
ples, which will aid in interpreting the intoxi-
cation motive as it appears in present social
life.
The custom of using intoxicating drinks is
certainly polygenetic; that is, it has not spread
as a habit from one part of the world to another,
but is indigenous in many places, and has prob-
ably arisen afresh at many times. No one can
examine the data without being convinced that,
whether for good or evil, intoxication has played
a very important part among uncivilised peo-
ples. Alcohol has not been simply a beverage,
causing (accidentally) intoxication; it has been
a great factor in the mental life of peoples, in
timately connected with religious, social, intel
24
PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
lectual and practical activities. It is difficult
for us, who have so many interests and means of
mental excitement, to understand, precisely, how
the savage has looked upon intoxication, and the
uses to which he has put it. After a study of
the facts it will be quite as difficult to understand
what the religious and social consciousness of
the savage might have been without the intoxi-
cation cults. Intoxicants have been literally
the creators of gods, and about their use have
crystallised myth and superstition, rite and
ceremony, in endless variety. State ceremoni-
als, worship, marriage, funerals, secular festi-
vals, initiatory rites, dances, hospitality (both
public and private), care of the sick, prepa-
ration for war, consummation of peace, trans-
action of business-all have served as occasions
for intoxication, and have been influenced by the
use of intoxicants.
The relation of intoxication to religion is an
interesting and fruitful psychological theme.
Excitement, whether induced by intoxicants or
otherwise, has often been regarded as the essen-
tial part of religious feeling. It has been in-
duced in various ways as a means of divine
worship: by violent movement, fasting, self-
torture, and by drugs. Epilepsy, chorea, and
other neurotic conditions have been, and still
are, regarded as divine, and have been volun-
tarily sought. Long courses of training in
PRIMITIVE PEOPLE'S DRINKING 25
practices that make the nerves crepitate have
been indulged in in order to bring the soul into
touch with supernatural powers. So it is but
a single instance of a general attitude toward
things divine, when intoxication is regarded as
god-given or pleasing to the gods. To uncivil-
ised man this belief is entirely logical; not only
did the ecstatic feeling and sense of increased
power induced by the intoxicant suggest this
view, but in the dreams which drugs produced
the savage seemed to enter his heaven and to
talk with his gods. Thus we need not be sur-
prised at finding that the belief in the religious
nature of intoxication was widespread, almost
as nearly universal as the use of intoxicants,
that the cult of intoxication has occurred in
many forms, and that remnants of it can still be
found, like rudimentary organs, in our own re-
ligion. It is a long way from the ancient soma
worship, in which all the devotees of Indra be-
came intoxicated to please the god, to our own
solemn sacrament of the communion, yet none
of the transitional steps are lacking; and psy-
chologically at least this sacrament must be sup-
posed to have a deep ancestral root in primitive
intoxication rites.
Indications of the use of intoxicants by prim-
itive man for some purpose, probably religious,
are not wanting. Dawkins, (8) speaking of the
neolithic stage of civilisation in Europe, says
26 PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
that the poppy was cultivated, and that small
round cakes have been found, indicating a prob-
able use as an intoxicant. The earliest his-
torical example of a religious cult certainly
founded upon intoxication is the soma worship
of the Hindus. In this belief, the god Indra
was supposed to be present in the wine; just
as, at a later time, the Greeks believed in regard
to Dionysus. Both the Zend Avesta and the
Vedas speak of a sacred plant, the fermented
juice of which was employed in sacred rites.
The Hindus believed that performance of the
soma rite was highly beneficial to both body
and soul; indeed they believed that Indra him-
self drank soma to obtain strength and vic-
tory in battle. Length of days was also at-
tributed by them to its use.
Religious cults of intoxication are scattered
all over the world among uncivilised peoples,
and there can be little doubt of their independ-
ent origin at many times and in many places.
A few, of many, will be mentioned.
A few years ago a remarkable religious in-
toxication ceremony was described, then newly
discovered among American tribes of Indians.
It spread from the Kiawi Indians and associ-
ated tribes, which formerly ranged from the
Arkansas River southward into Mexico, until it
became the chief religious practice of all the
tribes on the southern plains. The ceremony,
PRIMITIVE PEOPLE'S DRINKING 27
as described by Prentiss and Morgan, (9)
usually takes place on Saturday night and lasts
until noon of the next day. The men sit about
the brightly burning camp fire, chewing the in-
toxicating mescal, while a continuous singing
and beating of drums is kept up, interrupted by
occasional prayers for the sick and by baptismal
rites. The mescal button, in this rite, symbo-
lises the sun as the giver of life, and the purpose
of the ceremony is to enable the devotees to
understand the mysteries of the universe.
The Pueblos, another race of American In-
dians, are described as a sober people, who
never become intoxicated except in their re-
ligious ceremonies. Featherman (10) describes
a sacred festival of the Yakuts which is nothing
more than an elaborate drinking ceremony.
Spencer (11) says that the Dahomans deem it a
duty to the gods to be drunk. The Ainos of
Japan drink to the gods, as is also the custom
of the Polynesians. In Fiji, drinking is ac-
companied by prayers or chants to the gods.
The Patagonians pray to be eternally drunk in
heaven. Among the American Indians intoxi-
cation by tobacco was put to religious uses.
Shamanism, which can be said to be the first
organised religion, and which spread all over the
world, is founded upon intoxication. Shaman-
ism is essentially the belief that all events are
caused by mind-by good and evil spirits. The
28
PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
shaman is a priest, whose function is to control
these spirits by putting himself into touch with
them. He does this by excitement; by inducing
a mental state in which he sees visions, proph-
ecies, and professes to drive out evil in-
fluences and diseases. The shaman uses va-
rious means of attaining his divine frenzy.
Epileptic or hysterical excitement is produced
by wild and rapid movements, by contortions,
by beating of drums, by fasting, and by drugs.
In some cases a long training is undergone to
produce a nervous condition. Young candi-
dates are chosen from among the constitution-
ally nervous, sensitive, and excitable. The use
of intoxicants to aid in producing the divine
state is very widespread, and the method is
practised both by male and by female shamans.
Sometimes the intoxication is participated in by
onlookers as well as by the priest. An interest-
ing instance has been described by observers in
the Philippines. (12) In some of the native
tribes the shaman is usually a woman, who
works herself up to a state of frenzied nervous
excitement by contortions and by drinking great
quantities of fermented liquor. Accompanying
her medicine ceremonies there is feasting and
revelling, until all present become intoxicated
and fall into an unconscious state.
Many other instances could be cited. The In-
dians of California, Mexico, Peru and Brazil all
PRIMITIVE PEOPLE'S DRINKING
29
had drug ceremonies which vary in the drug
used, and in minor matters of form, but all of
which are essentially alike in their purpose.
Dyer (13) says that the Darien Indians of South
America give seeds of the intoxicating datura
to children to produce a prophetic delirium in
which they reveal hidden treasures. Informa-
tion about their enemies was obtained in a
similar way among other tribes.
Intoxication and excitement as religious
ecstasy do not by any means end with the
shamanistic stage of religious development.
One cannot fail to see that their descendants
have survived during all stages of culture, even
our own. Various forms of nervous disorder,
such as hysteria, epilepsy, chorea, convulsions,
and ecstasies have been induced voluntarily for
religious purposes—and hardly a year passes
in our own century in which we do not hear of a
new practice founded upon some form of ex-
citement.
The use of intoxicants for religious purposes
established, as it were, their standing among
primitive customs. The state of intoxication,
instead of being regarded as immoral or in bad
taste, as among us, was highly commendable
and correct on many occasions. We can truly
say that there is no important event in life that
has not been habitually celebrated by intoxi-
cation. Every occasion that excites the emo-
30
PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
tions, whether of joy or sorrow, seems to have
demanded somewhere artificial means of in-
tensifying the feeling.
Among some New Mexican Indian tribes a
peculiar birth ceremony has been witnessed,
celebrated only at the birth of a first child. In
this, the father becomes intoxicated, and while
in this state, is surrounded by a dancing multi-
tude who score his body until the blood flows.
The use of intoxicants in pubertal rites is
very common, and was often practised by
American Indians. The Tuscaroras (14) of
North Carolina, in their initiation rites, ad-
ministered to the boys several kinds of bark
and stimulating plants which produced a state
of intoxication. When the Creek (15) boys were
to be initiated into manhood they gathered two
handfuls of a certain plant which intoxicates
and maddens, continued eating the bitter root
for a whole day, and then steeped the leaves in
water and drank from the decoction.
Marriage among uncivilised peoples has al-
most universally been a time of feasting and
drinking, in which intoxication adds to the
pleasure and excitement. In many places it is
celebrated by special ceremonies in which drink-
ing forms a part, sometimes in causing intoxi-
cation, sometimes in other ways.
Even death has been celebrated by intoxi-
cation. Featherman (16) reports of the Lapps
PRIMITIVE PEOPLE'S DRINKING
31
that when a man is dying his friends gather
about the bed to assist the passage of the soul
into the next world; and in order to produce an
artificial excitement, and to make them weep,
they drink freely of brandy. Funerals often
close in general intoxication. Among the
Urabas of Nicaragua, (17) when a chief dies,
ceremonies are held around the grave for two
days, carried on amid the excitement produced
by intoxicants. Among other tribes the dead
are honored and remembered by annual drink-
ing festivals.
In a more general way, aside from special
celebration and occasion, drinking and other
ways of inducing intoxication have been inti-
mately connected with the social life of primitive
and savage peoples. In many times, places, and
ways intoxicants have been used to stimulate or
create social feeling. Besides this, many social
ceremonies have been described in which the
use of the intoxicant appears to be the main
function. We can say, indeed, that among un-
civilised peoples every event in the community
out of the daily routine, which brings people to-
gether socially is likely to be the occasion of
intoxication.
The American Indians furnish an example of
the close connection of stimulants and narcotics
with the social consciousness. Although alco-
32
PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
holic drinks were used among many tribes on
the North American continent, the great intoxi-
cant was tobacco; it was used not only for its
soothing effect, but very frequently to cause
violent intoxication. Its influence upon the
thought and social activities of these peoples
was very great. Abbott (18) says: "To know
the history of tobacco, of the customs of smoking
and the origin of the pipe, would be to solve
many of the most interesting problems of Amer-
ican ethnology. Among the Wabanaki, the
eastern branch of the Algonquins, the god
Glooscap, who is said to be the most Aryan-like
divinity not created by an Aryan people, was
believed to be a great smoker of tobacco.
He entered into smoking contests with giants,
who were his enemies, and put them to rout,
much as our Saxon forebears used to drink one
another under the table."
Among some peoples drinking ceremonies
have taken on the importance of state functions.
A very interesting example is that of the Semi-
noles (19) who indulged in a slightly intoxicat-
ing drink known as the black drink. This was
prepared in the public square for the whole
community, by a cook expressly charged with
the duty. The taking of the black drink was
regarded as a solemn act, having both a re-
ligious and a military significance. Extraordi-
nary powers were attributed to it. It was sup-
>>
PRIMITIVE PEOPLE'S DRINKING 33
posed to have a purifying effect upon the lives
of the people, and to efface from their minds
all the wrongs they had unintentionally com-
mitted. It had the power of imparting courage
to the warrior, and of rendering him invinc-
ible; of binding ties of friendship, and of ex-
citing kindly feelings. They regarded it as a
blessing bestowed upon them as a chosen people.
A similar ceremony was performed by the
inhabitants of the Tongas (20). When they
arose at break of day, the higher classes met
for a drinking bout. The taking of kava was
always attended with tedious ceremonial and
the strictest observance of etiquette. The
whole community assembled, but the common
people participated only as spectators. A
kava party was regarded as an essential part
of any state affair. Among the Creeks (21) )
too the taking of their war physic was of the
nature of a state ceremonial.
Much of this evidence points to the conclu-
sion that drinking among all primitive peoples
was religious and social in its origin, and that
it was an act having significance. The use of
intoxicants as a beverage was for the most part
not practised among them, nor even under-
stood. The drinking of the savage naturally
and typically takes the form of occasional ex-
cess, with longer or shorter periods of total
abstinence. The statement is often met that
34 PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
tribes, usually sober and industrious, on oc-
casion indulge to great excess.
Numerous examples could be quoted. Among
the Guatamalans, (22) reunions and dancing
are the most common forms of amusement.
These occur periodically, drinking is insepa-
rable from them, and the invariable result is
that all without exception become helplessly
drunk. At other times they lead sober and
commonplace lives. The Dyaks of Borneo (23)
celebrate numerous festivals of a quasi-reli-
gious character. The head feast lasts four days
and four nights, and a general state of intoxi-
cation closes the solemn ceremony. Some
tribes of the Pueblos (24) indulge once each
year in a drinking bout which continues from
one to two weeks. On these occasions they
take the wise precaution of drinking in relays,
one third of the men drinking at a time, while
the others remain sober to care for their com-
rades, and to prevent them injuring one another,
or being attacked by other tribes. Some of the
dances of the Pueblos end with bacchanalia in
which not only general intoxication but other
excesses are allowed. Other tribes, for ex-
ample the Keres, (25) have the annual drink
festival. They, like the Pueblos, allow them-
selves unlimited license, become intoxicated, and
give free rein to all their impulses. The Mos-
quitos (26) have drinking bouts which last for
PRIMITIVE PEOPLE'S DRINKING
35
four days. Large numbers come together and
drain a canoeful of liquor which has been pre-
pared for the occasion. Sometimes the people
of surrounding villages are invited, and a
drinking bout is held, first in one house, and
then in another, until a climax is reached in a
general debauch in which both sexes take part.
The Gonds (27) of the central provinces of Hin-
dustan believe that on occasion they have divine
permission to sing, laugh, and drink according
to their hearts' content, and they use this privi-
lege by becoming at times intoxicated and giv-
ing way to unrestrained indulgence, squander-
ing all they may have earned in a long time of
sober industry. Other cases might be cited
in profusion, but these will suffice to show a
characteristic trait of the savage's drinking.
The question arises whether the use of intoxi-
cants is universal among uncivilised peoples.
The statement has often been made that no
tribe has ever existed that has not had its
stimulant or narcotic, but this cannot be sub-
stantiated. It is true, however, that there is
no large area of the earth's surface without
its indigenous intoxicant. E. H. Man (28) says
that in the Bay of Bengal, prior to the advent
of the whites, the natives were ignorant of any
form of intoxicant. The Fuegians are said to
have no intoxicating drinks of any kind, using
36 PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
nothing but water. Several nations of Amer-
ican Indians, among them the Hurons, Chi-
nooks, California Indians, the Shoshones, the
Natchez and the Seminoles are all credited
either by Bancroft or Featherman with an
ignorance of alcohol in any form, though, like
other tribes, they probably used tobacco to pro-
duce intoxication. Some tribes of Indians in
New Granada, South America, are said not only
to have no intoxicant of their own, but to refuse
persistently the drinks of the whites. But these
are decidedly the exceptions. Almost every-
where will be found some intoxicant.
Although uncivilised man cannot be said to
be entirely devoid of ideals of temperance or
perhaps even of abstinence, temperance,
morally enjoined, seems to be on the whole for-
eign to the savage's habit of thought. We find,
rather, that intoxication is often commanded by
religious laws, or prescribed by social custom to
all. Spencer thinks that temperance arose as
self-control in order to offer libations to the
gods. Such facts as those we have just been
reviewing indicate that regulation of drink-
ing was at least connected with religious ritual
and social etiquette. Whatever is enjoined
must be regulated, and the more important a
function becomes, the more likely is it to be
hedged about by laws and custom. Laws regu-
lating drinking among lower classes, prohibition
PRIMITIVE PEOPLE'S DRINKING
37
of drinking to women and to children, may well
have taken rise in the belief in the divine origin
of intoxication. Doubtless other motives en-
tered. There was more temperance among
women than among men, because their activities
were less exciting and more regular; and be-
cause, too, of deep psychical differences. Ob-
vious physical ills from excessive drinking must
also have played a considerable part in enforc-
ing abstinence. Whatever decreased capacity
for warfare, or increased dangers from attack,
must of necessity have been regulated by cus-
tom. Thus moral attitudes towards drink may
have crept in, self-control appearing virtuous
at first for practical reasons long before it was
recognised as an ideal or was motivated by
inner demands.
The habits and temperament of uncivilised
peoples illustrate further the fact, discovered in
studying phenomena of intoxication among
animals, that the impulse to seek states of
abandonment is very deep-seated, and that it is
expressed in many other ways than in intoxi-
cation by drugs. The main characteristic of
all these phenomena is the desire to reach a mo-
ment of complete abandonment, and to carry on
excitement to a culmination in which the
physical powers break down and are exhausted.
38 PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
This moment is induced in so many ways, and
it appears to be so marked a quality of develop-
ing minds and bodies that we must suppose
it has some significance. The culmination of
action in intense mental excitement is so fre-
quently observed among savages, and is, in fact,
so customary and natural a result of all their
social activity that we may say, in general,
that whenever excitement of any kind begins,
in the activities of the savage, it tends to be
carried higher and higher, until the body can
bear no more and breaks down under the
strain.
Dancing best of all illustrates this trait of
savage life. Dancing and intoxication may oc-
cur at almost any public event among savages
-as marriages, funerals, games-in fact at any
social function. The more unusual or state oc-
casions are often times of throwing off all
control, and giving the mind over to the effects
of violent movement, sexual excitement, intoxi-
cation by drugs, and to general abandon. In-
toxicants may or may not be used to induce
these states. Scourging of the body, games
of torture, pain of any kind, fantastic sights,
hideous sounds, as well as violent movements,
all serve the same purpose. Public festivals
which begin with much dignity often degenerate
into scenes of wild disorder before they are
finished. The great war dance of the Tupis, (29)
PRIMITIVE PEOPLE'S DRINKING 39
a description of which happens to be at
hand will illustrate this. In this dance the
people arranged themselves in groups, and at
a well-understood signal each group began to
sing, at first in a low tone, or humming, which
was continued for a long time with an ever-in-
creasing sound, until it terminated in dreadful
yells and hideous howls. As the sound in-
creased, the jumping became more violent, un-
til the effort was finally so furious that many
would fall to the ground unconscious. Three
or four sorcerers stood in the centre, shook the
tamarack, and blew tobacco smoke from cane
pipes upon the dancers.
Mrs. French-Sheldon, (30) in writing of the
customs of the natives of East Africa, gives an
interesting account of dances in which the de-
sire for excitement is carried to a great ex-
She says,
cess.
“The young fellows will collect in groups and dance as
though in competition; they dance with their knees rigid,
jumping into the air until their excitement becomes very
great and their energy almost spasmodic, leaving the ground
frequently three feet as they jump into the air. At some
of their festivals this dancing is carried to such an extent
that I have seen a young fellow's muscles quiver from head
to foot, and his jaws tremble without any apparent ability
on his part to control them, until, foaming at the mouth and
his eyes rolling, he falls in a paroxysm upon the ground to
be carried off by his companions. This method of seeking
artificial physical excitement bears a singular resemblance to
the dances of other nations outside of Africa."
40 PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
Examples of this trait of savage life and, to
a lesser extent, of civilised life, could be multi-
plied to almost any extent. The literature of
games, plays, and dancing abounds in material
which a complete study of this most interesting
phase of the psychology of intoxication would
need to take into full account.
а
An interesting comparison might be made of
the intoxication habits of the savage and of
the child. Love of excitement, and the volun-
tary seeking of the moment of abandonment
is marked characteristic of childhood.
Indeed we may say that love of intense excite-
ment for its own sake is a normal trait of play.
That such impulses are not merely the result
of an overflow of energy, but that they are in-
spired by deep instincts, or are caused by pro-
found effects of activity upon the body, is shown
by the fact that the fatigued child, and the
child defective in energy, are often quite as sus-
ceptible to these states as the strong child.
Even in young infants the tendency toward
cumulative excitement and crisis may be ob-
served, as in the caressing movements, which
often begin softly and end in a paroxysm of
excitement, with striking and other violent
movements and muscular convulsion. Craving
for strong sensation, for violent laughter, rapid
movement, whirling and dancing, the craving
PRIMITIVE PEOPLE'S DRINKING
41
for ecstatic states of feeling--all these indicate
a natural tendency on the part of the young to
seek exalted or erethic states of the nervous
system which, both in their motives and in
their expression, much resemble the phenomena
of intoxication produced by drugs. At puberty
both the capacity and craving for states of in-
tensity are greatly increased. All the intoxi-
cation motives then become active to such a
degree that we may say that the whole period
is characterised, more than by anything else,
by the love of intoxication (31).
CHAPTER IV
DRINKING AMONG CIVILISED NATIONS
The purely historical aspects of drinking among
civilised peoples have been well treated by
several writers. The best account will be
found in Samuelson's History of Drink, and the
reader interested in the details of this story
will find there much of value. The present
interest is not in this narrative as such, but in
certain conclusions that may be derived from
the historians, which throw light upon the
psychological problem that lies before us.
Samuelson says that in every nation there
has been a period just preceding the time of
highest culture, when intoxication was preva-
lent; and that again, after the highest point of
culture had been passed, a second period of
intemperance always ensued. In China, it
seems, there was an early period of gross in-
temperance. Mensius, a disciple of Confucius
(about 500 B. C.) deplored the drunkenness of
his day, and the excessive use of wine in the
sacrifices; and speaks as though he thought
the nation was returning to a former state of
excess. And in fact it is known that long be-
42
CIVILISED NATIONS' DRINKING 43
fore the time of Mensius, drunkenness was very
prevalent in China. The Shooking or History,
and the Sheeking, or Book of Ancient Poetry
speak of an edict against drunkenness said to
have been promulgated about 1100 B. C. It
appears that at about that time drunkenness
had gained such a hold upon the people as, in
the fears of some, to threaten the life of the
nation. In India also there was an early period
in which intemperance was widespread among
the people. The soma and the sura, both in-
toxicating drinks, were freely used, and as we
have seen, the former plays an important part
in the religion of the nation. Its use was not
in the beginning looked upon with disfavour,
but allowed and sanctioned in the belief that
Indra himself could do no great deed unless he
were intoxicated. In both these nations it ap-
peared that a long period of temperance has
gradually been followed by addiction to the use
of narcotics. Throughout all these eastern
countries opium has become a curse. This is
not an accident nor a coincidence, but a natural
outcome, we shall see, of a decadent or stagnant
national spirit; of the widespread pessimism,
which appears not only in religion, but in all
interests when nations have passed their
growth period and have entered upon a decline,
or upon a long period of stagnation.
Among the western nations Greece furnishes,
44
PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
in the worship of Dionysus, the best example of
a religious cult growing out of the intoxication
impulse. The Dionysiac cults represent the
national spirit of Greece in the time preceding
the period of greatest culture. In its earliest
form, the Dionysiac worship appears to have
been merely dancing and singing about the altar
of the god, accompanied by intoxication, but
with all the revelry there was an air of solem-
nity and reverence. This cult, however, spread
far beyond these confines of a religious cere-
monial, and to a certain extent was associated
with practices which undoubtedly had their or-
igin in the sexual life. Here sex, religion, and
intoxication were combined in an undifferenti-
ated feeling. The spirit was one of abandon-
ment. At the periods of the bacchanalia slaves
were allowed a brief time of liberty, and general
drunkenness prevailed. Bacchus was repre-
sented in human form. Women frenzied by
drink or excitement carried cymbals, dancing
and singing songs in honour of the god. In one
of the performances in which the mænades,
who were women and girls, took part, orgies
were held at night in the mountains; there were
blazing torches, and the wildest excitement pre-
vailed.
The cult and symbolism of Dionysus have
been much discussed and variously interpreted.
Nietzsche (32) says that the Greek conception
CIVILISED NATIONS' DRINKING 45
of Dionysus was an expression of the funda-
mental Greek instinct. In it the Greeks found
or felt the revelation of the mystery of life, and
by it they expressed the triumphant affirmation
of life over death and change. Nietzsche finds
also in the Dionysiac cult an instance of the
very close relationship between sex and intoxi-
cation.
Taylor (33) approaches an explanation of the
Bacchic and Eleusinian mysteries of the Greeks
from the side of their symbolism. He says,
"They were considered for two thousand years or more the
appointed means of regeneration through an interior union
with the divine essence. They were symbolic of the death of
the old life, and the birth of the new. The lesser mysteries
occultly signified the miseries of the soul while in subjection
to the body; the greater obscurely intimated by mystic and
splendid visions the felicity of the soul here and hereafter
when elevated to the realities of intellectual vision."
Whether or not such explanations of the form
of these rites are adequate, there is no doubt
that the symbolism and the practices are both
based upon deep emotional traits in the Greek
life. They represented the spirit of the times
or, as Nietzsche expresses it, a fundamental in-
stinct in the Greek life. This was an age of
abounding vitality and enthusiasm which was
about to burst forth into exalted art and
thought, and was first expressed in this crude
way. Music, the dance, intoxication, revelry,
all united here under the guise of religious
46 PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
fervour to express the natural exuberance of
life which was characteristic of this civilisation.
It was the spirit of youth and life which could
not yet be controlled, nor organised nor directed
into productive and conventional forms, but
was exercising itself in dramatic representa-
tion and crude symbolism. Perhaps at no
other time in history has the inner growth
force been so exemplified and so fervently wor-
shipped as in the early period of Greek history.
The spirit of intoxication, as it was expressed
in the Dionysiac cult, was one form in which
this force found vent in consciousness. The
feeling which it expressed, it has been well said,
is the craving for “life and for life more abun-
dant.'
The poetry of this period puts clearly before
us the deep feeling element of the intoxication
impulse. Farnell (34) says that the dithyramb
began here in the wild ecstatic song sung by
wine-flushed revellers. Mure (35) expresses
the same view when he says that everything
leads to the belief that the character of the
Bacchic dithyramb, especially as remodelled by
Arion, was like that of the god and his worship-
pers, an exuberance of
exuberance of jovial excitement.
Nietzsche discovers here too the origin of
Greek art, at least in one of its motives. One
element of it, he maintained, originated in the
phenomenon of intoxication associated with
CIVILISED NATIONS' DRINKING 47
Dionysus; the other in the phenomenon of
dreaming which he associates with Apollo.
Greek tragedy is the outcome of Dionysiac
music fertilised by Apollonic imagery. Thus,
,
in one of its expressions, we can see how, if
these interpretations of Greek life are correct,
the intoxication impulse, originating in instinct,
becomes refined and ends in intellectual ex-
pression. It is emotional force, controlled and
organised to serve the ends of consciously felt
ideals, that constitutes the higher Greek cul-
ture. The crude motives are taken up into the
new life; the lower enthusiasms are trans-
formed, and become the high ideal which is the
necessary condition of creative work (36).
A second period in Greek history can be
discerned in which intoxication motives played
a part. As ideals became military, and culture
declined, dissipation followed, but with new
motives. There is no longer in the later period
the religious feryour, and the glow of youthful
exuberance of feeling; but the excitement of
conquest, new and foreign ideals, love of wealth,
craving to resuscitate exhausted feeling, fa-
tigue, and finally all the ills of the decrepit and
declining civilisation which was merged into the
Roman.
Other developmental periods were marked by
traits similar to those we have found in Greece
and elsewhere. Especially is this true of the
48
PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
early decades of the Renaissance. The vice of
intemperance was then again threatening, and
in a sense it was the keynote of the whole move-
ment. It was a time of intemperance in many
forms, and the excessive use of alcohol is but
one expression of a movement which culminated
finally in an intellectual and moral awakening
of all Europe. In Italy, especially, the intoxi-
cation motive can be observed stirring all de-
partments of life. All students of the time
seem to be agreed in admitting that it was a
day of extreme sensuality. It was a time of
love of display and dramatic effect, of great
feasts, and great civic processions. Especially
the carnivals in Venice, about 1450 A. D., which
were famous for their great torchlight pro-
cessions, mark the culmination of this period of
sense craving
But other changes in the national conscious-
ness accompanied this craving for new and
strong sensations. Burckhardt (37) says,
"In the Middle Ages man was conscious of
himself only as a member of a race, people,
party, or corporation, but now the subjective
side asserted itself and man became a spiritual
individual and felt himself as such."
Adams (38) says in substance that the Renais-
sance was more than a revival of learning. It
was a revival of emotions also, an awakening
of man to a new consciousness of himself and
CIVILISED NATIONS' DRINKING 49
the world. The work of the Renaissance was
to awaken in man a consciousness of his powers
and to give him a confidence in himself. It was
a craving for freedom more than anything else
which characterised the times. There was a
change from outer to inner control, and the
result was that there was a time in which there
was no control at all. Hence the great vices of
the period.
Burckhardt (39) sums up the character of
this age by saying, "The fundamental vice of
this character was at the same time a condition
of its greatness, namely, an excessive in-
dividualism. This immorality was a historical
necessity; with it has grown up a modern stand-
ard of good and evil." Symonds (40) also takes
this ground in explaining the illicit loves of this
time, saying that they were not merely sensual,
but were due in great measure to the demand
for imaginative excitement in all matters of the
senses.
Intemperance and strong cravings for excite-
ment and intoxication are not only found at
crises in development but are characteristic of
strong and dominant races. Our warlike an-
cestors of the Saxon races and their descendants
through all historic periods have shown a great
love of intoxicants. Great warlike exploits
were always associated with great feasting and
deep drinking. It was a part of the man's
50
PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
equipment to be able to take his place in the
feast as well as in the fight, and the former
sometimes required no less hardihood of body
and mind than the latter. This spirit was part
and parcel of the rough virtue and courage and
force, which have made the Saxon race domi-
nant. Crude virtues can be transformed and
polished, and even vices may be utilised and
may furnish the basis and need of control and
law; but where there is no force there can be
no growth, and no culture. Everywhere the
warlike and creative spirit and intemperance
go together.
It is evident that as society becomes complex,
we can no longer speak of the intoxication im-
pulse as a single, uncomplicated motive. The
use of intoxicants is founded upon complex
passions and many interests and motives enter.
At different times in the process of development
and decay of nations, different impulses are
dominant. The effects of intoxicants differ,
and the effects of the same intoxicant vary
much according to the purpose and manner of
The same drug may both arouse and
depress feeling. The same drug may be used,
in the one instance to excite more pleasure and
to create more abundance of life; and again to
decrease pain and relieve from effort and to
alter in other ways the states of consciousness.
Thus far we have dealt mainly with the in-
its use.
CIVILISED NATIONS' DRINKING
51
toxication motive that accompanies, and is a
part of, the impulse to seek the larger life, and
that expresses a craving for more pleasure and
more activity. But as we approach the later
stages of civilisation, other motives begin to ap-
pear and sometimes to take the lead. One at
least, the narcotic motive, plays a great part in
history. This needs more precise attention
than has hitherto been given it.
The narcotic impulse is essentially, it seems, a
desire to revert to more primitive states of con-
sciousness, accompanying a condition of high
pressure. In its temporary and mild forms it
is the expression of the desire for rest. It is
associated with relaxation, recreation, dream-
ery, and with all that relieves from toil and
trouble. In its more abnormal aspects it is the
impulse to escape from the struggle of life-to
produce an artificial satisfaction of the will, to
soothe, and sometimes to arouse jaded forces,
and to create artificial pleasures. This tend-
ency of tired man has often expressed itself in
dreams of a golden age in the past. It has cre-
ated mythic accounts of Fountains of Youth, of
Paradises in remote lands, of Utopias, and Nir-
All these are expressions of fatigue, of
a longing away from a too tonic environment.
This spirit is also the keynote of mysticism, the
constant theme of which is Rest, to be relieved
from pain and weariness. The cry of Back to
vanas.
52 PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
Nature! which is raised whenever the accumu-
lated weight of culture, conventionality and
duty becomes burdensome, is in some of its as-
pects but another expression of the same mo-
tive. Nietzsche sees the true nature of the
motive, hence his contempt for pity. "What we
need,” he says, “is pain, more pain.” Again
he speaks of the two great European narcotics,
Christianity and alcohol. These he places to-
gether doubtless because he recognises in both
the effort to seek artificial means of escaping
pain, in both a means of compensating or pal-
liating the sternness of reality. "Pain spurs
the nervous system on,” says Mosso. It nor-
mally creates states of second breath, and
arouses the higher enthusiasms. The seeking
of artificial means of alleviating it, whether it
be by narcotics, or by socialistic schemes and
Utopian dreams is an expression of the longing
backward, away from the influence of natural
selection and the struggle for existence; it is
failure of the will to live, while the intoxication
motive is optimistic, representing the will to
live, and the desire for more life. The sthenic
intoxication motive thrives in an atmosphere of
belief in a future. Excitement of any sort
seems to quicken belief. Stimulants arouse it,
for such belief is the expression of an instinc-
tive craving for life. Narcosis, on the other
hand, is centred in itself and in the past. It is
CIVILISED NATIONS' DRINKING 53
not the attitude of outlook or growth. It is this
motive which a nation must keep from spread-
ing in its life; for like the hardened artery of
senescence it indicates the end of growth and
the beginning of decay. It shows that society
no longer meets pain and need with effort, and
so overcomes it, but succumbs to environment,
and seeks ease and rest and surcease from toil,
or the delusion of a dream world.
Not only are whole stages of the history of
nations affected by the narcotic and other re-
lated motives, but within the general movement
of social development, periods may be detected
in which various classes of society show, in
dependently of the rest, the degenerative forms
of intemperance which accompany decay of
civilisation. Whenever nervous exhaustion be-
comes extreme, or there is a time of national
distress or reverse, the intoxication motives are
likely to express themselves in low forms.
Then the sensuality of decadence ensues which
is found in the degenerate days of all nations.
There may be also temporary periods of stag-
nation or retroversion or aberration, in which
the same phenomenon is seen; for example in
France, in the time following the Napoleonic
wars, when overstrain and fatigue had brought
on an extraordinary craving for excitement and
new sensations. This impulse then found ex-
pression in many ways; especially the litera-
54 PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
ture of the period reflects it-and it is seen
most characteristically in the work of Huys-
mans, (41) the novelist, and also in all that
school of decadents that made a fetich of sen-
sation.
The intoxication motives, as expressed in
our own national life, present peculiarly dif-
ficult and complex problems. We find here a
very intricate society: classes intermingling
and influencing one another; immigrants with
Old World ideals and habits side by side with
native stocks, and amalgamating with them; we
see rapid growth in some parts, comparative
stagnation in others; we observe stress, fatigue,
abnormality, possibly degeneration of some of
the elements already setting in-all making an
intricate and bewildering web through whose
strands and fibres all the intoxication motives
are at work at once.
We have passed a first period of rapid
growth and simple pioneer life, when the spirit
resembled in some respects that of the early
Renaissance, when our ideals were not those
of culture and temperance, but of force, prog-
ress, and conquest of nature and life. This
pioneer spirit has pushed further and further
west, and has been followed by an ideal of
higher culture, and more controlled and defi-
nitely purposeful activity. As a part of this
practical ideal of efficiency and ethical ideal of
CIVILISED NATIONS' DRINKING 55
culture and self-control, there has grown up the
ideal of the temperate life, which tends to
spread throughout society to check the intoxi-
cation motives.
But mingled with this note of progress and
control is the narcotic motive, an expression,
perhaps in the main, of normal fatigue and de-
sire for relaxation from a strenuous life; but
in part a sign of cessation of growth, of ex-
haustion and abnormality-in individuals and
also in classes. Some classes seem perma-
nently arrested in development; and here there
is social life on a low plane, with the excessive
development of the saloon. Alcohol takes the
place of the higher enthusiasms, and there is
no initiative from within, nor strong enough
force from without, to change the currents of
desire upward. Here too there is abnormality,
fatigue, and degeneration yielding to narcotic
habits to relieve pain. In the higher classes,
indifference to progress on the one hand, and
over-culture and nervous degeneration on the
other, are sufficiently prevalent to threaten de-
feat of some of our ideals. There is in our
midst a widespread influence of narcotic mo-
tives, seeking to cope with weariness and pain
in ways that are fatal to progress. It is this
spirit which most of all must be combated and
delayed in a nation; a spirit, which, when it
ceases to be individual and sporadic, and be-
56 PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
comes the dominant mood of classes or of a
nation as a whole, marks the beginning of de-
cline.*
Without attempting to carry out in detail the
parallelism between the individual and the race,
we must refer once more to the similarity be-
tween phenomena of growth in the two aspects
of development. The period of accelerated
growth such as the early culture periods of
Greece, the Renaissance, and our own first cen-
tury of history are repeated in the stages of
development of the individual, when he passes
from childhood to adult life. In the individual
the change is precisely that described by Adams
as the course of progress in the early decades
of the Renaissance, when there was a change
from outer to inner control, in morals, religion,
and in all other departments of life--and, for a
time, no control at all. At adolescence, the hu-
man being becomes a complete individual.
New forces arise in him, taking origin in the
* How intricately the intoxication motives are bound up
with every phase of our life can be seen from such statistics
as those gathered for the Committee of Fifty and published
in Economic Problems of Intemperance and the Liquor Indus-
try. It is estimated that the liquor industries support 1,800,-
000 people in the United States, and that about 80 per cent.
of adult males use intoxicants to some extent. The average
consumption is 1.46 gallons of distilled liquors and 18.04
gallons of malt liquors (1903). The effects of alcohol upon
many trades, upon crime, politics, pauperism, disease, is very
great.
CIVILISED NATIONS' DRINKING 57
instinctive life, at first confused and unco-ordi-
nated, but providing the raw materials of all
the enthusiasm and controlled powers of adult
life. Now the whole attitude of mind may be
described as dominated by the intoxication im-
pulse. Vice and ideality are not clearly sepa-
rated from each other; the individual is reach-
ing out for new meanings of life, for a life more
abundant. Impulse is stronger than the pow-
ers of control, and the temperament is all posi-
tive-looking forward to life with intense feel-
ing and desire for action. As we shall see later
it is at this age that the intoxication habits be-
come fixed in the great majority who acquire
them. The individual is undergoing a trans-
formation of his interests from lower to higher
forms, and if this process does not proceed
freely under favorable conditions of environ-
ment the lower enthusiasms and intoxications
become fixed for life, and are not transcended,
or transformed in the higher. At this point
several of the lower motives of intoxication
impulses are likely to creep in. Habit may de-
velop on the basis of bad nervous organisation.
Excessive craving for sensation may dominate
consciousness, or the social life may become
fixed upon a low plane. The emotional life
may turn toward depression, and prematurely
the motives of pain and narcosis appear, indi-
cating the end of growth before it has really
58 PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
begun. When, in the individual, intemperance
and drug habits appear after the first period of
adolescence, they are far more likely to be
caused by pain and the narcotic motive, thus
resembling the phenomena we find in the life of
nations.
These views give us a clue to the psychology
of the sex differences in intoxication habits.
Everywhere there is more drinking among
males. In many places laws have prohibited
the use of intoxicants to women, and in others
public sentiment and custom forbid. But we
must look deeper than law and custom for an
explanation. The erethic and orgastic psy-
choses belong especially to the male tempera-
ment. (42) This can be seen among animals as
well as in the human species. The love dances
among animals are practised by the males.
Physiologically, the habit of the male is de-
scribed as erethic or katabolic, that of the fe-
male as anabolic. Those states in which energy
is raised to a high tension to be forcibly ex-
pended are masculine, and we must suppose the
difference is rooted in the difference of the
physiological mechanisms of the sexual life.
These differences appear throughout the whole
history of the race. Ellis (43) says, for ex-
ample, that among primitive peoples, occupa-
tions which require intense activity alternating
with long periods of inactivity are always
CIVILISED NATIONS' DRINKING 59
chosen by the male, while occupations that in-
volve monotony and repetition fall to the lot of
the female. As civilisation has advanced there
has been a tendency for these rhythms to be
obscured, and in many respects the male and
the female habit have become more alike.
Practical considerations
now require that
man's activities be to a certain extent routine
and monotonous, but the old habit remains
latent. At adolescence it prevails in the life
of every normal individual, and throughout
life it persists, determining no doubt our sea-
sonal cravings, our vacations, and it is quite
likely the basis of the periodical drinking of
the abnormal type. Work normally takes up in
part the capacities and cravings for erethic and
excited states and directs energy in a more
even flow, but when control is relaxed or the
organism and its activities are imperfectly in-
tegrated and ill adapted to life, the old erethic
rhythms may prevail. Woman has far less of
this habit, therefore she is less prone to in-
toxication motives. Her body is more likely to
suffer injury and her functions to be disturbed
by erethic activities. Hence we find that the
motive which in women leads to drinking is
likely to be pain; that her use of intoxicants is
more likely to be solitary; that the narcotic ef-
fects of drugs are more pronounced in her, and
are more often sought.
60
PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
This review of the facts about intoxication in
animals, in primitive and civilised peoples, and
in the individual, incomplete as it is, has al-
ready suggested many points of view and some
conclusions, which we must later consider in the
practical study of intemperance. If precise
and certain conclusions can seldom be reached,
the depth of the psychological motives which
enter into the drinking habits of civilised man:
the heredity, so to speak, that lies behind them,
seems at least to be apparent.
A few words of summary will serve to bring
the facts to sharper focus. The use of intoxi-
cants has been shown to be almost, though
seemingly not quite, universal; so nearly, how-
ever, that exceptions are quite noteworthy and
have attracted the attention of observers. In-
toxication appears to have originated in the
social life, and there is much to convince us, in
the religious ceremonial. It is highly probable
that the use of fermented drinks began in pro-
ducing intoxication, rather than in the moder-
ate drinking of them as beverages, which seems
to be a degenerate form of their use, and to
have come late. A careful examination of the
ethnological literature fails to disclose the fact
that taste was much concerned in the use of
intoxicants, or had much to do with the dis-
covery of them. Uncivilised man in his natural
state is not a steady and habitual drinker.
CIVILISED NATIONS' DRINKING 61
Drinking, for him, is not mere drinking. He
drinks alcohol occasionally to secure some de-
gree of intoxication, and usually for a purpose.
His drinking is likely to be periodic, and in
general it is characterised by great excess and
uncontrolled excitement.
In view of these facts it is unscientific, at
least, to regard the drinking of alcohol as merely
a sin: something that man has acquired as the
result of a fall from a primitive state of vir-
tue, as the crude ante-Darwinian theology de-
clares. The fact that almost every primitive
and savage people has succeeded in discovering
an intoxicating drink must be taken into ac-
count; that among these peoples drinking to
intoxication, instead of being regarded as a
sin, was approved by custom and conscience.
They drank in their sacred rites, and the wide-
spread prevalence of intoxication cults leaves
no doubt that the state was naturally and habit-
ually thought an inspired condition, in the clos-
est relation to the part of life thought to be
most significant and profound. The savage,
strange as it may seem to us, drank and prayed
in the same act. The fact that intoxicants were
used publicly shows that their use was far re-
moved from those acts that are covered with
shame. These arguments do not lead in the
least to the view that intoxication at the pres-
ent time is normal or right; but they do show
62 PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
that, to the extent the whole manner of life of
the savage is natural, sane, and good, the in-
toxication cult partakes of the same qualities.
To the savage's mind drinking is not immoral;
indeed, according to his belief, there was no
function of life too solemn or too sacred to be
accompanied by intoxication, or at least by the
use of intoxicating drinks.
When whole races of people, widely scattered
over the earth, are found to indulge in a prac-
tice, when these practices are found to have
the most intimate connection with the social and
religious life, and are not the result of fad or
fashion but grow out of deep beliefs, we must
be cautious, we insist, about naming these prac-
tices either abnormal or immoral. For it is
likely that the words may have no significance.
If we can find no morality nor sanity in the
most forceful and productive impulses of
human nature, we may become suspicious of
our moral judgments themselves, which are
grounded upon quite similar roots of the emo-
tional and instinctive life. If, on the other
hand, we can explain and justify nature, and
discover value and progress in the means na-
ture has taken in producing civilised man, we
shall find ourselves with a far better command
of scientific principles and practical formulas,
than if we merely pronounce abnormal that
which we do not see to be in accordance with
CIVILISED NATIONS' DRINKING
63
our present ideals. It is very important to dis-
cover precisely the significance of intoxication
in nature's scheme of development of man, to
understand what its use may have been in the
early stages and in laying foundations for later
growth. What would civilised life now lack if
alcohol had never been discovered, and intoxica-
tion rites had never been practised? Already
we have answered these questions in part by
asserting some very general principles; but we
may go still further and see in detail other ways
in which alcohol has been the servant of man.
Alcohol and its kindred have been of great
importance in fostering those social characters
upon which our present civilisation rests. It is
difficult to conceive, in fact, what the social life
of uncivilised man might have been without the
use of alcoholic drinks. The greatest of ob-
stacles to social amalgamation, to treaties, to
intercourse among tribes were overcome by the
intoxication festivals and the drink customs.
Alcohol removed, temporarily, the natural sus-
piciousness of the mind, favoured common meet-
ing grounds of thought and feeling, and broad-
ened the whole social horizon. It is possible,
indeed, that alcohol may have been the deciding
factor at a certain stage of civilisation, when
man's future as a social being hung in the bal-
ance; when, whether he should remain in a nar-
row tribal stage, or form wider social groups
64 PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
depended upon his social impulse. This must
have depended greatly upon the quality of his
social feeling, and we have had abundant evi-
dence that this was profoundly influenced by
alcohol. By the influence of intoxicants a wider
area of common ground upon which tribes dif-
ferentiated by environment could meet and
Co-operate, was produced.
Within the tribal group, too, the influence of
alcohol must have been in the direction of more
complete socialising. It broadened the range
of social feelings and let down barriers of re-
serve and suspicion. Ability to segregate and
unite mentally in common social and religious
functions, has been one of the most potent fac-
tors in civilising peoples. Alcohol, we may say,
has helped to carry social feeling beyond the
range of the home life, and thus has assisted
in developing the internal structure of the social
groups no less than the amalgamating of tribes.
Law, custom and control, both individual
and social, were also fostered by intoxication
cults and practices. Drinking, with its dangers
of excess and violence, its excitement and aban-
don, must have been a powerful stimulus to the
growth of law and custom. In the intoxicated
state the emotional power and danger of the
human individual is shown, and the need of
regulating his activities by law forces itself
upon the attention. Hence the very rich and
CIVILISED NATIONS' DRINKING 65
varied ritual and custom which cluster about
the use of stimulants, curious remnants of which
we still have, in the drinking codes among stu-
dents and military groups. Much of the early
stimulus to the formation of codes of public be-
haviour, the regulating of actions between man
and man, much of etiquette in general has un-
doubtedly had its origin in the use of intoxi-
cants.
Turning to the more individual effects of
alcohol, still other relations of intoxication to
mental development will be found. In the state
of intoxication the individual not only comes
into closer touch with his associates, but he be-
comes more open to belief in the supernatural.
How great the influence of alcohol may have
been in establishing religious beliefs no one can
now fully demonstrate, but in primitive minds,
having a high degree of suggestibility, and a
narrow range of experience, its influence must
have been greatmas important, it is likely, in
the religious life as in the social life.
In still other ways the effect of intoxication
upon the individual can be detected. States of
high excitement and intoxication, however pro-
duced, and whatever their effect upon the organ-
ism may be, serve the purpose of broadening
the emotional life, give the individual a broader
experience of both pleasure and pain, show the
possibilities of the imagination, set ideals of in-
66
PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
dividual effort and success, and give new con-
ceptions of both mental and physical energy.
There can be little doubt that the conception of
the strength of body and mind attained in the
states of intoxication has been an important
factor in creating confidence in the power of the
human individual to control the forces, natural
and supernatural, that surround him. When
we come to examine the intoxication motive as
it appears in present society, both in normal
and in abnormal individuals, we shall see that
the same attitudes still produce the same re-
sults; that by his states of excitement, which
are often kinetic equivalents of drug intoxica-
tion, the individual gains his conception of his
powers, and in them ideals are set which con-
trol all his future development and conduct.
Considered in its most general form, the in-
toxication motive must be regarded as a native
or instinctive quality of every growing indi-
vidual. The craving for, and the impulse to
seek, states of high intensity are so character-
istic of childhood and youth that they must be
regarded as an aspect of normal growth; and
we must suppose that both the capacity to en-
dure such states and the effort to secure them
have been the objects of natural selection.
Those organisms which can produce the highest
degree of power or feeling without injury to
the tissues are likely to survive, because they
CIVILISED NATIONS' DRINKING 67
possess qualities which favour not only con-
tinued growth, but make for effective adjust-
ment, and vigorous attack upon practical prob-
lems. We must suppose that both the capacity
to endure excitement and the tendency to seek
it have increased. By these states the powers
of the individual have been extended and the
organism has been kept plastic.
Precisely what the physiological mechanism
of these states and the impulse to seek them
is, can for the most part but be conjectured in
our present knowledge of physiology. We may
suppose, however, that they make use of, or are
produced on the basis of, mechanisms that have
· been established for practical use. The rela-
tion of the intoxications to the sex erethisms
has been suggested. This is made still more
probable by the history of the intoxication im-
pulses in the life of the individual. They serve
the purpose, on the mental side, of directing the
energies away from the central instinct of sex.
They provide exercise, we may think, for vast
forces in the organism, which are always in dan-
ger of diversion and establishment on low
planes, yet which must be made active if the
higher enthusiasms and interests are to be
aroused. All these impulses to seek excitement,
all the phenomena of second breath, ecstasy,
religious excitement, have their place in the life
of the individual as the raw materials of en-
68 PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
thusiasm; they exercise the powers of the body
and mind, and are the parents of that controlled
mental action which later appears as the long-
sustained attention and enthusiasm and endur-
ance of work. The intoxication motive that
leads to the use of alcoholic and other intoxi-
cants is best interpreted as one expression of a
more general impulse which is deep-seated in
the race, and is indeed fundamental to develop-
ment, very far-reaching in its effects, and multis
form in its expression.
The purely physiological point of view that
is often taken in estimating the place, in the
economy of life, not only of intoxicants, but
of many habits and functions, is but partial.
Demonstration that alcohol is physically harm-
ful does not determine its place in man's evo-
lution. Much that is in itself harmful or
unhygienic has been utilised and turned to
advantage, even made physically hygienic on
broader grounds than its immediate effect.*
The lesser evil is often employed by nature
to lead to the larger good. The fatigue
products of the body are to a high degree poi-
sonous to tissues, yet their presence seems nec-
essary for the full development of the powers
* The appetite for some poisons, Sir James Paget claims,
has already been justified by science; and the use of alcohol,
which is the most widespread and persistent of all, will also,
he thinks, one day be fully explained and justified.
CIVILISED NATIONS' DRINKING 69
of the organism. Even when they are pro-
duced in excess they may become the means
of extending the capacities of the body;
and the harm they have caused may be
more than compensated by increased ac-
tivities of important functions. The body
seems sometimes to thrive and increase in
power under conditions that produce an abnor-
mal degree of exhaustion or poisoning. New
powers are brought into action in such states,
and resources of the organism are marshalled
and organised in a way that is never accom-
plished by moderation. It is quite possible that
at certain stages of development practices that
may leave permanent deleterious effects upon
the organs of the body, and may even cause
lesions, have been more than compensated by
greater power of function; and that our bodies
have been produced by such a compromise.
Parts have become less perfect that the whole
may be more perfect. We may well have sacri-
ficed as a race many a possibility of physical
perfection, and have suffered many injuries, in
order to acquire some practical function. By
means of the capacity thus gained, we may later
have created the cure for the evil from which
we have suffered, or may have overcome its ef-
fects in other ways. Individuals, like races,
suffer harmful effects for the sake of greater
efficiency.
70 PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
Such a view as this, which is borne out by
much evidence, has a far-reaching application
to the problems of both the individual and the
race, in both their theoretical and their prac-
tical aspects. If it is not sound it is difficult to
understand fully the logic by which nature has
introduced apparent evils at so many points
of development, and has allowed such wasteful
forms of activity. All such conclusions, we
must emphatically assert, may be formed with-
out in the least committing one to the view that
any form of intemperance, or any use of alco-
hol or of any other intoxicant is at the present
time justified.
CHAPTER V
THE INTOXICATION MOTIVES IN LITERATURE, LAN-
GUAGE, FOLK-THOUGHT AND MEDICINE
INTOXICATJON, which has been so intimately con-
nected with the development of the social, the
religious, and the practical life, bas left an im-
press upon language and literature at every
step, and has been no little influence in shaping
religious and philosophic thought. We have al-
ready learned of the close connection between
intoxication and religious feeling, and how in-
toxication has inspired ideals of a future life,
confirmed belief in it, suggested attributes of
the Divinity, and has actually created gods. Of
the many deities of drink two, Dionysus of the
Greeks and Indra of the Hindus, are univer-
sally known; but there are many others, simi-
lar in their nature to these, and undoubtedly
created in the minds of men from similar mo-
tives to explain the state of intoxication, and
express the mystery and feeling realised in it.
Among lower races, for example the ancient
Mexicans, drunkenness has its special deity.
The Nirvana and other philosophic heavens of
eastern peoples, we may suppose, have been sug-
71
72 PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
gested by the use of narcotics, such as opium;
at least it is safe to assert that the narcotic
dream of bliss has been one factor in creating
them.
The origin of wine has been an insistent theme
in primitive thought, has roused varied specu-
lation, and has been woven into many myths.
Among all these myths of wine in primitive
literatures, the common element is the belief
in its divine origin. There are many stories
of the use of wine by the gods; its virtues are
extolled as divine; and the use of intoxicants
is often included among the pleasures of the
next world. In the lower strata of literature,
in fairy-story, folk-lore and legend, the intoxi-
cating liquor often becomes the love potion or
philter; elixirs and waters of life, which are
usually stimulants and narcotics, appear in an
endless variety.
The remarkable influence intoxication has
exerted upon popular thought is shown by
the great number of terms for the state of in-
toxication which have been in common use.
Ribot (44), quoting from Renan, remarks that a
people usually have many words for that which
interests them most. If this be a true test of
interest, intoxication has had a strong hold upon
man; for certainly nothing except the sexual
relationship has made a deeper impression upon
popular language. Slang, especially, expresses
THE INTOXICATION MOTIVES
73
undercurrents of thought and feeling, and
brings to the surface that which is suppressed,
forbidden, or aborted in daily life. That such
a variety of unwritten terms has survived and
spread shows how forceful and persistent are
the undercurrents in which the intoxication mo-
tives move and how great a power of interest
has run to waste in our higher stages of civi-
lisation.
Below is printed a list of terms used in Eng-
lish to describe the state of intoxication. The
.
list was collected from the literature of slang
and from other sources. No attempt was made
to make it even approximately complete, for
the purpose was rather to indicate the range
of fertility of the language when inspired by
intoxication motives, than to contribute an exact
study of language itself. The derivation and
significance of some of the terms are apparent;
in other cases the meaning is obscure. Some of
the terms are obsolete, and are to be found in
old English writings. Some local terms are
included. Some are in wide use. Translations
from German and French have been omitted.
It is likely that in other languages there is quite
as rich a vocabulary of intoxication as in Eng-
lish. A list of more than six hundred words
in German has been collected. It is interest-
ing to notice the aspects of intoxication that
have been most singled out for characterisation.
74 PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
Many of the terms are words for contempt,
having reference to the extreme state or last
stage of intoxication, and were inspired by a
sense of humour.
SYNONYMS FOR INTOXICATION
A bit on, addled, all key-holes, all mops and brooms, all
sails set, a passenger in the Cape Ann stage, artificial, at rest.
Bacchi phenus, back teeth afloat, bamboozled, banged up to
the eyes, battered, beastly, been among the Philistines, been
at a ploughing match, been flying high, been hit by a barn
mouse, been lapping the gutter, been in the sun, been rushing
the growler, been sucking the can, been taking bitters, been
taking tea, beery, bended, blowed, blind drunk, blowing,
blued, blue-eyed, boiling drunk, borey-eyed, boosey, breesy,
brick in the hat, bright in the eye, bruised, budgy, buffy,
bummy.
Canonized, can't say “National, Intelligence," can't see a
hole in a ladder, caught a fox, caught favour, channels under,
chirping merry, chuck full, clear, clinched, cocked, come from
Liquor Pond Street, comfortable, concerned, corned, cosey,
coxy-loxy, croaked, cronk, crooked, crook-in-the-elbow, crying
drunk, cup-shot, cut.
Damaged, dazed, dead drunk, dipped deep, discouraged, dis-
guised, done over, doped, down in the mouth, down with the
barrel fever, drowning the shamrock, drunk, drunk and dis-
orderly, drunk and dressed up, drunk as an ass, drunk as a
boiled owl, drunk as a brewer's horse, drunk as a drum, drunk
as a fiddler, drunk as a fish, drunk as a fly, drunk as a Glass-
port fiddler, drunk as a lord, drunk as a mouse, drunk as an
owl, drunk as a piper, drunk as a tapster, drunk as a rat,
drunk as a sow, drunk as a wheelbarrow, drunk as Bacchus,
drunk as can hold together, dry, dull in the eye.
Edge on, electrified, elevated, exalted, exhilarated.
Faint, far gone, feeler on, feels good, feels his oats, feels
right royal, feverish, filled to the brim, flag of defiance out,
flatch-kennured, flawed, fluffy, flummoxed, fush, flustered,
THE INTOXICATION MOTIVES
75
flusticated, fly blown, flying high, fogged, fogmatic, forward,
fou', four sheets in the wind, fow, foxed, fresh, fuddled, full,
full cocked, full of ballast, full of pots, full of rum, full to
the brim, full to the bung, fuzed, fuzzy.
Gilded, gilded o'er, gilt edge on, glorified, glorious, goggle
eyed, got a big head, got a bundle, got a drop in the eye, got a
smile on, got the gravel rash, greetin' fou, groatable, groggy,
gutter legged, guzzled.
Had an eye opener, half and half, half cut, half on, half-
shot, happy, hard up, hasn't got his sea legs, hazy, headed
for port, head light on, head on, heady, hearty, helpless, high,
high lonesome, hilarious, holds up the lamp post, hoodman,
hot, how came ye so, how fare ye.
In a difficulty, in a very good bumour, in his altitudes, in
good fettle, in good spirits, in his cups, in liquor, inspired,
in the blues, in the gutter, in the wind, intoxicated, irrigated,
iskimmish.
Jagged, jagged up, jag on, jammed, jib well bowsed, jim-
jams (has the), jolly, jovial, jug-steamed.
Kisky.
Laid away, leery, legs broke, limber, loaded, loaded for
bears, loaded to the gunwales, load on, looking lively, loose,
lumpy, lushed, lushy.
Main brace well spliced, making m's and w's, martin drunk,
maw medza-beargeared, mellow, miraculous, moony, mop-
py, mortal, muddled, muggy.
Nazie, night cap on, not in a fit state for discussion.
Obfusticated, off his nut, on a blow out, on a bust, on a
hurrah, on a skate, on a spree, on a tear, on a triumphant,
on his fourth, on the batter, on the beam end, on the beer,
on the fuddle, on the gay galoot, on the lee lurch, on the
loose, on the muddle, on the nipple, on the rampage, on the
ran-tan, on the re-raw, on the slyte, on the stuff, on the tiles,
one sheet in the wind, ossified, out of funds, overcome, over-
stocked, over the bay.
Paralyzed, peckish, petrified, pickled, pificated, piper-fou',
ploughed, podgy, pretty well entered, primed, pruned, pushed.
Queered, quaffed the bowl.
76
PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
Raddled, rather touched, razzle-dazzle, reeling, right, romeo,
roaring, roaring drunk, roaring fou', rococo, rotten drunk.
Salted down, salubrious, sawed, scammered, screwed, sees
two moons, set up, sewed up, shaking a cloth in the wind,
shaky, shaved, shocked, shot, shot in the neck, skaty, skate
on, sleepy, slewed, smashed, smeekit, smelling of the cork,
smoled, snakes in his boots, snubbed, snuffy, soaked, society
slant on, soft, soused, spiff, spiffed, spoon drunk, spoony drunk,
spreeish, sprung, squiffed, staggering full, starchy, stewed,
stimulated, striped, stropolus, stuffed, sun in the eyes, swiped,
swipey.
Taking it easy, tangle legged, tanked up, tavered, thirsty,
three sheets in the wind, tight, tight as a brick, tipsy, tired,
tired feeling (has), titley, too much fire water (had), took
a snort, top heavy, touched, transmogrified, turkey on his
back, twisted, two sheets in the wind.
Unco', under the weather, under the influence, unsteady, up
a tree.
Walks on a bias, water logged, waving a flag of defiance,
weak-jointed, weary, well under way, wet, whipped, whittled,
wincy, wobbly.
Yappy, yaupish.
The intoxication motives, as they appear both
in poetry and prose, furnish another field for
psychological study. There are
are two great
themes clearly expressed in this way. One is
the glorification of pleasure and abandon, and
praise of the abundant life; the other portrays
the desire to escape from pain, to drown sorrow,
and to rest. The best example of the first mo-
tive is found in the Greek dithyrambic poetry,
which has already been mentioned in another
connection. The same spirit of abandon, love
of exaggeration and excess appear everywhere
THE INTOXICATION MOTIVES
77
in the literature of drink. Such verses as the
following show this mood, which is quite char-
acteristic of the drinking song and verse:
“When I am dead with wine my body lave,
For obit chant a bacchanalian stave.”
Omar Khayyam.
“The dry and dusty earth drinks,
The trees too drink her moisture;
The sea doth drink the rivers,
The sun doth drink the sea waves.
The moon doth drink the sunbeams,
Why cavil then at me, friend,
That I am fond of drinking ?”
Anacreon.
In the college song books drinking is the most
common theme, excepting love. Here the spirit
is for the most part, like that of the Greek
dithyramb, one of jovial excitement and love
of abandon; but there is also a thread of shal-
low pessimism, of young life precociously wise
in experience. The praise of drink as a cure
for care and trouble is frequently sung, but
often in a way that indicates that the experience
from which the pessimistic note comes is ideal
rather than actual. But this tone of pessimism
mingled with the joyousness and freedom of
youth is prophetic of the more serious pessi-
mism which riper age sings. The poetry of
Omar Khayyám expresses the narcotic motive
more fully than any other, and must serve as
our one illustration of the theme which appears
78 PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
in so many forms in the literature of drink.
Some interpret the quatrains of Khayyam as
symbolic-as clothing the Deity in the form of
wine, as did Hafiz and other Sufi poets. If this
is true it is another proof of the religious signif-
icance of intoxication. But Fitzgerald (45) re-
jects this view, saying that Khayyám is just
what he appears to be—a material epicurean.
Through all this poetry runs the narcotic theme.
He frequently refers to the wheel of heaven and
the world's injustice. He hates the hypocrisy
of the pious, and bitterly charges the sins of
man to the account of the Creator. For him
wine was a means of relief from care, fatigue,
and trouble. He says:
“Endure this world without my wine, I cannot;
Drag on life's load without my cup, I cannot."
And again,
“Life is a poison rank, and antidote save
Grape juice there is none."
And he sings what many drunkards say when
they declare that drink dims all other pleas-
'ures of life, for he cries:
“They preach how sweet these Houri brides will be,
But I say wine is sweeter, taste and see.”
Much more might of course be added to this
account of the effect upon literature of the in-
toxication motives, and the manner in which
THE INTOXICATION MOTIVES
79
these themes have been expressed in verse and
song. Interesting as it might prove to follow
out this topic, its value would perhaps be greater
for the psychology of literature and language
than for the psychology of intoxication, for the
motives which we are studying are expressed
in other ways more accessible to interpretation.
But we may emphasise the profound effect these
motives have had upon the imagination, one
evidence of which is to be found in the study of
literature.
The direct effect of the state of intoxication
and stimulation by narcotics and intoxicants
upon the production of the literature is another
theme full of interest and psychological sugges-
tiveness. Many examples are known of writers
who, whether intentionally or not, have
found inspiration in excitement caused by
alcohol and other drugs. One may mention
Burns, Byron, Coleridge, De Quincey, Poe, as
examples among moderns of many who have
been similarly influenced in their work by arti-
ficial stimulation. The effect upon the spoken
word has also been great. Alcohol has played
a part, not only in making men impressionable
and receptive to the influence of the eloquent
word, but has roused and stimulated the lan-
guage sense, and the feeling upon which it is
based. There are
are many stories of great
speeches inspired by intoxicants, but it is likely
80
PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
that for genius that has thus been excited
or expressed the world has paid a good price in
other work ruined or confused.
Another historical aspect of intoxication de-
mands brief mention in this connection, for it
shows how intoxication motives have influenced
another great field of thought. That is, the
theory of stimulus in medicine (46). It would
be difficult to prove definitely the connection be-
tween modern medicine, and the ancient prac-
tices of the shamans, but it would be strange if
beliefs and rites which played so great a part in
primitive medicine, as did intoxication and
its cults, had not been re-echoed in a later day.
The doctrine of stimulus has had a long and
interesting history in medicine. The dualistic
theories of Aristotle and Plato, which placed
the soul and life in contradistinction to body
and matter, were absorbed into the theory of
medicine at an early date. Life came to be re-
garded as an entity or principle which opposed
or controlled the body. In order to cure dis-
ease this vital principle must be spurred on to
increased effort. Hence the disproportionate
use in medicine, even down to our own day, of
drugs that affect the mind, and the slow adop-
tion of remedies which act upon organs whose
functions are not directly reported to conscious-
ness. Many celebrated early physicians, in-
THE INTOXICATION MOTIVES
81
cluding Galen, Paracelsus, van Helmont, and
Hoffman, assumed a life principle which must
be assisted by stimulation when it strives with
disease.
In our own day, although the theory of a life
principle presiding over the body has been aban-
doned, and the seat of life has been transferred
to the tissues themselves, the old doctrine of
stimulus still remains. Stimulants and nar-
cotics still play a disproportionate part in medi-
cine, and it is significant, as has recently been
shown, that the success of the patent medicine
industry has depended upon the fact that alco-
hol is the active principle almost universally
used, and the effect of most medicines of this
class is a mild intoxication. These medicines,
appealing as they do to the uneducated, per-
petuate beliefs and practices that are in es-
sentials like those of primitive man, No doubt
the medical scientists, the charlatans, and the
shamans have all had a profound truth on their
side in inducing intoxication to cure disease,
though they have but half understood the power
of the aroused consciousness to cope with the
physical disorders of the body. This is a
power whose usefulness has not come to an end
with the abandonment of the crude theories of
stimulus—but is one which we are just begin-
ning to understand, and to control by our more
refined methods of psychotherapy.
CHAPTER VI
MENTAL AND PHYSICAL EFFECTS OF INTOXICANTS
AND NARCOTICS
We have now traced, in its main outlines, the
genesis of the intoxication impulses. This
genetic study involved an investigation of
the intoxication motives, as they have developed
in the race, from animal life, through the stages
of primitive and savage culture, and on to
stages of growth and decay of civilised na-
tions. By comparing this movement with the
development of an individual, and considering
the intoxication motives in society in their
relations to other impulses, we have seen that
they have been connected at every period with
the growth forces and impulses of individual
and society. How these impulses become trans-
formed and radiate out into many departments
of life, as life becomes complex, has also been
explained, as well as the manner in which de-
generation sets in, when growth forces fail to
carry the organism, whether of individual or
society, to higher stages; and how the narcotic
impulse arises as a result of pain, fatigue, and
old age.
82
MENTAL AND PHYSICAL EFFECTS 83
Such a view as that to which we have been led
by the genetic study of intoxication will serve
as a foundation upon which further study may
be made. It must be taken into account
by any theory of intoxication, or any theory of
control of the present evils of intemperance.
Yet no such result can be regarded as conclusive
nor complete; the problem must be attacked
from other quarters, by other methods.
One such method seems to lie ready at hand.
It may be called the analytic method. It can
be applied to two problems. First, the state
of intoxication itself may be studied in many
ways, in order to discover what, precisely, in-
toxication is. We need to know about both
mental and physical effects of alcohol and other
stimulants and narcotics, both in small doses
and in large doses. Such problems are open to
experimental methods. Stimulants may be ad-
ministered under controlled conditions, and the
mental and physical effects of them can be
measured by instruments of precision.
Another promising method is the study in de-
tail of the intoxication impulse as it is felt by
individuals possessing it, especially those who
have it in a pronounced or abnormal degree.
The abnormal case is nature's experiment; and
by an analysis of this the normal case may bet-
ter be understood. The study of the genesis of
these abnormal or extreme cases will be likely
84 PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
to throw further light upon the nature of the
impulse.
The drugs which are commonly used for pur-
poses of intoxication and narcosis, though dif-
fering greatly in chemical composition, may be
grouped under a single class, considered with
reference to their physiological effects. Ac-
cording to Anstie, (47) they are all stimulant-
narcotics; that is to say, when taken in small
doses, or as an initial effect of large doses,
they stimulate the nerve cells; and in large
doses they invariably produce narcosis. It is
true of most, if not all of these drugs, that
whether applied to a single nerve fiber, or to
the nervous system as a whole by way of the
circulation, they produce first a stage of in-
creased excitement, followed by a stage of les-
sened excitement. Mentally, effects are anal-
ogous-a stage of exhilaration is followed by
a stage of depression. Stimulation, according
to Anstie, is an increase in the normal func-
tions of the nerve cells, while narcosis is a
paralysis of these functions. Most of the
phenomena that occur in intoxication, he says,
are due to narcosis, and not to stimulation. At
the present time many writers would deny that
alcohol is ever a true stimulant, and say that
the initial excitation is rather a protective irri-
tation, or a paralysis of inhibitory mechanisms,
MENTAL AND PHYSICAL EFFECTS 85
than a true stimulation. Schmiederberg, Bun-
ge, Lauder-Brunton, Kräpelin, and others hold
to the view that all the stimulating effect of
alcohol is abnormal in character, while Bing
and his pupils maintain that alcohol is a true
stimulant. Microscopical studies of the effect
of alcohol have shown that under its influence
the chromophile bodies, which represent the
potential energies of the nerve cells, become
either more rapidly exhausted or less rapidly
deposited, leading to a depletion of nerve cells,
but whether this process begins with the first
effects is not certain.
In general, whatever the character of the ex-
citement may be, it can be said that the first
effect of alcohol (though there may be excep-
tions) is to excite tissues. A still wider gener-
alisation may be made. All poisonous sub-
stances that finally destroy the nervous tissues
produce an initial stage of increased excitabil-
ity. Precisely what the nature of this excite-
ment is in every case cannot be determined.
It may be very different in different cases. Ex-
citement may be due to several causes: to nor-
mal stimulation, to resistance of the cell to
foreign substances, to the paralysis of inhibi-
tory functions of the cell, to a release of the
cell by the paralysis of controlling cells. We
can no longer think of a nerve cell as a simple
86 PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
structure performing one or two functions. It
is exceedingly complex, and performs many
functions.
To enter into the problems of the physiolog-
ical effects of alcohol is to come upon a maze
of contradictory opinion and pending conclu-
sions from experiment and observation. Yet
some important facts seem to be established.
Recent biology has thrown some light at least
upon the general relation of alcohol to animal
life. Ethyl alcohol, the basis of all alcoholic
intoxicants, is the product of the yeast plant, act-
ing in a saccharine substance. The yeast plant
belongs to the lowest sub-kingdom of plant
life, and is classified as a fungus. It has neither
root, stem, nor leaf, and contains no chloro-
phyll. It is unable, therefore, to subsist upon
simple, inert compounds like other plants; and
so, like animals, it depends upon organisms con
taining chlorophyll for its food. Its energy is
obtained through a decomposition process, and
in this process dextrose is broken up into ethyl
alcohol and carbon dioxide. These products
are both excretions, for the yeast plant makes
no use of them. The law seems to be fully
established that all excretions are toxic or
poisonous to the organisms that produce them,
and to all other organisms higher in the scale.
Ethyl alcohol, then, if this be true, is essen-
tially a poison to animal life; but we still are
MENTAL AND PHYSICAL EFFECTS
87
ignorant of the obscure effects of excretions
upon the tissues (48 49).
Problems of the general physiology of alco-
hol are of less moment for a psychological study
of intemperance than might at first appear to
be the case. The essential fact for psychology
is that this substance causes a certain order of
mental effects. The physical nature of the ef-
fects must be known, it is true, before we can
fully understand the problem, but the mental
states themselves are the central effects sought,
and these are what they are whatever the phys-
ical basis of them may be. The place of alcohol
in evolution is not determined by discovering
to what extent it may be a poison or a food.
The course of physiological discovery has
been decidedly toward the conclusion that alco-
hol in any considerable quantity is a deleterious
substance in the body. The controversy still
continues in regard to its food value, but at
present the weight of evidence is strongly
against the inclusion of alcohol among true
foods. At most it can be said to be oxidised in
the body, and to create heat and possibly sup-
ply energy for muscular activity; acting as
Starke says, like the carbohydrates, but with-
out the power of building up tissues. Starke
perhaps stands alone in his entire denial that
alcohol, even in large quantities, is harmful to
the body, maintaining that its effects are quite
88 PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
within the range of normal play of function,
and are not to be called disturbance; and that
it is only in extreme cases of excess that we can
speak of poisoning by alcohol-and then only
as any food substance may become a poison (50).
Others maintain that alcohol is a selective
poison: that it acts chiefly upon the cells of the
blood, and upon the walls of the vessels through
which the blood circulates; that the white cells
of the blood, which are very similar to an amba
in structure, and perform important functions
in the body, are irritated and paralysed by alco-
hol. On the basis of recent experiments, for ex-
ample Hunt's, it is asserted that oxidation of
alcohol in the body which results in heat, is a
protective oxidation; and in these experiments
it was found that alcohol taxed the oxidation
capacity of the liver, and left the organism de-
fenceless against bacterial and other toxic sub-
stances (51).
The deleterious effects of alcohol in large
quantities, or from constant use for long peri-
ods, seem undoubted, although there are wide
variations of opinion about the quantity of alco-
hol necessary to produce permanent changes in
tissues. It seems clear that alcohol can cause
serious disease of the brain, the spinal cord, and
the nerves, in persons of previously normal
constitution; that chronic alcoholism lowers re-
sistance to many infectious diseases; and that
MENTAL AND PHYSICAL EFFECTS
89
the effect of liquors is not due to adulterations
in them, as some claim, but to the ethyl alco-
hol itself (52).
Experimental study of the effects of alcohol
and other stimulant-narcotics upon the mental
and the physiological processes of man, not-
withstanding much work that has been done, is
still at the beginning, rather than the end of
its work. There are many problems to be
worked out, some of them exceedingly intricate,
requiring a minute and tedious experimenta-
tion, and difficult analyses. It might seem to
one unfamiliar with such experiments, that it
would be an easy matter, for example, to deter-
mine what the effect of a given dose of alcohol is
upon the strength of a group of muscles, but
such is not the case. Many causes are at work
at all times affecting the conditions of muscles
and nerves, and an apparently simple movement
is in reality very complex, and sometimes diffi-
cult to measure.
Many experiments have been made to deter-
mine the effect of small doses of alcohol upon
various mental and physiological processes.
Exact investigation of the problem appears to
have begun with Kräpelin's study of the ef-
fects of alcohol upon the reaction time; that is,
the time between the receipt of an expected sig-
nal and the quickest possible voluntary re-
sponse. He used doses of from 25 to 60 grams,
90
PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
tested four subjects, and found that under the
influence of small doses the reaction time was
shortened, and increasingly so with an increase
of the dose up to a certain limit. The shorten-
ing of the time began to appear within five min-
utes after the alcohol was taken, and the quick-
ening effect continued to increase during the
first twenty minutes. With a larger dose the
reaction time was either lengthened or the
period of increased speed was shortened. In
all but two instances in which there was an ini-
tial shortening of the time there occurred later
a lengthening of the time beyond the normal.
Other experiments, made by various writers,
confirm these conclusions in a general way. It
seems certain that small doses of alcohol tem-
porarily quicken reaction time, that larger doses
lengthen it almost if not quite from the start,
and also that small doses cause, as an after-
effect, a lengthening of the time.
Experiments made to measure the effect of
small doses of alcohol upon muscular power
show results similar to those for reaction times.
Lombard found that the taking of whisky or
claret was always followed by increase in the
muscular power as measured by the ergograph
an instrument by which the power of a sin-
gle muscle (or small group of muscles) to make
contractions is measured. In his case no de-
pressing after-effects were noticed. But us-
MENTAL AND PHYSICAL EFFECTS
91
ually in such experiments the depression has
been readily detected. Destrée, for example,
found an increase in the muscular power oc-
curring from one to two minutes after the tak-
ing of alcohol. This increase lasted from 10 to
30 minutes. Then power began to decline, and
was soon less than normal. The larger the
dose of alcohol the more rapid was the onset
of the depression, and the longer its continu-
ance. Lieutenant Boy of the Swedish army
made tests of the ability of soldiers to shoot
with the rifle and the revolver, with and without
moderate doses of alcohol, and found that the
results were always in favour of the abstainers.
Schneider compared work done on the ergo-
graph after fasting, after taking a concentrated
food, and after taking Bordeaux wine. He
found improvement throughout after taking
food, and as a result of the alcohol a slight
increase at the beginning, followed by a de-
crease. Mayer experimented upon writing at
speed, and found a retardation as the result of
taking alcohol, the falling off increasing with
the quantity of the alcohol taken. Kuertz
made tests of the rapidity of adding, giving
alcohol in the evening before the day of ex-
periment, and found a loss of from 3% to 15%
from the normal rate, with also a cumulative
effect (53). Other experiments have given the
same general result.
92
PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
In order to test a practical movement,
one like the movements of actual work, the
writer undertook to estimate the effect of
small doses of alcohol upon the power to make
at short intervals, for considerably long peri-
ods, the maximal hand-clasp (54). This move-
ment is known to be correlated, in strength,
with other muscular powers of the body, and
to be a good test of muscular power and con-
dition in general. The apparatus used was a
spring dynamometer. It was attached hori-
zontally to a table, and was so arranged that
every movement made by the hand was re-
corded upon a revolving drum, while at the
same time an endless tape computed the total
length of the movement, a quantity from which
the power in pounds was easily estimated. In
testing, one hundred maximal contractions were
made at intervals of 1.6 seconds, a metronome
indicating the rhythm. The remainder of a ten-
minute period was spent in rest. This round”
was then repeated, and so on until six"rounds”
were completed, making an hour's work. Now
by alternating days in which alcohol was taken
and days in which none was taken, or inserting
alcohol days at other regular intervals in a
normal series, there was a means of determin-
ing the effect of the alcohol upon the work. The
details of preliminary experimenting, the pre-
cautions to eliminate errors, and the mathe-
MENTAL AND PHYSICAL EFFECTS 93
matical methods used in computing results, how
various disturbing factors, such as fatigue, were
eliminated and the effect of the alcohol itself
was measured, need not be told in detail. It
is sufficient to say that by comparing the two
series of days it was possible to measure the
effect of the alcohol upon the muscular ability,
at least with a high degree of probability of
having obtained correct results.
Two persons were experimented upon. One
subject worked two hours each day for thirteen
days. On some of the days he took, both morn-
ing and evening, just before beginning the work,
60 grams of a 3313% alcohol. In this case the
effect of the alcohol upon both morning and
evening work was slightly to lessen the amount
done. No stimulating effect whatever was
found, the alcohol appearing to counteract the
effect of warming up which usually made the
second round better than the first.
In the second case effects of alcohol were
found to be much the same as those determined
by other experimenters, working with other
processes. Forty-five grams of the 331/3% al-
cohol had the effect of slightly increasing the
quantity of work done during the hour, with
apparently an increasing effect while the work
was continued. But this stimulating effect was
very slight, so small as to be negligible, at least
from a practical point of view.
94
PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
In another series of experiments, continued
for a longer time, and done under better con-
ditions, 90 grams of the alcohol were used.
Still there was no certain effect upon the quan-
tity of the work done during the hour, but
there was a decided effect upon the distribution
of the work. During the first half hour the
amount of work done was increased by the al-
cohol, and during the last half hour it was
diminished, the 'excess in one case exactly bal-
ancing the deficiency in the other; the precision
of this result, however, having little signifi-
cance. The greatest beneficial effect occurred
during the second round, when the work done
with alcohol was about 4% greater in amount
than the normal work.
The effect of the alcohol was tested in still
another way. The ability to accomplish work
upon the dynamometer during the second hour
after taking the alcohol was measured. No
muscular work was done during the first hour,
but tests were made as before during the second
hour, except that fifty instead of one hundred
contractions were made. Here too the effect,
though slight, seemed unmistakable. Less
work was done during each round on the alco-
hol days than on the normal days, showing that
a slight depressing effect of the alcohol re-
mained over at least until the end of the second
hour. This depression was greatest during the
MENTAL AND PHYSICAL EFFECTS 95
third round, that is, an hour and a half after the
taking of the alcohol.
On the whole, the evidence, both from our
own experiments and from those of others, de-
cidedly leads to the conclusion that the effect
of relatively small doses of alcohol upon va-
rious motor abilities of man is to increase power
and rapidity slightly for a short time, varying
with the amount of the alcohol (and probably
with the temperament of the subject) and then
to diminish it. That there may be so slight a
stimulation that no depression follows, and
that increase in the amount of the dose above
a certain limit shortens the period of stimula-
tion, or obliterates it altogether seems proved,
also. Though these are effects commonly
noted, we must allow for the probability that
there are some individuals who are not thus
typically affected by the alcohol, for example
the subject of the first of my own experiments.
But the mass of evidence, taken as a whole,
presents a clear picture, which must be accepted
as reliable. That the stimulating effect is upon
the nervous tissues and not upon the muscle
involved in the activity is shown by the ex-
periments of Lombard, who found that the
muscular response to electrical stimulation was
always diminished by the alcohol, while the
ability to work under voluntary stimulation was
actually increased.
96
PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
The effect of small doses of alcohol upon the
rapidity and other qualities of such typical men-
tal work as adding of digits, reading, and the
like has been studied experimentally, but with
less definiteness and less agreement in the re-
sults. These mental processes are more com-
plex than the motor functions that have been
experimented upon, more variable from one in-
dividual to another, and therefore are not so
easily measured with precision. The early ex-
periments made upon mental processes seemed
conclusive on one point at least. No very large
quantity of alcohol can be taken without lessen-
ing the amount of mental work, and causing its
quality to deteriorate. Whether there is an
initial period of stimulation was not so clearly
made out. Some of Kräpelin's experiments
seemed to show that there is, but he himself
concluded that it is the motor process connected
with the mental which is stimulated, that the
effect of the alcohol upon the sensory functions
is always a depression; and that, in a mixed
process, the greater the proportion of the sen-
sory element, the greater the liability to depres-
sion rather than stimulation.
Some experiments of my own do not agree
with the results of Kräpelin, yet they do not
conclusively refute the statement that the sen-
sory processes do not undergo a period of in-
itial stimulation. Mixed processes, that is, proc-
MENTAL AND PHYSICAL EFFECTS 97
esses in part sensory, partly central, and in
part motor were experimented upon. Adding,
reading, and writing were tested, in order to
measure the effect of small doses of alcohol
upon the rapidity and quality of these typical
practical functions. The work was continued
for two hours each day, in periods somewhat
similar to those used in the motor tests. On
certain days alcohol was taken five minutes be-
fore the work began. In all cases some slight
stimulation was found to have been produced
by the alcohol. In adding, the quantity was in-
creased slightly both for the first and the second
hour. In reading there was a slight improve-
ment on the alcohol days for the first hour, and
a slight depression during the second hour. In
writing, there was stimulation during the first
hour, and depression in the second. These
changes were all slight, and the precise length
of the period of stimulation was not determined.
Study of the relation between work of adding
columns of digits and reading the same digits
without adding seems to show that the effect
upon the sensory and central processes alone
was a stimulation quite as great and quite as
prolonged as upon the motor processes. But
we are dealing with small numerical quantities,
and there are many chances of complicating
the results by irrelevant factors-so the ques-
tion of the effect of small doses of alcohol upon
98
PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
purely sensory processes, if such can be de-
termined, must be left open.
These experiments give us a picture of what
may be called an intoxication of the nervous
system in a mild form. So far as that picture
can be said to be typical, it is this: At first
there is stimulation of energies, and then de-
pression. The effect is to make work more va-
riable, to break up the monotony and even flow
of activity. Other experiments, such as those
made upon the association of ideas, gave similar
results. Not only is the association time made
more variable, but irregularity in the character
of the mental sequences seems to be produced by
the alcohol.*
The experiments upon alcohol may be said to
prove conclusively that no measurable quality.
of either mental or physical work is as such
improved to any practical extent by alcohol.
This conclusion is strikingly in contrast with
widespread popular opinion, which has always
maintained that alcohol assists both mind and
body. It is interesting and significant that the
* The experimental investigations of the effects of alcohol
have recently been summed up by M. A. and A. J. Rosanoff,
with the statement that alcohol impairs every human faculty
that has been tested; that the higher and more complex the
faculty the more pronounced is the effect upon it; that the ef-
fects of alcohol are cumulative, and continuous use, even in
small quantities, impairs the faculties at a rapidly increasing
rate (55),
MENTAL AND PHYSICAL EFFECTS
.
99
effect is upon the feeling of power rather than
upon the energies themselves. Alcohol causes
changes in the intensity of consciousness; and
this more than anything else is the secret of its
influence.
CHAPTER VII
THE STATE OF INTOXICATION
THERE are many interesting accounts of the
mental effects of various intoxicating drugs,
some to be found in popular writings. De Quin-
cey's Confessions of an English Opium Eater
set the fashion for this kind of study, and also
unfortunately popularised the use of opium by
writers and others to stimulate the feelings and
the imagination. Although the descriptions of
intoxication that have thus been inspired are
sometimes exaggerated, their points of general
agreement must be given due weight. Experi-
mental studies of drug intoxications have been
made, which will help to correct the more pop-
ular accounts. Weir-Mitchell, Prentiss and
Morgan, Delabarre and others have contributed
careful studies. Delabarre says that after tak-
ing hasheesh one gets a larger conception of the
range of the emotional life. Frequently men-
tioned effects of drugs are the awakening of
early memories, exaggeration of emotional
states, changes in time and space perceptions
(commonly referred to as a feeling of infinity),
fantastic colour visions, confusion of hearing
100
THE STATE OF INTOXICATION
101
and vision, animistic beliefs, philosophic in-
sight, double personality, sensations of exten-
sion of the body, increase of personality. All
this shows that a wider range of mental func-
tioning is going on (whether as a result of
paralysis of control or stimulation of nerve
cells directly) than in the normal condition. It
is the common testimony that the normal limits
both of pain and pleasure are passed. And the
conclusion which applies to nearly if not quite
all the cases that have been examined, is that
the intoxication is essentially a succession of
emotional states, or changes, in which exhila-
ration, accompanied by a free flow of thought
and heightened sensibility, is followed by de-
pression, decreased associative power, and less-
ened sensibility. (56)
Compared with the other intoxications the
alcoholic appears to have characteristics pe-
culiar to itself, and in some ways to be similar
to others. The effects of alcohol differ greatly
with temperament, conditions under which the
drug is taken, and with the ingredients with
which it is mixed. The mood in which intoxi-
cation is begun, the stimulus received during
the intoxication, and various preceding mental
and physical conditions all seem to affect its
course.
In order to eliminate so far as possible many
irrelevant and variable factors, and to study,
102
PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
certain standard or typical effects of large
doses of alcohol, the writer made experiments
upon four subjects under laboratory conditions.
In this way the exact amount and character of
the intoxicant administered could be known,
and be made uniform for all subjects, and other
conditions could be controlled. The history of
each subject could be ascertained, and it was
possible to take into account many facts of in-
dividual differences.
The subjects were all mature students, and
none had ever used alcohol as a beverage-all
were practically total abstainers. To produce
intoxication, 600 grams of 1623 % alcohol were
administered in six doses, at intervals of half
an hour. Experiments upon mental and
physical functions were carried on during
the whole course of the intoxication. The
details of these experiments will not be given
here, but the main results may be briefly
mentioned. Until the intoxication was well ad-
vanced, the rapidity of performing common
mental processes was not much affected. Add-
ing, memory for nine-place figures, estimates of
distance and time, clearness of vision, were not
seriously interfered with until there was a very
pronounced degree of muscular inco-ordination.
The strength of the hand-clasp, and the rapidity
of performing a tapping movement with the fin-
ger, were also comparatively little affected, the
THE STATE OF INTOXICATION
103
tapping rate, however, showing more depres-
sion than the other activities. In general the
effect upon all these processes seemed to come
largely through an emotional change; the sub-
ject became indifferent and relaxed effort or
tried to be annoying.
An experiment made to test the control of a
reflex action, showed peculiar changes in the
mental state, even in the earlier stages of intoxi-
cation. In this test the ability of the subject to
control the reflex wink of the eyelids, when the
eye was threatened by a blow, was measured.
A simple piece of apparatus was used. The
subject sat behind a glass plate, which was
struck at regular intervals by a hammer re-
leased from the tension of a spring. The three
subjects who were tested were affected alike by
the alcohol. All controlled this movement very
much better after taking alcohol than when in
the normal condition. This was somewhat sur-
prising, for one of the most frequently men-
tioned effects of alcohol is an increase of difG-
culty in controlling movements. But it was soon
seen that the reason for this effect was a
changed emotional state, which began to appear
very soon after the alcohol had been taken. A
feeling of confidence was induced, which grad-
ually deepened into recklessness and bravado.
Alertness to the conditions of the environment
was lessened, so that while there was ap-
104 PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
parently no diminution of sensibility sufficient
to account for the effect, a mood was aroused
in which response to such stimuli as the threat-
ening of the eye was better controlled. This
mood was shown in other ways. One subject,
who was very precise and exact when in his
normal condition, and who during the first two
rounds of the experiments, before the effect of
the alcohol was felt, was careful to observe all
the conditions in the minutest detail, now be-
gan to disregard the directions, until finally he
insisted upon doing the experiments in a way
of his own, not at all to the liking of the ex-
perimenter.
In all the cases intoxication followed much
the same course. An initial stage of excite-
ment and increased activity, accompanied by a
feeling of pleasure, was followed by a stage of
depression, with displeasure. In two cases a
second period of exhilaration followed the first
depression, but on a lower plane and not so
prolonged: a second intoxication, caused it is
quite likely by the later doses of alcohol, but
showing clearly that it was but a feeble arousal
of activities already partially demoralised. In
each case there was a peculiar, clearly defined
moment when there was a feeling that control
was in some way being lost, and with it a desire
to throw off all restraint, and give way com-
pletely to the feelings. One subject described a
THE STATE OF INTOXICATION 105
moment in which he felt that he could control
the intoxication or allow it to go on, but that
if this moment should pass without a strong
effort at control, the condition would then be be-
yond his command. Another subject an-
nounced at one stage of the intoxication that
if he should swing his arm about two or three
times (illustrating, evidently with care not to
let go) he would be done for." What this
moment signifies is not clear, but that control
functions of some kind have become weakened
and are now on the point of giving way seems
evident; inhibitions, the breaking down of which
we may suppose allows parts of the nervous
mechanisms to come into play that are not used
in ordinary experiences.
All the subjects passed through a series of
moods which seemed to determine the character
of their thoughts. This is best shown by the
association tests which were made at intervals
during the course of the intoxication. A list of
four hundred words was read to each subject
two weeks before the day of his experiment.
To each word as pronounced he was directed to
respond with the first word or idea that came
clearly to mind, allowing the mind to remain
entirely lax. While the intoxication was in
progress the same list was read again, divided
into groups of fifty words, the same type of re-
sponge being called for as before. The result
106
PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
of the alcohol was to produce an increasing
number of reactions different from those of the
normal reaction, with a gradual return to the
normal type as the effects of the alcohol wore
off. These associations show in a remarkable
manner the moods which caused them. As in-
toxication increases, the incisive, one-word re-
sponse begins to give place to the more indef-
inite and loose response. Soon the answers
become discursive, until at the height of the in-
toxication the subject wishes to make a speech
about each word. This discursive reaction per-
sists while the mood changes from elation to
depression and melancholy, and through a
second period of elation likely to be maudlin in
character. Gradually the normal type returns
with an occasional relapse to the intoxication
type. All subjects were conscious, in retro-
spect, of having tried in the early stages to be
humorous, or of willingly giving way to hu-
morous thoughts. In one case, a subject had a
preconceived theory that intoxication is due
largely to suggestion; that if one drinks with
the intention of remaining serious and sober,
there will be little intoxication. The report,
made in retrospect, was that during the first
half hour there was little change in feeling, but
that finally there arose a desire to make witty
remarks, and at the same time the reflection
that to give way to the feeling would mean to
THE STATE OF INTOXICATION
107
morous.
encourage intoxication, and disprove the theory.
This impulse to communicate witty thoughts,
which came thicker and faster, finally became so
strong that the subject could not resist the temp-
tation to tell one that seemed especially hu-
But no sooner was one thought spoken
aloud than another came, still funnier than the
first, with the thought that this one would be
allowed, and then no more. So it went on for
two hours, one remark suggesting another, until
the mood changed, and melancholy ensued,
though this stage was short in this case. All
the time the belief continued that the state of
mind could be controlled, and that the decision
to tell what was in the mind was a voluntary
choice. In this case alone of the four, there
was little physical depression, and no feeling
of nausea; correspondingly, it seemed, no
marked melancholy, and quick return to normal
condition.
The results of these experiments can perhaps
be made clearer to the reader by reporting in
detail one case.
A Case of Intoxication
The subject of the experiment about to be re-
ported was a man of thirty-five years, serious
and dignified in temperament, a specialist in
education, his main work having been teaching
and administration. He was in perfect health,
108
PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
were
of muscular habit, and active both mentally and
physically. He was entirely unaccustomed to
the use of alcohol, and undertook the experi-
ment because of its scientific interest, to have
the experience, and in order to know what an
intoxicated person feels.
The place of the experiment was a large room
of a laboratory, with special apparatus and ta-
bles for these tests arranged in one part.
Only the experimenter and the subject, and
during a part of the time, an assistant,
present. All social excitement was
eliminated, and the seriousness and quiet of the
scientific laboratory were maintained. The alco-
hol was administered in divided doses, and was
a 16 2-3% solution of absolute alcohol and dis-
tilled water. Six doses of this mixture, 100
C.c. in each dose, were prepared, but only five
were given. The doses were administered at
2:55, 3:26, 4:05, 4:48, and 5:55 P. M. The sixth
dose was not given for the reason that the sub-
ject was at the time argumentative, and refused
to take it. Between the doses various experi-
ments were carried on, and were continued until
recovery from the effects of the alcohol at about
9:00 P. M.
The earlier series of tests will be mentioned
presently, but first the results of the association
test (described in the preceding section) will be
given. This was carried on from about 4:00
THE STATE OF INTOXICATION
109
P. M. until 9:00 P.M., somewhat irregularly owing
to the difficulty in keeping the subject at work
in the routine which was previously planned.
Recently much attention has been given to the
association test as a method of mental diagnosis,
and it has been used for various purposes, such
as the analysis of mental disorders, determi-
nation of mental type, and detection of crime.
Below is given the complete list of the words and
the reactions. The first column contains the
test words; the second is the list of normal re-
actions, made two weeks previous to the day of
the intoxication experiment; and the third
column contains the words given by the subject
during the stages of intoxication.
TABLE SHOWING EFFEOT OF ALCOHOL UPON ASSOCIATIONS
TEST WORD
NORMAL REACTION
REACTION AFTER ALCOHOL
1 Dame
2 glass
3 accident
4 homo
5 virtue
6 boy
7 independent
8 transcendental
9 drunk
10 happiness
11 gate
12 ball
13 manners
14 success
15 salvation
16 iron
17 city
18 telegraph
19 temperance
20 doctor
man
crystal
injury
mother
vice
giri
servility
real
sober
contentment
somebody walking
G. S
good breeding
failure
damnation
screw
country
message
moderation
patient
P-
window
suffering
mother
vice
girl
non-conformity
out of experience
sober
peaco
manner of walking
G. S
good behaviour
failure
sin
jack-knife
town
message
non-alcoholism
H-
110
PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
TEST WORD
NORMAL REACTION
REACTION AFTER ALOOHOL
!
21 bottle
whisky
22 cat
dog
23 cart
wheel
24 high
low
25 paste
adhesiveness
26 tin
pan
27 history
poetry
28 summer
winter
29 horse
rider
30 key
lock
31 sickness
health
32 hope
despair
33 heaven
earth
34 box
wood
35 battery
shock
36 banner
flag
37 Spaniard Portuguese
38 watch
time
39 pride
haughtiness
40 window
pano
41 torpedo
explosion
42 widow
funeral
43 jealousy
quarrel
44 post
nail
45 zylol
preserving fluid
46 girl
boy
47 carriage
horse
48 tissue
strength
49 emotion
feeling
50 conventionality formality
51 varicosity enlargement
52 justice
equality
53 fear
love
54 experiment correctness
55 favor
help
56 knife
cutting
57 tin
can
whisky
dog
horse
low
mucilago
rocks
poetry
winter
rider
lock
health
despair
earth
wood
shock
flag
Ouban
clock
haughtiness
glass
boat
funeral
anger
fence
preserving fluid
boy
borse
cells
feeling
formality
enlargement
mercy
anger
reality
gratitude
whittling
rocks
letter
bloodshed
chair
iron
time
goodness
utility
bloodshed
new experience
experiments
writing
59 Renaissance bloodshed
60 table
chair
61 screw
iron
62 clock
time
63 obedience
love
64 instrument implement
65 murder
bloodshed
66 travel
experience
67 psychology experiments
58 paper
THE STATE OF INTOXICATION
111
TEST WORD
NORMAL RCAOTION
REACTION AFTER ALCOHOL
68 strike
69 soul
70 hunt
71 philosophy
72 fish
73 mind
74 shame
75 joke
76 modesty
77 parallelism
78 water
labor union
body
chase
science of principles
animals
matter
honour
play
excellence
duality
air
79 rat
80 wood
81 listen
82 Aristotle
83 activity
84 banana
85 moon
86 chastity
87 hole
88 sun
89 moderation
90 Plato
91 board
92 mua
93 planet
94 pepper
95 scale
96 see
97 pain
98 wire
99 anger
100 marvelous
101 charm
102 nature
103 man
104 development
105 reason
106 moral
107 French
108 beauty
109 air
110 House
111 will
112 science
113 pen
catastrophy
body
game
general principles
water
matter
honour
fun
cheek
psychology
hydrogen and oxy.
gen
mouse
table
hear
philosophy
passivity
fruit
light
purity
pin
light
temperance
Socrates
plank
disagreeable
Mars
salt
weight
tide
pleasure
rope
fear
wonderful
attraction
art
woman
growth
judgment
universal
German
pleasure
life
stable
activity
knowledge
sword
mouse
fire
hear
philosophical empiricist
passivity
fruit
light
purity
well
light
temperance
Aristotle
fence
disagreeable
Mars
fiery
justice
ship
pleasure
fence
fear
great, wonderful
attraction
beauty
wisdom
evolution
judgment
immorality
German
ugliness
water
home
power
classified knowledge
is mightier than the sword
112
PSYCHOLOGY
PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
TEST WORD
NORMAL REACTION
REAOTION AFTER ALOOHOL
consciousness of
evil
civilised
false
chance
bate
consciousness of
bad and indifferent
barbarous
false
there isn't any
war
114 kind
115 good
116 savage
117 true
118 luck
119 love
120
121 whiskers
122 game
123 deceit
124 pocket-book
125 insurance
126 stimulus
127 scissors
128 Goethe
129 brain
130 devil
131 helpless
132 alert
133 beautiful
134 diligent
135 jail
136 parafine
137 injustice
138 calculus
139 weak
140 humanity
141 animal
142 pleasure
143 wealth
144 economy
145 species
breezes
breezes
play
sport
treachery
lying
rocks
blank in my case
life
safety
exertion
reaction
cutting
cutting
poetry
poet
mind
anatomy, psychological re-
action
God
God
just helpless (vis- helpful-I'm full, too
ual)
active
quick at reaction
comely
lovely
successful
successful
see one
shut up for a while
Wax
protective
justice
justice
mathematics
mathematics
strong
go where you please
inhumanity
inhumanity
man
man
pain
good as far as it goes
poverty
influence
meagerness
political economy
genus
genus, genera, that's the
plural, Now don't you
see?
music
bird that Comes when
spring comes on
Dante Gabriel what the fellow saw when
he
was jimjams;
saw
Rossetti on a jack-rabbit
preaching
place of worship
king
Prince of Wales
smoke
smoke
1898
twelve months, nothing more
strength
strength; when a man is on
his muscle folks have to
look out for him (im-
plied threat)
leaf
corn-meal
146 nightingale
147 Rossetti
148 church
149 prince
150 tobacco
151 year
152 muscle
153 flower
THE STATE OF INTOXICATION
113
REAOTION AFTER ALCOHOL
Spanish
Inferno. Old man had pret-
ty good ideas of things
sometimes, didn't he?
luck
young
Friend, here's the gentle-
man; preaches on war
music is art-esthetics ap-
peal to man's highest
nature
thing that people ought to
cultivate
makes me think of the slow
pup
kind of fear that makes the
hair stand on end
I'm never blue
Columbus made a big one
that's the thing they make
those peculiar neckties of
if you want to be brief, con-
servatism is a good an-
tithesis
Juliet
Jewish priest
that's what you and most
scientists don't have
that's one of those things
that makes records
O, probably certain rooms
adjacent to one another
that's what you do not pos-
sess, .sir.
At the present
time I don't think I pos-
sess a great deal more
to hold the O be joyful
you administer in 1633%
doses
that's intoxicating cup.
Seems to me I get
a
Trench accent these
things. P-
Com es
floating into
my
head
(he was right about the
On
TEST WORD
NORMAL REAOTION
154 American
155 Dante
Spanish
Inferno
156 chance
157 old
158 Quaker
luck
young
F. G
159 music
Beethoven
160 righteousness
unrighteousness
161 incline
to slope
162 horror
fear
163 blue
164 discovery
165 rope
blazes
America
halter
166 radical
conservative
167 Romeo
168 rabbi
169 imagination
Juliet
Ben Levi
phantasy
French accent)
0, art is ze most beautiful
expression ze human soul
aspires to
why, two, sir
OG- is the apostle of
mind cure
produces a shock, sir
170 kymograph
record curve
171 Sweet
sour
172 capacity
extension, measure
173 cup
glass
174 art
science
175 one
176 mind cure
victory
faith cure
177 electricity
shock
114
PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
TEST WORD
NORMAL REACTION
REACTION AFTER ALCOHOL
178 rapture
extreme pleasure
179 suggestion
reaction
180 reflection
judgment
181 arms
man waving arms
O, that was exceeding joy.
But if you wrapped your-
self round with a horse
blanket, you might be a
jackass.
connected in a definite way
with hypnotism
is the thing that makes a
man himself
well, if you were a poor
man benefactions people
give you. If you are au
rich man the means by
which you are enabled to
administer to your phys-
ical wants
makes a man independent
of any restrictions
simply doing as other peo-
ple do without regarding
the primitive impulse to
assert himself as himself
where a man keeps a record
of things as they occur
I'm amused at the serious-
ness with which you take
down all these
these · matters
which Occur after split
and I have come into im-
mediate contact
182 free
generous
183 imitation
following others
184 diary
daily record
185 amused
just the word
(6:15 P.M.)
186 solitude
187 nerve
society
cheek
188 drum
curve
189 piety
temperance
there's no such thing, sir
heard a good many people
call it cheek. You would
embody a higher exempli-
fication of it than any-
one I know
noise, boys like that, you
know
involves 80 much man
can't express it briefly-
heard about the pious
Æneas-careful to fulfil
every pious duty-in the
highest sense makes a
man true to every prin-
ciple that moves his be-
ing the highest instinct
something I never was
likeness
is supposed to stand for
justice-& body of men
at the mercy of one who
can make the best soul-
touching argument
190 disappointed
191 resemblance
192 jury
regretful
likeness
judge
THE STATE OF INTOXICATION
115
TEST WORD
NORMAL REACTION
REACTION AFTER ALOOHOL
193 error
wrong
194 culture
civilisation
195 congregation
collection of people
196 study
197 moral
198 adolescence
199 child
200 foot
201 education
202 eat
203 God
204 teaching
pleasure
immoral
youth
man
walking
growth
sleep
no association
education
205 adult
206 conclusion
207 report
208 bibliography
man
fallacious
record
collection of names
209 drink
210 help
211 literature
water
aid
American
that's the thing which
every human being who
ever lived made to his
regret
the thing that all humanity
ought to aspire to. It is
the best in us
nothing but a collection of
individuals you
know
what grex means
pleasure
worth
youth
man
yard
desirable thing
grow
man
the best thing in the world
for a man
childhood
the result of effort
may be public opinion
one of the most helpful
things in the world
a curse
strength
think of all the different
schools
death
safety
parchment
inexactly
work
providentially
Massachusetts
collection of individuals
precept
life
example
pen and ink
pleasure
life
daily record
our old
dominie, You
know
the derivation,
dominus master, somo-
times talks through his
hat,
sometimes grinds
people, but he's the man
for the people after all
212 life
213 danger
214 book
215 exactly
216 author
217 accidentally
218 Worcester
219 people
220 example
221 heart
222 precept
223 paper
224 pain
225 school
226 journal
227 educator
indefinable
fear
slate
correctly
J. R. Lowell
unforeseen
Massachusetts
humanity
precept
ventricles
example
pen
pleasure
study
daily record
116
PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
TEST WORD
NORMAL REAOTION
RDACTION AFTER ALCOHOL
228 youth
229 ball
230 editorial
231 friend
232 ink
233 seminary
234 ache
235 pencil
236 manhood
237 beer
238 heredity
no
age
ago
play
baseball
comment upon top supposed to be an expres-
ics of the day sion of sound judgment
enemy
one of the best things &
human being can have
pen
sometimes & blot, some-
times a potent saying
seed sowing
place for the sowing of
seed-of course
I think
of the Friday nights
pain
functional derangement
paper
pen
womanhood
main thing to live for
two per cent.
don't know what it was
made for guess it means
b-i-e-r in the end
education
what
man can avoid,
and the pity of human
239 discussion
240 frost
241 hour
242 health
conditions
argument
sometimes a fair considera.
tion, sometimes sophis-
tical word-play
cold
increased cold
sixty minutes
sixty minutes
happiness
sickness
twelve months
1898
agreement
something that ought to be
kept
post
something that
shuts in,
and also shuts out
pleasant
the one thing that makes
life worth living
weakness
health
avoirdupois
gravitation
message
question
an after perception an after perception
silver
silver
madness
sanity
cake
thing that boys cry for, and
printers 'sigh for
freedom
the only thing that enables
a man to be a man
pampkin
have to think of the vine
family-pumpkin
art
madonna
Anthony
Anthony
misery
& foolish craze a kind of
insanity
eight
eight
243 year
244 promise
245 fence
246 interest
247 disease
248 weight
249 answer
250 apperception
251 gold
252 insanity
253 pie
254.liberty
255 squash
256 picture
257 saint
258 Klondiko
259 seven
THE STATE OF INTOXICATION 117
TEST WORD
NORMAL REACTION
REACTION AFTER ALOOHOL
260 Boston
Massachusetts
261 Sabbath
262 newspaper
Jew
reporter
263 dictionary
Century
264 sheet
paper
sight
265 eyes
Commonwealth of Massa-
chusetts,
the United
States of America-the
place that
grew
into
prominence sono years
ago and in its own esti-
mation has always been
important since
sup :
posed to be
connected
with the revolutionary
apparatus of the universe
day of rest
one of the things the Amer.
ican people have to be
ashamed of
the guiding star of the
common people
sheet of paper
organs of the highest sense
a man possesses
what a drunkard has, but I
haven't thank the Lord
for that
hard case
sister
answer
why
can't
you use the
United States term and
say "stopper''?
Why
just å stopper; that's all
suite-series of rooms, op.
posite of sour-what you
call your lady
psychosis
266 appetite
tendency to seek
hard case
sister
267 caso
268 brother
269 question
270 stopple
answer
bottle
271 sweet
sour
272 neurosis
273
psychosis
274 activity
275 curtain
276 face
277 populist
passivity
shield
eyes
politician
passivity
exclusion of light
back
kind of specimen of ani.
mated whiskers-runs to
hair more than to brains
-one of these old breez-
er's
one of these things which
put permanence into dif-
ficulty with reality
hot
blue
patient
278 change
instability
hot
blue
health
279 climate
280 yellow
281 physician
(7:40 P. M.)
282 square
283 look
round
expression
round
expression
story)
(illustrated by
118
PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
TEST WORD
NORMAL REAOTION
REA OTION AFTER ALCOHOL
284 ecstasy
285 chin
286 type
287 cheek
288 German
289 long
290 nose
291 frank
extreme delight place folks get into just
this side the trance stage
Sam
Sam, of course
representative of a pi
collection
disagreeable qual. distinguishing characteris-
ity
tic of a gentleman named
Po
French
German, Frenchman
short
short
mouth
a smeller
ingenuous
honest, ingenuous, candid,
open what we like to see
elasticity
dam, sir-the dentist would
say
will
pretty long word, but means
will to succeed or do
hand
why an arm is just an arm,
that's all-a member of
the body (mind wan.
dered)
song
why voice, inseparably con-
nected with speech
youth
haven't you & dictionary,
lend you one-can't af-
ford to be a hog about it
292 rubber
293 determination
294 arm
295 voice
296 age
(Interruption, subject argumentative)
297 camera
298 male
299 carpet
300 vocal
301 dream
302 rebellion
303 onion
304 nervous
305 strength
306 touch
307 organ
308 ideal
309 song
310 silver
311 silence
312 typical
picture
photographer
female
female
beater
tack
instrumental
instrumental
sleep
vision
Civil War
Civil War
leek
garlic and Frenchmen
lacking control
prostration
weakness
power
taste
taste
choir
function
real
real
dance
dance
hemlock
hemlock
gold
gold
generally illustrat- generic representation
ing
tremor
vibration
outside garment waistcoat
feeling
feeling
personal property personal property
313 shudder
314 Overcoat
315 emotion
316 real estate
THE STATE OF INTOXICATION
119
TEST WORD
NORMAL REACTION
REAOTION AFTER ALCOHOL
317 leg
arm
318 sister
319 feeling
320 blue
321 training
322 photograph
323 female
324 timid
325 silver
326 longing
327 story
328 preparation
329 offering
330 expression
331 fame
332 authority
333 speech
334 family
brother
will
red
exercise
picture
male
shrinking
gold
wishing
poem
getting ready
gift
phrase
knowledge
past judgment
voice
father
leg of mountain-legos-
George
Meredith de.
scribes in his "Egoist''
brother
will
green
discipline
likeness
male
daring
gold
unrest
diversion
lack of preparation
gift
phrase
notoriety
individual statement
silence
foundation of state and na-
tion
beer
worth
335 wine
336 excellence
337 passion
338 existence
339 equality
340 noble
341 infinity
342 conquest
343 generous
344 altruism
345 pledge
346 denial
347 revival
348 inertia
349 liquor
350 Persian
351 wreck
352 reform
353 society
354 blaze
355 home
356 ambition
357 being
358 club
359 immortality
360 ilamo
beer
goodness
action
life
justice
ignoble
zero
of Mexico
free
egoism
temperance
affirmation
awakening
velocity
alcoholic
Medes
Hesperus
making over
grex
fire
mother
earuest action
existence
social
immortality
fire
action
life
justice
excellent
unlimited
of Mexico
liberal
egoism
temperance
negation
religious
rest
split
Arabian
danger
I'm going to
individuals
fire
sweet home
Napoleon
not being
social
immortality
fire
120 PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
TEST WORD
NORMAL REAOTION
REAOTION AFTER ALCOHOL
361 courage
will
362 stubbornness heart within
363 causality obstinacy
364 motive
actuating impulse
365 Sunday School Bible Study
366 criminal
moral
367 virtue
vice
368 rivalry
competition
369 luxury
abundance
370 temptation yielding
371 right
wrong
372 control
self-direction
373 loss
gain
374 enmity
opposition
375 prayer
praise
376 fover
heat
377 confession acknowledgment
378 fluctuation variation
379 duty
compulsion
380 soul
body
381 wickedness sin
382 restlessness rest
383 anxiety
worriment
384 penance
atonement
385 strike
bloodshed
386 fire
smoke
387 absoluto
utterly free
388 space
time
389 fireside
revery
390 wrong
right
391 insult
injury
the will to do the thing that
must be done
compliance
effectuality
reason for doing things
day school
good citizen
vice
competition
ease
strength
wrong
lack of control
gain
hate
praise
delirium
faith
steadfastness
obligation
body
sin
rest
struggle
atonement
bloodshed
smoke
unconditioned
time
home
right
injury
The course which feeling ran during the in-
toxication in this case, and in general the
changes made in the mind, can easily be seen
in the reactions. A stage of exaltation was fol-
lowed by one of seriousness and depression,
and this by a return to the normal condition.
But within this general movement were several
minor currents. During the stage of depression
there were short periods of return of the excite-
THE STATE OF INTOXICATION
121
ment, on a lower plane; when the reactions
showed a mixture of humour and pathos, and
the mind wandered. During the first period of
exaltation there was evidently a conscious effort
to be humorous, and to be patronising to experi-
menter and assistant; and this exaltation of
self-feeling is further shown by the increasing
obstinacy of the subject, his confidence in his
ability to do the experiments correctly without
instructions, and his negligence of precautions
usually taken in experiment, and well known by
him.
This first period of obstinacy went with a
mood of good feeling and exaggerated person-
ality sense; a later period of argumentativeness
had a note of depression and irritation. What
the physiological basis of these changes in feel-
ing may be, one would not attempt to say with
confidence. Probably the earlier doses caused
excitement and then depression; the later doses
temporarily reinstated the excitement, but in a
different form. The associative processes had
been disintegrated, and stimulus spread with
great readiness from one associative group to
another,
The results of some of the experimental
methods applied during the intoxication in this
case will show other facts about the course of
the mental changes, especially during the early
stages. The method of work was as follows:
122
PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
After each dose of the alcohol the subject was
put through a series of experiments, including
tests for rapidity of movement, adding, memory
for digits, strength of hand-clasp, estimation of
time and distance, control of the reflex wink.
The pulse rate was also taken during each
period.
Even after the association tests showed much
change in the character of feeling, the ability
to make rapid movements was not greatly dis-
turbed. On the normal day on which this abili-
ity was tested the records were 234, 227, 222—
the rate for one minute. On the alcohol day,
the records taken were 213, 201, 175, 171, 165,
176.
In estimating the length of a minute, by an-
nouncing, after a signal had been rung for
starting, when he thought a minute had expired,
the subject made the interval much longer on
the whole on the alcohol day. The normal rec-
ords were, 43.4 sec., 33.0, 54.6, 41.4, 45.0-and
on the alcohol day, 66.4, 75.6, 53.0, 43.4, 51.6,
61.4, 65.0, 65.0, 61.0, 58.0, 58.0. The last three
were taken at 6:30 P. M., at a time when the as-
sociations show that the mental state was one
of depressed feeling.
Ability to add, tested through the first five
periods of the experiment, shows little deterio-
ration. The normal records were 130, 192, and
196, to be compared with 150, 160, 156, 165, 141,
THE STATE OF INTOXICATION
123
and 178 on the alcohol day. We need to be re-
minded, however, that such a process as adding
is very complicated, and though the records
may show little change, much change may have
been going on in the manner in which the work
was done. Rapidity depends in part upon wil-
lingness to take chances of error, and this would
counteract to some extent depression of the
physiological processes concerned in the activ-
ity.
In the test upon control of the reflex wink, a
very great difference was observed, in this sub-
ject, on comparing normal and alcohol records.
On the normal day there was much trouble in
controlling the reflex. In the first twenty-five
trials, but five were controlled; and in the sec-
ond series, fifteen. On the alcohol day, in the
first series of trials, all but the first and the
seventh were controlled, and during all the
other tests throughout the whole series there
was no tendency whatever to wink. At 7:05
P. M., when muscular co-ordination was much in-
terfered with, a series of tests of the wink-
ing reflex was made, and control was perfect.
The subject in retrospect said his feeling was
one of indifference. He knew the glass was
thick enough to keep the hammer from breaking
through, and so he gave the experiment no
thought. The same indifference was shown for
a long period to all the experiments. When
124
PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
the obstinacy of the subject made the control
of the conditions difficult, and he was told that
unless he were more careful he would spoil
our records, he replied that that was no concern
of his. His attitude was then that of one who
tries to tease and annoy by obstinacy.
The pulse rate, whenever taken during the
intoxication, showed a rate in excess of the
normal. Three countings on normal days gave
77, 77, and 78. At intervals from 3:00 P. M.
to 6:30 P. M. on the intoxication day the rate
was taken with these results-92, 87, 90, 86, 92,
93. The last-mentioned record was taken at
6:30 during a time of physiological depression.
At 7:30 P. M. the pulse still stood at 88.
A few notes of many taken during the course
of the experiment, or later from restrospection
of the subject will show something of his atti-
tude toward the condition.
3:26 P. M. The subject reported that he did not notice the
burning sensation so much in taking the second dose, as he
did in the first; showing some diminution of sensibility.
4:00 P.M. During the third round the subject was con-
scious in the tapping experiment of putting on more power
than in the preceding rounds, and of a slower movement.
This was true, and as the experiment progressed, the move
ment was changed from a precise finger and wrist movement
to a movement of the whole body.
4:00 P. M. Muscle sensations seemed much changed. The
subject lifted a chair and was surprised to find it so light, and
a little later a stool, and was surprised to find it so heavy.
4:20 P. M. Complained of many body sensations. Felt as
THE STATE OF INTOXICATION
125
though the body were long and the legs short. The neck felt
less sensitive when touched by the fingers. The subject was
conscious of a peculiar feeling in the legs as though they
wished to straighten out rigid and firm, and to swing like
pendulums from the hip instead of bending at the knee. If
the eyes were closed there was a feeling of dizziness. The
subject was conscious of a tendency to repeat phrases.
4:48 P. M. Beginning of the fourth round. The subject
complained of a feeling of numbness. He could not taste
the alcohol at all this time. When he wiped his mouth
he did not feel it. In the dynamometer test he tried to
change to the left hand at the sixth pull. He showed signs
of fatigue during the adding, and complained that everything
felt gone from him. He began to show lack of interest in the
experiments. When he finished the memory tests, he said,
“Got in an extra one, but never mind.” Instead of putting
down the nine which were read to him, he had recorded ten,
a gross error in a simple memory test.
6:30 P. M. The subject said that everything looked distant,
but he thought he could estimate distance correctly. He
tried, and did. Everything looked topsy-turvy to him, but
he was not dizzy.
6:40 P. M. The subject said that he felt paralysed. A mo-
ment later he complained that the world seenied all shut in;
that there was no light outside the room. There was a pe-
culiar kind of contentment; he was perfectly content to sit
still.
6:45 P. M. The subject tried to walk, and thought he could
"do better at a waltz." He tried it. About this time he
complained that when sitting he felt a tendency to plunge
forward as though "everything were in the head."
6:55. The subject complained that he cared for nothing,
whether he were dead or alive-heaven or hell, happiness
or misery were all the same to him.
7:50 P. M. The subject said he felt all right, so far as he
felt.anything. He felt as though he had been asleep. He was
conscious that he had been talking wrong, pronouncing every-
thing in the easiest way.
7:50 P. M. The subject said that his words still sounded
126
PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
as
different to him, both in expression and in tone, from the nor-
mal. He said that now in looking back he could see that
concentration of his attention upon a motor task had had an
effect of bringing consciousness together and clearing it.
7:55 P. M. The subject seemed quite sober. He still walked
with slight inco-ordination. He guessed the time of day cor-
rectly. He complained still of a numbness all over,
though he were not a living organism, Since the last dose the
time had seemed very short, as though sometime in the past
he had been shut up like a book. He remembered that he
had passed through a compliant stage, and an argumentative
stage.
8:30 P. M. The subject said that since the beginning of
the fifth round everything seemed a blank. The world seemed
small and shut in. He still felt
He still felt a desire to look into a mirror
to see whether he were really swaying in sitting upright, or
whether this were merely a sensation. It was mostly sub-
jective.
These facts about the effect of alcohol and
other stimulant-narcotics suggest some conclu-
sions that seem quite secure, and they also open
up tantalising problems of physiology and psy-
chology upon which at present scarcely more
than conjecture may be offered. The evidence,
though not entirely without contradiction at
some points, or at least not without allowance
for individual differences, seems to warrant
the assertion that all these stimulants and nar-
cotics, in intoxicating as in small doses, excite
for a short period, and then depress or paralyse,
the functions or activities of whatever nervous
tissue they affect. In some cases the period of
excitation may be brief or obscure, but the
THE STATE OF INTOXICATION 127
typical mode of action of these drugs is at first
to arouse activity.
A second quite obvious conclusion is that
nervous mechanisms or tissues are not all
equally affected by stimulant-narcotics. They
are affected progressively, one function after
another being reached. A quantity sufficient to
paralyse completely one function will leave
others quite intact; or will affect them, if at all,
only much later. A state or course of intoxi-
cation, therefore, is always a progressive stimu-
lation and narcotising of tissues, some being
in one state, some in another. If we may
speculate about the brain states that accom-
pany the mental changes, we may say that a
wave of stimulation and narcotising spreads
over the tissues from one part to another, or
more probably, acts selectively among co-ordi-
nated groups of neurons, at first exciting, then
depressing whatever it affects.
This simple statement, however, does not en-
tirely explain the changes that occur in intoxi-
cation. The nervous system is an organism of
balanced parts, one serving the purpose of hold-
ing another in check. When the higher func-
tion becomes paralysed the lower which de-
pends upon it for control is quite certainly re-
leased from control, and quite independently of
stimulating effects of the drug upon it, may
function excessively or respond to stimulus that
128
PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
in a normal condition would not arouse it at all.
Increase of excitement in a part may also have
the effect of drawing stimulus from and in-
hibiting other parts.
There is a theory that the nervous functions
are affected by alcohol in an order which is
the reverse of their acquirement by the indi-
vidual and by the race. The evidence from our
own cases partly confirms this view, especially,
so far as it relates to large motor functions.
Ribot (57) states the view somewhat like this:
At first there is an excitement in which reflec-
tion is diminished, a condition in which, appar-
ently, the highest brain centers connected with
thought are depressed or paralysed. Close at-
tention, which is an effect of nice motor con-
vergence, can no longer be maintained. Next
the control of the tongue is lost; a man talks at
random, and will tell all his secrets, showing
that now all the higher inhibitions have disap-
peared. After this he becomes incapable of
any continued plan of action. Then the will,
under even its lowest and most impulsive form,
* Starke's conclusion is interesting in this connection. He
maintains that alcohol has a specific effect in making the cen-
tral nervous system anæmie and the skin plethoric, and in
arousing the sympathetic nervous system. This is the phys-
ical aspect of an effect which on the mental side appears as a
stimulation of our personal, intimate ego. The external world
is dulled, and the internal world aroused, by a redistribution
of energies in the nervous system, not by a paralysis of any
function.
THE STATE OF INTOXICATION 129
1
becomes powerless. Then the most delicate
voluntary movements, those of speech and
hand, cease to be properly co-ordinated. One
degree lower, and he loses the semi-automatic
movements, those of walking. Then muscular
tonicity weakens. The man falls from his seat.
Then reflex movements are abolished. Finally,
there is a cessation of automatic movements
those of respiration and of the heart. Ribot,
of course, is describing a profound degree of
alcohol poisoning.
Though our own experiments seem to indi-
cate that in a general way this course of events
takes place in intoxication, the suspicion re-
mains that the process is not quite so sche-
matic and simple as this description indicates.
Some later acquired functions seem to be tena-
cious, and are not affected until there is a
marked effect upon some apparently lower cen-
tres. And it seems that the effect of alcohol is
selective among functions; as though, aside from
the wave of paralysis which descends the levels
of the nervous system, certain mechanisms were
especially affected, and the effect upon these
were the core, so to speak, of the intoxication.
This change that seems to be the core of the
state of intoxication, however it is caused, is
the change in the states of pleasure or displeas-
ure—in the sense of well- or ill-being of the in-
dividual. Precisely what the physiological
130
PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
basis of this change is, is not clear. In fact,
the physiology of pleasure and displeasure, and
even the psychological nature of these states,
is so much a matter of conjecture at the
present time that perhaps it would be futile
to discuss how they are affected by alcohol:
whether alcohol arouses certain thoughts or
attitudes of mind which in turn give pleasure,
or whether something which may be called a
mechanism of pleasure is directly stimulated-
or whether the course of stimulation of brain
centres is itself the basis of the change of feel-
ing.* But it seems as though some definite
mechanisms of the nervous system must be se-
lectively influenced by the alcohol, and that thús,
by mechanical means, the states of pleasure,
Sajous calls attention to the fact that in the phenomena
of alcoholism we have a manifestation similar to those pro-
duced by many poisons (the exaltation of mental faculties and
increase in the sensation of well-being) and that these are
like the effects of drugs that stimulate the adrenal system.
(The adrenal system, in Sajous' view, consists of the thyroid,
the pituitary body, and the adrenals, connected through the
sympathetic ganglia and the splanchnic nerves.) The adrenal
secretion is the agency which, in the pulmonary air-cells,
takes up the oxygen of the air, and which as a constituent of
the hæmoglobin of the red corpuscles of the blood and of the
plasma, carries this gas to all parts of the organism. Until
we know more about such involved problems of secretion, and
about the function of various products of the more obscure
systems of the body, we shall not be able to give very definite
and complete answers to physiological problems concerned in
such intoxications as the alcoholic.
*
THE STATE OF INTOXICATION 131
ease
and finally of displeasure are artificially pro-
duced. Accompanying the first
the first stages, or
constituting them, are increased activity of the
heart, increased flow of thought and feel-
ings, a sense of
of activity. But
the widened range of emotion is the central
change. Feeling increases and becomes domi-
nant in the mental state; there is a sense of
abundance of life, the mental horizon appears
to be widened, and the intoxicated person en-
joys a sense of expansion of the personality,
which is none the less real to him because in
most ways mental powers are not increased, but
are actually diminished. The sense of person-
ality is enlarged under the influence of an ex-
pansive feeling, and at the same time limita-
tions based upon inhibitions of conduct and
feeling are broken down. The more individual
thoughts and adjustments are removed, and the
more general or more social feelings and
thoughts are increased. At the height of the
stage of pleasure, the individual feels both his
own personality, and his area of social contact
widened. Memory is stimulated, and unused
parts of the mind are brought into action. For
a moment the individual has transcended his
limited individuality, and has looked, as it
seems to him, into a larger world. He has be-
come a larger self, and life is richer in meaning.
This, it seems, this moment of breaking down
132
PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
of the limitation of the individual, which each
of the subjects of the experiment felt as a
moment when all control might be thrown aside,
is the state which is especially craved by the
drunkard. Did such an outlook but really lead
on to higher enthusiasms, and to those efforts
and activities which do enlarge the outlook upon
life, and give it richer meaning, we should be
obliged to say that the function of alcohol is
explained and justified. That these states did
actually in the past stimulate thought and
ideals; that alcohol once aroused social activi-
ties and enthusiasms and played a part in nor-
mal life can hardly be questioned. What the
relation of such desires is to present ideals and
experiences lies before us as the most im-
portant practical question of our study. The
love of alcohol is essentially a love of life-a
craving for a life more abundant. However
inadequate and futile the means chosen to se-
cure this larger meaning of life may be now,
we may assert that a normal motive lies at the
heart of it. How this normal motive may be
satisfied; how the recreational life, the social
life, and the work of the individual may be
made to satisfy it, we can easily foresee, is the
practical problem of the intoxication impulse,
if the analysis up to this point has been correct.
CHAPTER VIII
A STUDY OF ABNORMAL CASES
NATURE has provided many opportunities for
studying normal traits of the human mind in
an enlarged or distorted form. In the abnor-
mal mind normal cravings and activities which
should have become controlled and organised
are seen uncontrolled and distorted. Some-
times in the abnormal mind, one impulse comes
to stand for and dominate the individual. It
is enlarged, and out of relation and proportion
to all the other impulses, and perverts the whole
life. But such cases are not anomalies, pro-
duced by laws different from those according
to which normal individuals are produced.
They must be studied in relation to the normal
at every point; and it is only by seeing the re-
lation between the normal and the abnormal
trait that the abnormal can be said to be under-
stood at all.
A study of various classifications of drinkers
discloses the fact that there are two general
types of organisation which predispose to ex-
cessive drinking. One is the undeveloped type
of organism: intellectually and morally, per-
133
134 PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
haps physically, of a low order. Such are
never able to transform lower enthusiasms into
higher, and they always live on a low plane.
They lack self-direction and purpose. They
live in the midst of a civilisation which is too
refined in type for them to imitate.
The second is the degenerate. People of this
type commonly possess qualities which go with
culture and high ideals, but they lack balance.
To this class belong many people whose nervous
systems are so constructed that they cannot con-
trol impulse, though usually ideals are normal,
and clash with behaviour.*
Such broad generalisations, however, are far
from satisfactory when applied to individual
cases; and there is no more perplexing problem
of individual psychology and physiology than
the subtle differences, which make it possible
for one man to drink moderately throughout
life, without danger of excess, while another,
apparently as well constituted and living under
as favourable conditions perishes in the pres-
ence of alcohol.
In order to secure reliable data about the
alcohol habit sixty-five cases were studied at
first hand. Most of these were men committed
* Williams (58) says that inebriates are recruited from
two types, the hysterical and the psychasthenic. Wilson (59)
has presented excellent clinical studies of types of inebriates,
and emphasises the subtlety and complexity of the factors in-
volved in the abnormal diathesis of alcoholism.
A STUDY OF ABNORMAL CASES
135
for drunkenness and other minor offences in
the Worcester County House of Correction.
Some were cases confined in asylums for inebri-
ates in New York City. A few interesting ac-
counts were obtained through other sources,
among them some secured at the Jere McAuley
Mission in New York. Each case was visited
in person by the writer, and no fact has been
included that was not obtained thus at first
hand.
The main purpose of the study was to dis-
cover the nature of the craving for alcohol as
felt by the drinker, the genesis of the habit in
his consciousness, and the part it has played in
his life. The result was a certainty that crav-
ings which are naturally social in expression
are at the bottom of all drinking of this class,
that there is little personal initiative, and little
or no specific craving for alcoholic drinks. In-
toxication is a part of a social event, and has
no other significance for the great majority of
drinkers, even drunkards. What the
craves
is social excitement, or something
which, at his grade of intelligence, is best
satisfied by social excitement. The man be-
comes and remains a drunkard because, in
the class of society in which he lives, so-
cial life is almost invariably accompanied
by drinking. It requires no very low order
of moral standard for a man under these
man
:)
136
PSYCHOLOGY, OF INTEMPERANCE
circumstances to become a hard drinker. All
that is required is a nervous system rather more
than usually susceptible to the effects of alco-
hol, and a low resistance to habit. Very few
indeed are conscious of possessing a craving for
alcoholic drinks, or of desiring a state of in-
toxication except in its social form. Being
actually, drunk is an accident, and is usually
neither intended nor expected. The drunkard
usually deludes himself with the belief that the
drunk from which he is just recovering is to
be the last one, and that the next time he will
drink only enough to be mildly excited, if indeed
he will not abandon drinking altogether. These
amiable decisions hold until he is the next time
tempted by the presence of drinking compan-
ions. There are always men enough who are
just taking a drink to keep up the suggestion for
those who waver undecided whether to drink
or not once more. We can go so far indeed
as to say that intoxication is a social state,
that a
man is intoxicated in the proper
sense of the term only in company, desires it
only with reference to others in the same condi-
tion; that solitary, excessive drinking is a mor-
bid habit, is sought usually for stupefaction,
has well-marked features of disease, or eccen-
tricity, and exists usually in those having
other signs of mental deterioration of a pro-
nounced kind. It is felt to be abnormal even
A STUDY OF ABNORMAL CASES
137
1
by the hardest social drinker, who abhors soli-
tary drinking as much as the temperate person
abhors the ordinary drunkard.
In fifty-eight of the sixty-five cases studied
there was no evidence of anything like a con-
scious craving for alcoholic drinks, although
most of the men were confirmed drunkards.
Nearly all had been committed more than once
for drinking, and one was serving his six-
teenth term for that offence. The statement
usually made by these men was that, when
alcoholic drinks had for any reason been cut
off for from ten to twenty days, all craving for
drink ceased. The testimony on this point, and
the exceptions to the general rule, can best be
shown by quoting excerpts from the actual rec-
ords of the cases. The language used is so far
as possible that of the subject, taken down at
the time of the interview, or immediately after-
wards. What it lacks in elegance is perhaps
compensated by directness and sincerity.
Case 1. Man, 25 years of age. Has been a drinker since
fifteen. He has used a quart of whisky daily for years. Has
drunk alone, but generally likes to drink in a crowd. He has
no craving for liquor when he is in jail.
Case 2. Man, 31 years old. Drank his first glass at 24.
Drinks socially altogether. He has been in the habit of being
intoxicated every Saturday night. He has no craving for
drink while in jail, nor during the week when he is out. When
he is tired and thirsty a glass of beer tastes good; but after
that, it is not the taste. He drinks for the feeling, or because
he has lost control of himself, and doesn't care what he does.
138
PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
Afterwards he feels the disgrace of his actions keenly. He
is strong, of athletic build, and in perfect health so far as
he knows.
Case 3. Man, 36. He alivays drinks in company. He never
intends to get drunk when he starts. Occasionally between
drunks he will take a glass of beer. Trouble will always make
him go and get drunk. When in jail he feels the loss of his
pipe, but does not feel the loss of his drink. As a boy, he was
very shy and bashful. As a young man he was in the habit
of taking a few drinks before going to a party or social, in
order to overcome his shyness.
Case 4. Man, 38. Has been drinking since he was sixteen.
He very seldom drinks alone. Has no appetite at all for
alcoholic drinks when he is in jail, and doesn't see why it
cannot be the same when he is free. If he succeeds in going
for two or three weeks without drinking he has no craving for
liquor.
Case 5. Man, 52. He has been a drinker since he was
sixteen. For the past few years has drunk very heavily.
He drinks mostly in company. He drinks because he worries.
Hasn't missed liquor since he has been in confinement. He
feels the need of his tobacco. He has always been of a
nervous temperament. He thinks he will never drink again.
Case 6. Man, 21. Has been drinking since he was fourteen.
Has drunk alone a good deal. He likes to be alone when
drinking. Has drunk as many as thirty glasses of liquor
daily. He had been drinking heavily when he was arrested,
but missed the liquor afterwards only for two or three days.
It now takes more to make him drunk than when he began
drinking
Case 7. Man, 43. He has been drinking since twenty. 'If
he takes one drink he is sure to take another. Doesn't like
the taste, either of beer or liquors. It is for the feeling after
it is down that he takes it. If there were no rum to be had,
he would never have a craving for it.
Case 8. Man, 32. A very hard drinker. Doesn't care for
the taste of liquor at all. Doesn't care anything about it
until he gets into company. He never goes into a saloon
alone. If he is worried about anything, he goes out looking
A STUDY OF ABNORMAL CASES
139
for company and drinks. In jail he craves neither liquor nor
tobacco, except chewing tobacco.
Case 9. Man, 43. Of melancholy temperament. His drink-
ing is periodic. He always drinks alone. When he drinks
with a crowd he spends too much money. He will go two
or three months and have no desire for liquor at all. Once
he went a year without tasting it. He feels certain that he
will never drink again.
Case 10. Man, 50. He has been drinking since he was six-
teen. He has never had a craving for drink. Never thinks
of it when he is in jail. Does not like the taste of beer
or whisky or any other kind of liquor. He never goes into
a saloon to drink alone, even when he has plenty of money.
He never goes into a saloon because he wants a drink.
Case 11. Man, 48. Has been drinking since nineteen.
Doesn't like the taste of liquor. He never goes in to get a
drink by himself. He drinks by sprees. When he meets two
or three old friends he likes to go in and talk over old times,
thus gets to drinking, and then can't stop. Misses tobacco
much more than liquor. "A man doesn't need liquor; he
does need tobacco.” He is sure he is not going to drink any
more.
Case 12. Man, 43. Has been drinking since he was twenty-
five. Doesn't like the taste of liquor. Has no craving for it
now, or ever. But he cannot take a glass or two and then
stop. He always gets drunk when he drinks at all. His
health is good, and he is not of a nervous temperament.
Case 13. Man, 40. Has been drinking since seventeen. At
thirty he gave up drinking beer, and began to drink whisky
altogether. He always drank alone, and every day. His usual
allowance has been from fifteen to twenty glasses in a dạy.
Four years ago he took a six weeks' treatment, and managed
after that to go a year without drinking a drop. Has no
craving for liquor at all while in confinement, but there is
all the time a struggle against fatigue and depression. Al-
ways, if he has had nothing to drink for a month or two,
there is no craving for it, and the return to drinking is acci-
dental.
Case 14. Man, 18. Doesn't like the taste of liquor except
140 PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
sea.
after he has already been drinking heavily. For three or
four weeks after coming to jail, he craved both liquor and
tobacco. Now he does not think of either.
Case 15. Man, 36, A sailor. He drinks nothing when at
He misses it only the first two or three days out.
Since he has been in jail he has missed his pipe, but he
doesn't crave drink. He never drinks alone. Doesn't like the
taste of liquor; it is the sensation that he cares for.
Case 16. Man, 35. The first drink was taken at fourteen.
The only craving is on a hot day, when thirsty, and then he
really feels a craving for a glass of beer. It is impossible
for him to drink moderately now. When he drinks, he al-
ways drinks too much. When he hasn't had a drink, he
doesn't want it. When he has, he wants more.
He is in per-
fect health, so far as he knows..
Case 17. Man, 24. He doesn't like the taste of whisky nor
crave it; but when he once has a taste of it, he can't stop short
of extreme intoxication. He is never tempted to drink except
when he is out with the boys.
Case 18. Man, 26. He has been drinking since twenty.
After he has had one drink, he has a strong desire for more.
Otherwise he has no taste for it whatever, and never thinks
of it except when he is where there is excitement, and there
is drinking going on. To have a good time is the beginning
of his drinking.
Case 19. Man, 23. He has no craving for liquor. Once
in a while he drinks alone, but never intentionally to get
drunk. He likes the taste of whisky. When he is with a
crowd he doesn't feel that he is having a good time unless
he drinks. If he takes one drink, he always gets drunk.
In the seven cases which follow there is more
positive evidence that the state of intoxication
plays a part in the system of conscious desires
of the individual. Those who think that the
drunkard is a man who has a diseased appetite
for drink, caused perhaps by the use of alco-
A STUDY OF ABNORMAL CASES
141
hol, or who incline to the belief that a drunk-
ard is what he is because he does not wish to
'do right,” will find in such cases material
for reflection. They will see at least how in-
tricately the drinking habit is bound up with
all the most vital functions of a man's life. To
control his habit, the man must sometimes
change his whole life plan, create for himself
new social interests, perhaps choose a new oc-
cupation, or withdraw himself altogether from
his old social life. And then, when he has ex-
erted all his will force, and taxed all his in-
genuity, and has perhaps been many months
or years without tasting an intoxicant, he may
find that he is not yet secure against relapse.
He may go through life never secure from at-
tack, feeling as does our Case 22 that his drink-
ing is a thing as external to his own control as
is the most accidental calamity that can befall
one, an event against which he has no resource
for protection in his own will. And yet these
indomitable habits are in the great majority
of men not felt as a craving either for liquor
or its effects, and the great mass of evidence
shows that independently of the social life sur-
rounding the individual, they have little con-
trol over him.
Ca.se 20. Man, 49. Unmarried. There is no nervous dis-
ease nor insanity in the family so far as he knows. His
father died at seventy-six years of old age; his mother at fifty
142 PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
of pneumonia. He has six brothers and sisters none of whom
use liquors. He himself has always been healthy. The first
drink was taken at sixteen. He used to set up tenpins in a
bowling alley, and began to drink beer there. He had left
school at fourteen and had always been a good boy. For a
long time he drank beer regularly, but never tasted liquors. At
last he began to use stronger drinks. He never liked the
taste of them, but used them for the feeling, usually beginning
to drink when he was discouraged. He has never had the
habit of daily drinking, but has drunk by sprees. Between
drunks he would not drink at all. He has tried very hard
to overcome the habit. He knew it was wrong, and knew
that it was hurting him in every way. He would fight his
inclinations for several days, but sooner or later would get in
with the boys. Of late years he has drunk mostly alone.
He went without drink once for two years, from the age of
about twenty-seven to twenty-nine. At that time he was work-
ing for good pay, and made up his mind to stop drinking, and
succeeded.
Every week for the last seven years he has spent two days
in drinking and three days in recovering from the effects of
it. In this he has been perfectly regular. Although,
during all these years, he has never once missed his spree,
he thinks that if there had been no way of obtaining liquor,
he would not have craved it. He has no craving for it now
at all, and doesn't even think of it, when in confinement.
But when he was working, every Saturday he would think
of it all the afternoon, would go home in the evening, change
his clothes, and go down town. He would walk about for a
time, until about eight o'clock. Then he would go in and get
a glass of beer. That would be the beginning of his drink-
ing, which would be kept up steadily until Tuesday. He
knows of no cause for his drinking, and cannot in any way
explain the impulse which is quite beyond his control. He
never left the shop Saturday afternoon without intending to
stay sober, and to control his desire. And each time when he
was sober, he determined never to drink again. He feels that
there is some peculiar weakness in his nature, and thinks
that even in the absence of liquor, he would have found some
A STUDY OF ABNORMAL CASES
143
over.
other way to ruin himself. He says that now he feels quite
convinced that he will never drink again. In temperament,
he is nervous. As a child he was restless and uneasy, of vivid
imagination, honest and truthful, and quick-tempered. He
has never cared much for the society of the other sex.
Case 21. Man, 38. An only child. This man is a pe-
riodical drinker. At eleven he was made drunk by com-
panions, and was taken home by two men. He doesn't
remember feeling sorry. As a child and growing boy he was
very nervous and high-strung. At seventeen he began to
drink regularly and has been a periodic drinker from that
time. At thirty-two he broke his leg, and at that time began
to use opium to kill the pain. He has used it ever since.
Morphine makes him feel dull; but it is quite different with
alcohol. A little of any alcoholic drink makes him thrill all
The least taste of any liquor will set him going, even
sweet cider, unless it is just out of the press. Morphine he
now uses only after he has been drinking heavily. It sobers
him, and makes him fall asleep, and so puts an end to his
spree.
His periods are usually precipitated by meeting a friend.
Meeting an old comrade affects him in a strange manner which
he cannot explain. He is inclined to be very intense both in
his likes and dislikes, and it is the strange feeling aroused
by meeting an old acquaintance that is more likely than any.
thing else to lead to a long spree. He dislikes the taste of
liquors of all kinds, even detests them. His periods come
now at intervals of from three months to a year. Once he
went two years without drinking. Many times he can con-
trol the impulse even when it is strong, but he is very easily
and strangely influenced. He feels that he will control his
appetite altogether sometime, but expects another attack when
he is released this time. He thinks he is safest when he is
where liquor can readily be obtained. For when he is away
where he cannot get it, there is likely to be an increasing
craving. Periods are most likely to come on when he is
discouraged or depressed. He is by nature of an unstable dis-
position, loves frequent change, and has worked at many
trades. As a boy he had plenty of money, had a good edu-
144 PSYCHOLOGY, OF INTEMPERANCE
one.
cation, and did not expect to earn his own living. He feels
keenly the disgrace of his condition.
Case 22. Man, 34. An actor. He is in good health, and
has no nervous disorder. His first drink was taken at twelve.
He was out skating, on a cold night, and drank cherry brandy.
His next drink was taken when he was seventeen. He was
working in a bank, came down town too late for breakfast,
and ordered a glass of beer. He was alone. After this, he
drank more or less, always socially. He was occasionally in-
toxicated but only at times of unusual festivity, such as
New Year's Day and the like. He was married at twenty-
From twenty-one to twenty-seven he drank more or less
steadily but only in a social way. At twenty-seven he was
separated from his wife. After that he drank to excess in
order to forget his troubles. He drank alone altogether, and
continuously. He rented a room, and began a spree which
lasted for six months, for during that time there was not a
day in which he was fully sober. Since then his drinking
has been somewhat periodical. He went West to work on a
ranch, and for eight months drank no liquor of any kind.
He was where it could not be obtained conveniently, and he
had no craving for it. He was offered liquor a few times
during that period, but refused it. Lately his sprees have
been becoming more frequent. Sometimes he can go for a
few weeks and drink more or less moderately, but he in-
variably ends in an uncontrollable spree. Five years ago he
spent four weeks at the Keeley Cure, and after that went
three years without drinking. His sprees always last as long
as he has money or can get whisky. As regards the craving,
when he hasn't been drinking he doesn't crave liquor, but
when he has once started the need is imperative. He has
had no craving since he came to the inebriates' home, al-
though he has not been under restraint. He thinks that if
he lived all the time in such an environment he would never
think of liquor. The craving is more of a mental than a
physical craving. It is a desire to get away from himself.
The craving for drink is a craving which any other pleasure
equal in degree would satisfy. It is a disgust with present
conditions, and a desire to cut loose from old ruts and have
A STUDY OF ABNORMAL CASES 145
cess.
a change. Of late his sprees have always been preceded by,
a fit of despondency. Looking back, he can trace two differ-
ent conditions which have been likely to bring on a period of
drinking: one is unusual depression; the other, unusual suc-
The nature of his spree differs greatly according as
one or the other of these motives initiates it. If he starts
in a happy mood he is jovial all the time; if he starts drink-
ing when he is depressed, he is unsocial and silent, and there
is no stage of exhilaration. He does not feel at all sure that
he will be cured by his present treatment. One might as well
ask him whether he intended ever to have pneumonia again.
It is a thing which he does not control.
Case 23. Man, 45. He was seventeen when he took his
first drink. It was at a wedding.
It was at a wedding. After that he drank stead-
ily, though his drinking tended to be somewhat periodical
from the start. His sprees occur at intervals of from three
to six months. The longest period of abstinence was a year
and a half when he was thirty-eight. During all that time
he never had any craving for liquor whatever. Excitement
and the renewal of associations broke the spell. His sprees
are induced usually by associating with people who drink,
or by misfortune, or anger. He does not like the taste of
alcohol, nor crave drink in any way; but if he begins drink-
ing, he cannot stop. He has been arrested eight or ten times,
each time for drinking. When drunk he is peaceable and jolly.
He never drinks alone. Probably never drank twenty-five
drinks alone in his life. He craves tobacco, incessantly, and
the want of it when he is in confinement makes him nervous
and irritable. He doesn't feel at all certain that his drinking
is permanently stopped. He thinks confinement has no bene-
ficial effect, for a man cannot be cured of drunkenness by
loneliness. The only way to cure him is to keep him away
from drinking society.
Case 24. Man 48. Born in Ireland. For the last twenty-
eight years, he has been drunk about once a week. When
he is out of jail, he has a craving for drink. It is like a
gnawing in the stomach, as though he wanted something to
eat. He thinks about it all the time until he gets a drink.
When he is in jail, he doesn't think of it at all. Tobacco
146
PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
he constantly craves and it would be the same with whisky
probably if there were any chance of getting it in his present
situation. It is the thought of it which puts the appetite
down into the stomach. He has taken the pledge a good many
times, and kept it once for a year and a half, fifteen years
ago.
Case 25. Man, 40. Is nervous, weak, and emaciated. Suf-
fers from insomnia, Says he doesn't know of any worse drunk-
ard than himself. He left school at the age of fifteen, and
at eighteen, when out with a crowd of boys, drank beer for
the first time—two glasses. He has never been able from the
very start to drink moderately. Still he thinks he has no
craving for liquor except when he has already been drinking.
He never cares for it when alone, except after drinking, and
then he would walk miles to get it. He managed once to stop
for a few months, but soon got out with the boys again. He
thought at the time he would be able to drink moderately
but he was soon as bad as ever. His sprees usually last until
he gets out of money, and sometimes he drinks almost con-
tinuously for two weeks. He never thinks of liquor when he
is in jail, but craves tobacco. He thinks he has been growing
worse lately. The excitement and exhilaration after drinking
is less, he seems to lose his mind, and can remember after-
wards but little that has happened. He has frequently signed
pledges and once or twice has gone three or four months
without drinking. He means to do right, and has sworn
time and time again never to touch liquor again. The
craving for liquor, as he feels it, is hard to describe. He
recognises it as a feeling of craving and worrying, and it is
entirely different from the craving a man has after he has
been drinking. Since he has been in jail he has felt worried
and depressed, but he has felt nothing which he can call a
desire for liquor. Sometimes his desire can be controlled.
Once when he had not been drinking for two months he came
to the city on a holiday, and going by a saloon it seemed as
though he must go in and get a drink. The thought almost
made him dizzy; he thought he could take no interest in
anything, and felt as though all the fun would be dull and
monotonous, unless he should have a drink to help him enjoy
A STUDY OF ABNORMAL CASES
147
it. But he resisted the temptation, went into a restaurant
and had dinner, and all the rest of the day had no thought
of drink. Sometimes, when he has a craving for drink, other
things will satisfy him, as non-alcoholic beverages, or a din-
ner, as in the case spoken of. The presence or odour of alco-
hol will not always arouse a craving for it. He would often be
where there was liquor in plenty, and would have no desire
for it, and couldn't be induced to touch it.
Case 26. Woman, 52. In appearance she is strong, well-
nourished, apparently of strong will, and very intelligent.
She is a very religious woman, and is very sensitive about her
degradation and her menial position. At times she is un-
social, irritable, and sarcastic. She has been a periodic drinker
for the past seventeen years. The periods have usually come
at intervals of from four to six weeks. Once she went six
months without drinking. Thinks she has been worse since
the age of about forty-four. For the past four and a half
years she has been abstinent, having been in voluntary con-
finement in an asylum for inebriates. She is not in any way
under restraint. She goes out on errands, and to church,
and during the day works, serving the institution in the
capacity of cook. She still has the craving for alcoholic
drinks, and it is likely to come on about once in a month.
At these times she goes to the matron and asks to be watched.
She thinks that she will have to fight this craving all her
life. Her only physical ailment, so far as she knows, is a
slight dyspepsia, accompanied by nervousness. If anything
goes wrong her craving is likely to be made more intense. At
these times she feels as though she must constantly restrain
herself to keep from going out to get a drink. At communion
service the taste of unfermented wine makes her “mad” to
drink the whole cup. The craving is not a thirst, and is
very different from the craving she used to have after drink-
ing. Then the craving would be irresistible. She would walk
from Harlem to the Battery to get a drink if necessary. Her
craving as far as she can analyse it, appears to be a longing
made up of depression, accompanied by increased sensitive-
ness to slights of all kinds, and a general nervous irritability.
148 PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
These facts for the most part tell their own
story, and little needs to be added by way of
comment. It is certain that the craving for alco-
hol, in the sense of a physical craving, has little
to do with the appetite of the drunkard; and,
in general, there is little to indicate that there
is any kind of a specific craving for drink. The
craving for alcohol, whatever it may be, is more
than a desire to take a drink. It is a craving
for something which accompanies the drink.
With one or two exceptions the testimony is
universal that after a man has been without
liquor for a few days (ten days is the time most
frequently mentioned) there is no longer a long-
ing for it. This is especially true when a man
is situated so that it cannot be obtained. The
Irishman of Case 24 expressed it well when he
said that it was the thought of the liquor that
puts the appetite down into the stomach. This
testimony is emphatic, and must be accepted
as correct within the limits of the introspec-
tive power of these subjects. The testimony is
quite as strong that for the first few days in
confinement the craving for alcohol may be in-
tense and persistent, and with it then may be
physiological disturbances, such as a general
distress, burning in the throat and stomach,
weakness and trembling. Such testimony con-
firms the conclusion of Starke that alcohol has
little or no power to create, in the body, a crav-
A STUDY OF ABNORMAL CASES 149
_
ing for itself, such as is popularly supposed.
The usual reply (which came to be expected
because of its frequency), when a man was asked
whether he felt the loss of his liquor in confine-
ment was, “I never think of it," or, "It never
bothers me at all." On the other hand the testi-
mony is equally strong that tobacco is greatly
missed by the man who is accustomed to it and
cannot get it. The change of expression of the
face when tobacco was mentioned left no doubt,
in a great many cases, of the difference of atti-
tude toward it and toward alcoholic drinks.
Tobacco was certainly craved by these men, in
some cases with almost pathetic intensity.
Many said, "I think of it every day.
There are several reasons for the difference
in the feelings toward alcohol and toward to-
bacco. One is, that tobacco is sometimes to be
had in jail, and can be used secretly; occasion-
ally its use is permitted by the authorities, pro-
vided it is not used openly. So there is al-
ways a possibility of obtaining tobacco, espe-
cially chewing tobacco. But smoking is not
allowed, and yet there is in many cases a crav-
ing for it. Another reason is that tobacco is
not connected with the disgrace and inconven-
ience of imprisonment, and therefore the desire
for it is not inhibited. There is still another
reason, the centre of the whole matter, it is
likely, and the explanation of the nature of the
150
PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
craving for drink. Tobacco is used, perhaps
most enjoyably, when a man is quiet and alone.
It is used for its soothing effects. It is a soli-
tary habit, and not essentially a social habit;
and the solitariness of prison life continually
suggests the use of this accustomed companion
of quiet moods. The alcohol habit, on the other
hand, is decidedly not a solitary habit, but
through and through a social habit. The condi-
tions of prison life are unfavourable for keep-
ing alive the craving for alcohol, for they en-
tirely inhibit the social mood in which alcohol
is most normally used. It is certain at least
that whatever craving for alcohol these men
had, it was not recognised by them as a longing
for alcoholic drinks. The sudden disappear-
ance of it from consciousness, after a few days,
leads to the same conclusion. The longing for
the alcoholic stimulation is but a part, and in
many cases a small and unessential and subse-
quent part of a larger impulse, a longing for
social exhilaration and elevation of the feelings,
for a change in the attitude toward life, realised
nine times out of ten through social relations.
The only conscious craving for alcohol as
such is to be found in the neurotic cases. * The
*I have not tried, in presenting these cases, to distinguish
clearly between ordinary drunkenness and true dipsomania
which is a comparatively infrequent condition. Dipsomania
is now recognised to be a mental disorder, the main symptom
of which is an uncontrollable periodic desire for a critical
A STUDY OF ABNORMAL CASES
151
clearest example is Case 26. In this case there
is certainly a periodic nervous disturbance of
some kind, which is interpreted as a craving for
alcoholic drinks. But on analysis the sharpness
and definiteness of the specific craving seems to
fade away. It is a nervousness, a depression,
a general irritability of the mind. The strongly
fixed belief that there is indelibly stamped in
her mind a longing for alcohol helps to keep
up
this desire and to concentrate it. Her nerv-
ous system has become accustomed to find re-
lief for a neurotic condition in the stimulating
and stupefying effects of alcohol, but perhaps
under other experiences it might have become
habituated to other modes of unnatural satis-
faction, or to relief in normal activities, which
would have constituted a cure of the nervous
disorder.
In other cases the unfortunate effect of the
popular belief in the organic and specific na-
ture of the craving for alcohol, which is so per-
mental change, which is most readily secured by drinking al-
cohol. On the practical side dipsomania is of chief concern
to the medical specialist. To psychology it suggests many in-
teresting problems. Especially its rhythms need to be inter-
preted with reference to the mental and physical rhythms
that have been established in the race. The next step, per-
haps, in the study of this mental disorder is the application
of such methods of analysis as have been developed by the
psychoanalysts. Such studies could hardly fail to discover
deep roots in the emotional life, and would no doubt throw
light upon the whole problem of inebriety.
152 PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
sistently enforced upon the mind of the drunk-
ard by people who are trying to help him, is
to be seen, making him lose hope, and in some
cases, it is likely, taking away the possibility of
cure.
Further evidence that the longing for alco-
hol is a complex mental attitude, and not a spe-
cific craving, is to be found in the manner in
which many inebriates have been cured. Cures
by religious and moral conversion are of
course mental in nature. They cure the crav-
ing for drink by strongly changing the life in-
terests, and bringing the man into a new social
environment, away from drinking companions:
that is, by substituting a normal incitement to
a state of pleasurable and intense consciousness
for an abnormal one. Leuba (69) gives in de-
tail several cases in which the craving for drink
was removed instantly by conversion. From
his monograph the following are quoted:
Man, 42. Converted when thirty-three. Sometimes drunk
for a week together. Then not a drop for a whole month.
Never went more than a month but once, when he joined the
Good Templars, when he went without drink for three months.
He experienced sudden conversion.
"From that hour," he says, "drink had no terrors for me.
I never touch it, never want it."
Another says:
I believe that God took away the appetite for drink that
night when I asked him."
A man, 44. Converted in 1883. Had been a hard drinker. .
Made many resolutions, but could not keep them. Had a
A STUDY OF ABNORMAL CASES 153
sudden sense of powerlessness, experienced conversion. Con-
version took place on Sunday.
“On Monday," he says, “there was no desire for drink.
Since that day I have not had to surmount strong tempta-
tions."
Two of my own cases show well the method
of the mental cures of temperance, and indicate
the nature of the craving.
Case 27. Man, 48. The first drink was taken at eighteen,
with a crowd. The drinking habit became settled at twenty-
eight. Began with beer, but at about the time mentioned
changed to heavier drinks. He would go months drinking
everything, and then stop for a week from physical incapacity
to drink any more. Ho drank to keep up an exhilaration, so
that he could do more work. Drank when he hated the taste
of liquor and could hardly get it down. But he had to take
it in order to appear right. Took more and more as time
went on. Before he was thirty-eight he had tried several
times to reform. He changed his residence, but it did no
good. He always drank alone, for he wished no one to know
about it. He never stayed in a saloon longer than was neces-
sary to get what he came for. When he was forty-four, and
after a season of hard drinking, his wife made him promise
to reform, and urged him to become converted. He had al-
ways scoffed at the idea that a change of heart would do any
good, but he went to a clergyman and told him he would sign
a pledge for a year. The clergyman would not accept such a
pledge, so he made out a life pledge, and signed that. He
gave his wife all the money he had on hand, except a very
little, thinking that if he was not cured he would buy some
liquor. For a few days after signing the pledge, he was
terribly weak, and unable to act. All the time there was a
craving for liquor. He knew that it would put new life into
him and make him act. This craving was cured in one day,
thus: It suddenly occurred to him that he was not more
than half honest in the matter, so he went to his wife and
gave her the rest of his money and confessed his intentions.
154
PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
As soon as he had done that it seemed as if the craving had
entirely disappeared, and from that moment, for nearly three
years, he had no more craving for alcohol. His health was
good, he worked at the hardest kind of work, chopping in
the woods, and so far as he knows, felt no effects of his hard
drinking after the first two weeks. At the end of three years,
when on a visit at a summer resort, he drank two glasses of
cider. The next day he was as weak as ever. He found out
that his trouble had not healed; he became frightened, fearing
that his drink habit would return then and there, and started
away in the rain to walk seven miles to the station, intending
to go home. When he reached the first house he stopped and
asked for a drink, and got it. A little further he stopped
again, and had more. Thus commenced a downfall more
complete than the first. He has continued drinking up to
the present time. It is now necessary for him to have alcohol
to make him think. If he goes a day without it, his nerves
seem to be shattered. He could not add a column of figures
unless he had his drink in the morning. Has a craving for
liquor which he cannot now resist.
To test these statements he agreed to sub-
mit to experiment. He was tested on several
days as to ability to add columns of figures and
in other simple mental operations. On four
consecutive days, on which by agreement, he
took no alcohol, he did each day better than the
day before, and on the whole much better than
on days on which he took alcohol. During the
abstinent days he felt no craving for liquor,
because he knew he was to have none.
Case 28. Man 49. Had finished college at eighteen and
went to work in a bank. At twenty-two he began to drink
steadily, using mostly brandy and port wine. He drank
for the taste of the liquor. Was a member of clubs and
drank at socials. He soon began to use liquors to excess, and
A STUDY OF ABNORMAL CASES
155
drank both for the taste and the feeling. It was steady drink-
ing all the time, and altogether in company. Later he drank
alone, but never to get drunk alone. There was hardly a
day that he didn't drink excessively, though he never went so
far as extreme intoxication. The last two years of his drink-
ing (from 42 to 44) he made little effort to control his appe-
tite. He kept up his business, and did better work after he
had had two or three drinks. He was doing also literary
and lecture work at the time, and always drank heavily be-
fore going to make a speech.
He stopped drinking at the age of forty-four. Had been
to a social at a club, and had drunk heavily all night. In
the morning as he was walking with three or four com-
panions, it suddenly came to his mind that he was leading a
useless life, and he told the men he was with that he wasn't
going to drink any more. They laughed at him, and told
him he couldn't stop. Drunk as he was, he sat down and
made out an agreement not to drink any more from that day
(April 14) to July 4. This he agreed to sign if one of the
others would. One agreed, so he signed the paper and gave it
to his friend. With the remark that so long as he had the
agreement he thought he wouldn't sign it himself, the com-
panion put it into his pocket without signing it. This angered
him and he determined to keep the agreement whether the
other man did or not. He drank no more that day, and left
the men and went home, feeling sick. He went to a doctor
and told him what he had done. The doctor told him he
must leave off by degrees or it would kill him. But he refused
to drink. After a week there was no craving, and he refused
liquor ten times a day at least, for the next six months. He
has never drunk since, now four years. Very frequently now
he goes into a saloon with friends, but always calls for non-
alcoholic drinks. The odor and sight of liquor arouse in him
no craving whatever. He has noticed that since he stopped
drinking he cares less for the society of men, and feels that
in a way his social feeling is weakened.
In other forms of cure of inebriety the princi-
ple is psychic. Most of the inebriates' homes
156 PSYCHOLOGY, OF INTEMPERANCE
depend upon moral influence and social environ-
ment. The principle of such a cure as the Kee-
ley Cure seems largely, if not altogether, psy-
chic. In the methods used by regular practi-
tioners reliance is placed upon moral influence,
and general toning of the nervous system.
Some methods make use of physical means.
Some merely substitute drugs which have an ef-
fect similar to alcohol. In some cases emetics
are given with alcohol in such a way as to create
a strong association between the taste of alco-
hol, and the memory of the nausea.
But such
cures are makeshifts and do not reach the
bottom of the trouble.
Evidence from our cases and other data show
that the craving for alcohol or intoxication, and
the type of social interest which accompanies
it, or of which it is a part, is not a craving of
early youth. It does not as a rule show itself
in school days. But when a boy goes to college,
or when he leaves school and comes under the
influence of older men, the drink habit is likely
to be commenced. In some cases in which the
first drink was taken early, perhaps at nine or
ten, the real history of the case does not begin
until long afterward. In almost every case the
beginning of drinking was social. In but two
instances was the first drink taken alone.
Below is printed a table showing the age at
A STUDY OF ABNORMAL CASES
A
157
which the first glass was taken in sixty-five
cases.
Number
of cases.
Number
of cases.
Number
of cases.
Age.
Age.
Age.
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
31
32
33
34
35
2
0
5
6
10
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
6
1
5
0
1
3
2
2
0
0
1
36
0
0
0
1
1
0
0
0
1
1
37
38
39
40
18
Ovo pred
19
Table showing when the first drink was taken in sixty-five
cases.
Below are tabulated 498 cases of inebriety
with reference to the time when the drinking
habit was formed. This does not refer to the
.
time when the first drink was taken, but when
more or less regular drinking began.
By referring to the tables one will see that
among the sixty-five cases more took the first
drink at the age of sixteen than at any other
time, and from the larger table the fact is ob-
tained that at twenty the habit of drink is most
often established; and that there is a second
danger period in the early thirties. Parrish (61)
says that the drink habit does not declare
itself until the demands upon the nervous sys-
· tem come to be exorbitant, and that its terminal
158
PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
Age.
Number of Cases.
Age.
Number of Cases.
Males.
Females.
Males.
Females.
0
0
0
0
0
5.
4
2
2
2
0
2
0
1
3
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
2
0
4
6
8
26
14
19
35
18
50
29
32
21
22
17
14
16
13
8
. 20
4
3
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
10
8
9
3
2
2
1
3
1
2
1
2
2
1
1
2
5
3
1
1
0
2
1
2
1
0
4
3
0
0
1
1
2
0
1
0
0
1
0
3
1
5
0
1
0
0
1
Table showing the age at which drinking was established in
498 cases (02).
period comes with as much certainty as does its
initial stage. He thinks that there is an ine-
briate climacteric in every life when nervous
periodicities become faint, when internal and
external excitants to intoxication lose much of
their vigour, and the inebriate diathesis is too
feeble to respond to excitation. Between forty
and fifty a great number of spontaneous recov-
eries occur, and about twenty-five years closes
the drinking period, either by exhaustion of the
desire or by death.
Our Case 28 is an illustration of this
exhaustion or sudden cessation of the drink im-
A STUDY OF ABNORMAL CASES
159
pulse from apparently inadequate cause. In
this case the subject testifies to a weakening
of the social sense. Crothers (63) says that
there are periods, from seventeen to twenty-
five, and from thirty to forty, in which the lia-
bility to contract the drink habit is greatest;
and that it is most likely to die out between
forty-five and fifty, or from fifty-eight to sixty-
two. What the significance of the second
period in each case may be is not clear. The
period from seventeen to twenty-five is the
adolescent stage when craving for an abundant
life is strongest, and is most likely to become
perverted or diseased. The intoxication im-
pulses that are a part of the temperament of
adolescence are then most powerful, and are
most capable of direction into normal channels.
The period from forty-five to fifty is the period
of the decline of these impulses because it is
a time of lessening, both in man and woman,
of the temperament based upon the procreative
life. Sexual impulse need not disappear, but
the dynamic power of this instinct wanes; it
no longer creates force to drive the enthusiasms;
and the individual must depend upon habits
formed earlier in life to carry on his enter-
prises. He enters upon a period of perfected
self-control, and habits of drinking and other
habits become manageable to a greater extent
than before. Conversion of drunkards, ac-
160
PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
cording to Superintendent Hadley of the Mc-
Auley Mission in New York City, is less likely
to be accomplished after fifty. If habit is not
checked with the normal waning of the social
and sexual life it is likely to run on to the end
of life, and to be morbid in character, to a
greater extent than perhaps a much more vio-
lent and persistent intoxication impulse which
culminates and closes earlier. Dr. Braintwaite,
(64) Superintendent of the Dalrymple Home
in England, says that most of the cures are
accomplished by forty-five, though certainly
many cases do well under treatment even as
late as fifty-five or sixty. The younger cases
are most unsatisfactory. “Very few indeed,"
he says, “succeed in getting right under twenty-
five or twenty-six.” If the physiological basis
of the drink impulse is an “alcoholised pro-
toplasm,”' as some think, it is difficult to account
for such facts. The opposite would be expected.
The body but slightly habituated to the effect
of alcohol would throw off the craving for it
more easily than one which has been subjected
to a course of poisoning for many years; and
would feel less the craving for it afterwards,
and would be in less danger of returning to the
habit. But such is not the case.
These facts show conclusively, at least for
the range of cases studied, that drinking is
strongest as a habit during the most active
A STUDY OF ABNORMAL CASES
161
decades of a man's life. It is not a steadily
increasing habit perpetuated by the effect upon
the body of the assaults of alcohol, but it is
mentally determined and runs parallel to, or is
at least conditioned by, the great movements of
energy of the organism, which underlie all the
enthusiasms and interests of life. It runs
through the active years and then tends to de-
cline.
This is not equally true, however, of all the
motives for drinking, and it is possible that the
later periods mentioned by Crothers corre-
spond to periods in the development of what
we have called the narcotic motives for drink-
ing. When life begins to lose its charm, and
the "shades of the prison-house" close in, and
the first realisation comes that the future is to
be an outcome of the past, which is likely to
happen in the early thirties, the motive for
narcosis comes in. There is evidence that in
both sexes the time of the early thirties is crit-
ical. It is the age at which many breakdowns
occur, when other habits besides the use of
intoxicants may for the first time appear.
Whether the second period of greatest chance
of recovery mentioned by Crothers (65) (from
fifty-eight to sixty-two), is the time when these
narcotic motives are likely to cease is not clear,
whether with the senescent blunting of the emo-
tions the acuteness of pain is diminished, and
1
162 PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
there is no longer the craving to turn the edge
of distress by artificial means.
All such facts of course have an important
bearing upon the theory of the intoxication im-
pulse, and upon the practical problem of the con-
trol and cure of drinking and inebriety, both in
individual cases and in its social aspects.
When we legislate against the use of alcohol
we should do so with the knowledge that we are
enacting laws against an impulse which is a
part of the virile and normal periods of man's
life, that it is a vice in many ways based upon
power and virtue. We are combating a strong
force in human life; and it may turn out that
direct opposition is the least effective of the
methods of controlling it. Such conclusions or
forecasts are strengthened by recalling the fact
that alcoholic intoxication has been in the past
expressive of periods of racial growth. The
abnormal and immoral expressions of this
growth force, though none the less to be con-
demned and fought against because of their
origin and their relation to normal growth,
must be stemmed by methods that take into
account in their modus operandi the nature of
the impulses upon which they are based. How
strong the intoxication impulse may be, how
firmly rooted in the social life of a man, how
closely related to all his interests, how per-
sistently suggested by all his associations in
A STUDY OF ABNORMAL CASES 163
life, has been shown, it is hoped, by the review
of cases and the interpretations of them made
in this chapter. But before undertaking to
look into the practical questions' which spring
up on all sides from such a study of intoxication
motives, it will be well to see what theories
about the nature of drinking have been pro-
pounded from time to time; and in general how
the facts have been interpreted.
CHAPTER IX
THE THEORIES OF THE INTOXICATION IMPULSE
It would be surprising if an impulse so deep-
seated in man as the intoxication impulse, so
profoundly connected with so many of his ac-
tivities and with his deepest pleasures and
pains, had not aroused much thought and
theory, popular belief and scientific enquiry.
There is, indeed, a vast amount of published
opinion about alcohol and its use, some thought-
ful and temperate, some fanatical and absurd,
but all interesting. It would be quite impossible
to put into a chapter a review of all that has
been said, but some main types of opinion and
theory may be mentioned-enough to show the
range of points of view, and especially to indi-
cate the practical attitudes that have been de-
rived from them.
A prevailing opinion about the use of alcohol,
one which makes up the philosophy of many
temperance workers, is that intoxication and
indeed all desire for alcoholic drinks, is a sin,
and that it requires no explanation. Man has
fallen from a state of primitive virtue and has
wilfully accepted or sought habits that he
164
THEORIES OF THE IMPULSE
165
knows by an infallible inner conscience to be
wrong, and displeasing to God; or wrong be-
cause displeasing to God. This view asserts
that the drunkard is what he is because he is
not willing to be anything else; or because he
is not willing to seek the strength from Above
which would take away his sin. In an extreme
form this view declares that every man's con-
science tells him that any drinking of alcoholic
drinks is sinful, and is desired because it is a
sin.
In the popular mind, too, representing the
other side of the argument, is the opinion that
moderate drinking at least is not a sin but is
allowable, satisfying a natural thirst or crav-
ing, akin to a normal appetite for food, or for
any drink. Varying with locality and class of
society is the opinion that a slight "elevation,"
or an occcasional excess, is also morally allow-
able, and dictated by a man's natural desire for
pleasure. Whether anyone morally justifies
habitual excess, or finds in it an expression
of a normal motive, is doubtful. Aside from
social ideals there seems to be an inner feeling
which disapproves of excessive drinking, and
if it does not regard it as sin it at least con-
demns it as abnormal, because it conflicts
with purposes now recognised as the highest.
However hard a drinker a man may be, he
reserves a contempt for the one more given
166
PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
to excess than himself, the habitual, solitary
drinker, who drinks to intoxication or stupefac-
tion, being at the bottom of this social scale.
Coming now to the theories of literary and
scientific writers, there are many points of
view, and many conflicting opinions. Nordau
(66) says that the craving for alcohol is a
longing for relief from pain and an expression
of a need for stimulation, there being a general
condition of neurasthenia, especially noticeable
in the upper classes of society, and due to the
fatigue caused by the sudden incoming of
machinery, rapid transit, and exciting occupa-
tions. We have seen that this is certainly not
an adequate explanation of the intoxication im-
pulses; Nordau has singled out one, the less
important, of two motives.
Lett (67) asks, “Why do men drink??' and
gives much the same answer as Nordau, “Be-
cause there is pain. The healthy man has no
pain and needs no stimulant. One kind of pain,
unrest, is the outcome of an unstable nervous
organism. Disquietude, unrest, pain, are the
causes of drinking.
A very different view comes from a recent
writer, Starke, (88) who sees in the use of alco-
hol a normal appetite, and a normal craving for.
a certain mental effect. In the first place, in
Starke's opinion, alcohol is a food; it is burned
in the body and produces heat, and can there-
N
99
THEORIES OF THE IMPULSE
167
ca
fore be used in place of other food, its action be-
ing like that of the carbohydrates. But alcohol
also has an effect which can be called a stimu-
lation of the ego. It arouses temperament, sen-
timent, talents, and intellectual appetites. It
excites the personal, intimate self and brings
out in a man that which he essentially is.
With this mental effect goes a physiological
effect which is also hygienic, and increasingly
so as society becomes more strenuous in its
demands upon the powers of the central nerv-
ous system. It diminishes the sharpness of the
assault of the external world upon the nervous
system, reduces the quantity of blood in the in-
ternal organs, and increases the quantity in the
surface. This is precisely an undoing of the
effects of strong voluntary effort, which we
need to escape, and is therefore a welcome ad-
dition to our hygienic means of compensating
the strenuous life. In its effect, alcohol is ex-
actly the opposite of that of tea and coffee.
These increase the quantity of blood in the
internal organs, increase the mental tension,
and sharpen the external and mechanical men-
tal life. The effects of alcohol are much the
same, finally, as normal sleep. It has not the
power of creating in the body a demand for it-
self, and of alcoholising the tissues so that more
and more is required to produce the normal
effects of stimulation. The craving for excess,
168
PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
he maintains, is quite different. It is a demand
for stupefaction, for relief from pain, and is
morbid, in its extreme forms a disease. Such
is Starke's view.
Whether this is a correct statement of the
physiological action of alcohol would be open
to doubt. But that desire for stimulation of
the ego, or an effect which could be somewhat
similarly described, is the central motive
of intoxication, we have already seen to be
true. Whether it is right and proper to select
this particular means of stimulating the ego,
is another question. And whether the re-
laxation needed in the present strenuous life
demands the use of alcohol as a necessity, as he
says, or whether some more natural means of
counteracting strain and tension should be
sought, is also a problem—a broad question, de-
manding an understanding of many interests
and ideals. It cannot at least be solved en-
tirely by a discovery of the specific function of
alcohol itself.
As regards the nature of the craving for al-
cohol, whether it is an instinctive desire, or a
craving acquired by the individual, there are
many diverse opinions. Thomann, for ex-
ample, says that the desire for alcoholic bever-
ages is generally a physical desire, an animal
lust. Baer asserts that this craving is not an
instinctive but an acquired craving. Gustaf-
THEORIES OF THE IMPULSE
169
son says that the desire for alcohol is not an
instinctive habit, but it is a habit that is be-
coming instinctive, a form of depraved second
nature. Braintwaite says that drunkards are
made by the effect of alcohol upon unformed
and developing tissue, especially cerebral tissue.
Hughes says that the drink craving is a patho-
logical perversion of physiological cell action,
and lies in the realm of the cerebral cortex.
Day (69) says, “That there is an organic ap-
petite for brain stimulants which, if not origi-
nally so, has become organic through unknown
ages of indulgence common to man, is beyond
dispute. This appetite does not anticipate for
its gratification more than the primary or stim-
ulating effects of the drugs used. It is through
this appetite that the system is often exposed
to an unexpected and undesired effect of the
drugs used, and a painful condition of the body
induced by such unintentional excess, which
can in no other way be so speedily and effec-
tually relieved temporarily as by the repetition
of the excess itself, by renewed stimulation of
the organs suffering, or by an obliteration of
sense by a more complete narcosis than was at
first intended."
Danielewski (70) says that civilised man has
used alcohol so extensively, and for so long a
time, that one may with certainty affirm the
existence of an alcoholised protoplasm among
170
PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
drinkers, just as one finds morphinised pro-
toplasm in cases of chronic intoxication with
morphine. The organism can no longer do
without it. Hence it follows that the complex
of protoplasm and albuminoids is adaptable;
that it is not incapable of being disturbed in its
fundamental properties, and that it is recon-
structed with difficulty.
The supposition of all those who believe in a
specific for the cure of the craving for alcohol
is that it is a physical appetite that can be de-
stroyed by drugs. A statement of the views
of a single one of these will be sufficient to illus-
trate the medical theories of this type. It is
the theory of a specialist in the cure of drunken-
ness in a large American city, expressed to me
in conversation. He has two specific remedies,
one to remove the neurasthenic condition which
he says is present in all cases of inebriety, and
another to remove the craving for alcohol.
With these he claims to cure men of all ages,
in any stage of the disease; and to establish
such a normal condition of body and mind that,
although they may drink again, they will never
drink again from necessity, or because they are
victims of an appetite, but only from choice.
He maintains that the craving for alcohol, and
the desire for stimulants of other kinds, such as
hasheesh, morphine and chloral, are expres-
sions of one and the same disease; they all have
THEORIES OF THE IMPULSE
171
their roots in a neurasthenic condition. Other
cravings, such as a passion for strong electrical
stimulation, are of the same nature, the ex-
pressions of a lowered nervous tone, and a
desire for something which will create activity
in inactive organs.
This, or something like it, is the view that is
at the bottom of those methods, often adver-
tised, of curing the drunkard without his knowl-
edge, by administering specifics of one kind or
another in his coffee or tea. They assume that
there is a specific condition of the nervous
system that can be reached and corrected by
an equally specific remedy which will, perhaps,
change the character of the diseased proto-
plasm, or correct the condition of the brain,
whatever it may be, which registers itself in
the mind as a craving for alcohol. That these
views are wrong, or at least have a very
limited application, all the facts that we have
presented quite sufficiently prove. Whatever
the craving for alcohol may be, it is not a
condition of the body craving for alcohol as
a specific remedy for that condition. It is an
organised habit, with psychical elements, and a
history in the life of the individual connected
with his other interests and impulses. There
is no doubt that immediate effects can be pro-
duced upon the appetite for drink by various
drugs; and that when the craving which comes
172
PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
from immediately preceding excessive drinking
is so imperative, various remedies have a tem-
porary effect. These remedies, too, when re-
inforced by suggestions, by isolation, and by
control of the social life may effect a cure; but
it is wrong to suppose that" a drug can reach
the heart of the intoxication impulse. It would
be quite as reasonable to treat a man by merely
physical remedies for a bad temper, or for
being in love. Something might be accom-
plished in both such cases, but the root of the
trouble would hardly be thus reached.
Upon another point connected with the ques-
tion of a specific craving for alcohol induced
by the action of alcohol itself, we have an in-
teresting view from Forel, (71) whose authority
is so high in matters pertaining to the nervous
system that he must be respectfully heard. He
writes,
“We do not think that man could ever adapt himself to the
use of alcohol and narcotics, so that they would cease to
hurt him, for the following reasons: Experience teaches that
(1) the general drinking and narcotic customs incessantly
augment the production and the consumption, that is, increase
the daily doses which every man consumes in the average.
(2) The craving which alcohol and all other narcotics pro-
duce drives to such augmentation with peculiar force where
severe laws do not counteract. (3) Alcohol, and probably
also all other narcotics poison not only the individual but
also his sperm, the germ of his descendants. (4) The progeny
of alcoholists, according to experience, are especially exposed
to mental degeneration and to drinking excesses. Their re-
THEORIES OF THE IMPULSE
173
sistibility against alcoholic liquors is never raised, rather very
much diminished."
This raises the question to what extent the
craving for alcohol, having been created in an
individual by the effect of alcohol upon him,
can be transmitted to his offspring, as such,
and thus produce a direct craving for it in the
lives of an increasing number of people. That
a specific craving for alcohol is ever trans-
mitted as such seems entirely unproved, and
unlikely. And Forel does not insist that it is,
though others do. Alcoholic excess in the par-
ent seemingly does affect the offspring delete-
riously, and it is likely that it is the cause of
several diseases now well recognised. But its
effect is rather by weakening the germ in a
general way than by the transmission of a
craving for alcohol. Whatever weakens the
germ makes it more difficult for the offspring
to pass successfully through the growth stages,
more likely to be affected by all external influ-
ences, and to acquire early in life such abnormal
conditions of body and mind as will lead to the
habit of drink, especially through the narcotic
motive. But that drinking by the parent can
cause in the child a craving for alcohol as such,
because the germ has been alcoholised, or that
the love of alcohol acquired by the parent as a
mental craving can be transmitted to the child,
seems very unlikely, if not quite impossible.
174
PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
We shall return to this point in another para-
graph.
There are many theories of the craving for
alcohol that take into account the psychological
factors. In an article in the University Mag-
azine entitled The Philosophy of Stimulants an
anonymous writer expresses the view that stim-
ulants and narcotics are used because they in-
tensify consciousness; they make wider vari-
ations in life; our pleasures and pains are too
evenly distributed, and it is a matter of instinct
with us that we try to summate them.
Moxon (72) says that alcohol weakens com-
mon sense in its opposition to individual sense.
The power of alcohol in the world is that it
keeps down the oppressive powers of others and
their common sense over the individual sense.
Alcohol raises a man's individuality tempora-
rily.
Monin (73) says that in proportion as civili-
sation perfects itself man seeks in drunkenness
a compensation for, and a forgetfulness of, the
weariness and chagrin which result from his
daily struggle for existence.
In all such views one may detect partial
truths. Intoxicants do make wider variations
in the emotional life; they do increase individ-
uality, and reduce certain relations among men
to a minimum, though they increase others; and
they do satisfy a narcotic motive aroused by
THEORIES OF THE IMPULSE 175
pain and fatigue. But no one of these views,
nor all together, approximates the whole truth.
Beard (74) asks, “Why does man, so much
higher than the animals in every respect, alone
possess the vice of intemperance? ? What
makes us differ from them?” and answers,
“Mainly our nervous system. Man has a
larger, fuller, richer brain than the lower ani-
mals, and stimulants and narcotics chiefly affect
the brain; therefore man craves for them, finds
rest and negative food and pleasure in them,
and thus often becomes their slave. The horse
does not care for alcohol for the same reason
that it does not care for philosophy, because
its brain is not capable of appreciating it.”
His interesting view we shall quote somewhat
further :
“The most enlightened nations of our time are Great Britain,
Germany, and the United States, and in these countries stimu-
lants are used in the greatest abundance and the widest va-
riety. Next to these nations in order of enlightenment and
in order of indulgence in these substances are France, Russia,
Norway, Sweden, Italy, and Spain. The semicivilised na-
tions, as Turkey, Syria, India, China, Japan, South America,
and Mexico, use some varieties to considerable excess, but
have not so many varieties, and do not, on the whole, use as
great a quantity of stimulants and narcotics as the nations
who are at the head of civilisation. The purely barbarous
races and tribes use at most but one or two varieties, and as a
rule, to but little excess. Africa seems to have used less than
any other continent.
“In civilisation the expenditure of force is vastly greater
thani in barbarism, because thae brain, especially, is more
176
PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
active. To compensate for this expenditure, to retard the
waste of tissue, or at least to sustain the body amid the cares,
toils, and pressure incident to advanced civilisation men re-
sort, not only to more liberal and abundant variety of food
than the savages use, but also must employ a wider range
of stimulants and narcotics. It would seem that the use of
stimulants and narcotics in general has increased with the
advance of the race. In general, also, the higher civilised
races use stronger liquors and more abundantly, and since
in the lower races there is less moral and other restraint, we
must conclude that they are not tempted to drink to excess,
that they do not enjoy the exciting effects of the stimulants
as do the northerners. There is ten times as much intoxica-
tion in Great Britain and the United States as there is in
Germany and France. There is far more of the grosser type.
This difference is due primarily, probably, to difference in
environment, climate, etc., and only secondarily to difference
in race.
The English, the Germans, and the Americans are
of all people the most energetic. Associated with this courage
and vigour is a powerful development of some of the lower
passions. They are fond of eating and drinking, and although
less licentious, less artful than the French, Italian, and Span-
ish, they are more addicted to coarse and brutal crimes.
Coarse crimes and drunkenness are twigs growing on the
same stem.
“Drunkenness and the amount of liquor consumed in a given
country are independent variables. England uses more liquor,
in various forms, than America, but it has less drunkenness.
In France the consumption of liquor is very great, but the
French are by no means a grossly intemperate people. The
explanation of this paradox is that national intemperance does
not result so much from widely diffused habits of drinking, as
from great excess among a limited number. The poor and
ignorant classes among civilised nations are most given to
intoxication. They are brought into the presence of the same
variety of stimulants as the higher classes, and they have less
moral control. Woman, everywhere, uses less intoxicants than
man, not so much because her moral force is greater, but be-
cause she has less desire for the effects of stimulation."
+
THEORIES OF THE IMPULSE
177
Beard makes much of the result of climate in
determining the difference of drinking habits
in different nations. The effect of climate is
to produce types of organisation-the effect
being shown too in psychic traits. “Protes-
tant Christianity," he adds, "is the religion of
a liberty-loving, alcohol-loving people, who
have a strong passion for independence and for
sensual indulgence in its most active and violent
forms."
This opinion need not be commented upon at
length. With some change of terms, and a
difference of point of view, it interprets the re-
lation of alcoholic intoxication to strength of
growth forces in much the same way as does
our own view. Beard does not, however, at-
tempt to explain the nature of this intoxication
impulse, except to relate it to whatever in the
nations leads to great crimes and great virtues,
impulses which belong only to a high order of
nervous organisation.
Another interesting discussion of the intoxi-
cation impulse is that of Reid. (75) Reid is
led, after a general survey of the present evo-
lution of man, to the following three conclu-
sions: (1) that every species must necessarily
undergo retrogression unless that retrogres-
sion be checked by selection; (2) that in such
a high multicellular organism as man acquired
variations cannot be transmitted; (3) that in
178
PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
such an organism, living amidst immensely com-
plex and heterogeneous surroundings, the ac-
tion of natural selection has been mainly to de-
velop so extraordinary a power of varying
in response to appropriate stimulation, direct
or indirect, from the environment: such a re-
markable power of acquiring individually fit
variations that very much, indeed by far the
greater part, of the characteristics of such an
organism are due to stimulation acting upon
this power to vary—are variations acquired by
the individual, but variations which are not
transmissible. At present, man's most formid- .
able enemy is the immensely numerous class of
animal and vegetable disease germs which con-
tinually threaten the safety of the race, and
by ceaseless selection weed out the unfit.
Moreover, immunity to one disease germ does
not afford immunity to another, and each which
comes into contact with man so as to cause
the destruction of a sufficient number of lives,
is the object of a special process of evolution.
On the mental side we find, says Reid, numerous habit-
ually used drugs and poisons which act with sufficient violence,
and to the harm of sufficiently large numbers of the race, to
be the objects of special processes of selection. The chief of
these poisons is alcohol. In generation after generation, al-
cohol is the cause of the elimination of a considerable number
of the unfit in relation to it, and is the cause of considerable
evolution against itself. This evolution may be in one or
both of two directions: increasing power of tolerating the
poison, or increasing power of avoiding it, an increasing power
THEORIES OF THE IMPULSE
179
of imbibing alcohol without ill effects, or the diminution of
the craving for it, or both. But as increasing immunity to
the poison means only imbibing larger and larger quantities,
evolution must be in the direction of a decreasing craving for
it. This is what we should expect a priori, and this is what
we do find. Races which have been long familiar with alcohol,
like races long familiar with a prevalent and deadly poison,
are less harmfully affected by it than races which have had
little or no experience with it, and this because they crave
less for it, and drink less of it. The peoples of the Medi-
terranean, the Greeks, the Italians, the southern. Frenchman
and the Spaniard, who lived for thousands of years in the
presence of an abundant supply of alcohol are pre-eminently,
temperate. The natives of North and South America, Aus-
tralia, Polynesia, Africa, Greenland, whether in Arctic, Tem-
perate, or Torrid Zone, crave for it so much that they perish
in its presence, unless we protect them with prohibitory laws.
Races which lie between these extremes in regard to experience
with alcohol, as the people of northern Europe, the English
for example, are also between them in regard to the resistance
to it.
The question as to how the craving for alcohol and other
narcotics, the love of those states of mind which they severally
induce, arose, can be answered in only one way. It can have
arisen only as a by-product of mental evolution, a by-product
which, in the absence of narcotics was harmless, but which
in the presence of them is harmful, and against which, in
races long affected by this or that narcotic, a secondary evo-
lution has occurred.
This craving, according to Reid, is a specific
craving. Nothing but alcohol can satisfy it.
It is not transferable, so to speak, and evo-
lution against other drugs does not affect it.
Reid insists that traits acquired under the
influence of such selection are not transmis-
sible any more than are other acquired traits.
180 PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
The craving for alcohol depends upon con-
sciousness, which, in turn, depends upon the
presence of nervous structure. That the germ
is bathed in alcohol cannot account for the habit
being developed in the child.
Racial differences in regard to immunity
against alcohol craving are not due to the fact
that some races are by nature abstemious, nor
is it due to differences in education. The crav-
ing for alcohol is an instinct, and not an ac-
quired trait. It is comparable to hunger and
thirst, or to sexual and parental love; not to a
love of books or of paintings, or of country, or
of a particular religious system.
It is conceivable that a man might be reared in entire ig-
norance of women, but in such a case, though he knew not
what he desired, he would get crave for them, and his passive
desires would instantly be stimulated into activity by their
presence. So a savage of a race not rendered resistant by
alcoholic selection craves unknowingly for alcohol, for that
state of mind which alcohol induces. Racial difference is not
due in any degree, as has been maintained, to difference in
the strength of alcoholic beverages. in use in the different
countries. On the contrary, the strength of the craving deter-
mines the degree of concentration of the alcoholic beverages.
The direction of the process, says Reid, has been toward
a lesser craving from a greater craving, and in some cases,
e. g., the English, the process has been very rapid, since side
by side with individuals who have but a little craving for
alcohol are found others with a very great craving, and since
it frequently happens that parents who crave but little for
the poison, have offspring that crave very greatly for it, i. e.,
offspring who have reverted to the ancestral type in which crav.
ing was very great, the greatness of reversion being due to the
THEORIES OF THE IMPULSE
181
swiftness of the evolution, owing to which reversion to a not
very remote ancestor results in a considerable change of type.
Races which have undergone evolution through alcoholic
selection are liable to retrogression when the stringency of
that selection is abated. When the innately intemperate have
as much influence on posterity as the innately temperate, alco-
holic retrogression will ensue. Thus the success of every
scheme for the promotion of temperance which depends upon
the diminution or extinction of the alcoholic supply, or on
voluntary or involuntary abstinence from alcohol, must result
in an aggravation of the craving for that state of mind which
indulgence in alcohol induces. The craving for alcohol is like
sexual love, an instinct, not an acquired trait. The love of al-
cohol is born anew with each generation undiminished except by
alcoholic selection. It is practically impossible to banish al-
cohol from our midst, and since the craving for alcohol increases
with indulgence, we cannot hope that moral influence will
ever result in temperance, i. e., in a moderate use of alcohol.
Why not banish alcohol as we do microbes ? Because no
man craves for disease, and thousands crave knowingly or
unknowingly for excess in alcoholic indulgence. In the face
of craving for alcohol we cannot hope to banish that poison:
permanently. If alcohol were abolished, the time would surely
come after the race had undergone retrogression, when any law
would fall into abeyance from disuse. If temperance were
founded on a voluntary abstinence, the craving would eventu-
ally grow so ardent, as a result of retrogression, that no
opposing traits would be sufficiently strong to counteract it.
The course is to imitate natural selection and eliminate those
individuals who crave for alcohol to an excessive degree, at
least in so far as to prevent them influencing posterity by
leaving offspring.
It is the same in regard to the other narcotics. We find
that the peoples who have used then the longest are less
harmed by them, and have less craving for them than the
people who are not accustomed to them.
The important question is ‘Does evolution against one nar-
cotic or intoxicant effect another? It seems probable that
the states of mind which these drugs induce are distinct and
182
PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
separate, just as the weaknesses against separate zyniotic
diseases are distinct and separate. Therefore it seems prob-
able that a man may be strong against alcohol, but weak
against opium, or vice versa, though a race accustomed to
one, if debarred from using it, may go to greater excess
in another, and the presence of one seems to shut out the
others, especially when craving for the others has not been
strongly awakened.
This interesting theory, which will be dis-
cussed presently at some length, has been re-
viewed in detail, not to quote it approvingly, but
because, although evolutionary in its hypothe-
ses, it is very different from the present inter-
pretation of the facts, and because it leads to
different practical conclusions. It raises many
interesting problems, however, and apparently
contains important truth. Before trying to
point out its errors and limitations, it will be
best to bring the views that have been mentioned
to a brief summary, in order to have clearly in
mind the divergent theories which the intoxi-
cation impulses have aroused.
There are three main types of theories about
the intoxication impulse: those which try to
account for the craving for alcohol as moral
deviation; those which find in it a physical appe-
tite; and those which explain it as a mental
trait or craving. There are many variants
within each group. We should expect to find
that in part differences of opinion are due to
looking at different phases of the subject, and
1
THEORIES OF THE IMPULSE
183
in part to the fact that the craving for intoxi-
cants is a complex impulse, and no one, perhaps,
has seen the whole of the problem.
The physical theories of the craving for alco-
hol are especially inadequate. The facts al-
ready noted perhaps sufficiently criticise these
views, but two aspects of them need to be em-
phasised: that is, the view that the craving for
alcohol in the individual is due to the effect of
alcohol upon the tissues, and that this craving
can be transmitted to offspring. The truth
involved in these views is based upon three
facts. C
Certainly to many, liquors are pleasing
to the taste, and an appetite for alcohol may be
due to a taste craving. But that such craving
is not as a rule strong, and that it is often ab-
sent in the drinker, is certain. If alcohol is a
food, it may be sought like any other food. But
this does not account for the excessive use of it,
and its specific effects are not allowed on this
theory to account for any of the impulse to its
The second fact is that alcohol taken in
excess is capable of producing at least tempo-
rarily a longing for more. But that alcohol can
of itself affect the protoplasm of the body so
that thereafter it is changed in character, and
a permanent craving which constitutes the in-
dividual's weakness for alcoholic drinks, is
thus created, appears to be quite disproved by
the facts. No such fixed craving exists; it is a
use.
184 PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
very adaptable impulse, it depends for its ex-
istence upon social incitement and the presence
of alcohol, even in extreme cases, and shows
other clear indications of not being such a crav-
ing as the theory of alcoholised protoplasm
asserts.
The view that the craving for alcohol, ac-
quired by the parent, may be transmitted to the
offspring takes two forms. The truth—and this
is the third fact upon which these physical views
are based—is that alcoholism of the parent may
indirectly cause degeneration and alcohol crav-
ing in the child, but not directly. The alcohol-
ised germ may become the degenerate child be-
cause it is weakened by the effect of alcohol,
but that it can receive thus a specific craving for
alcohol seems altogether improbable, and even
impossible. Even less warrant is there for the
view that the germ may be impressed by the
parent's acquired craving for alcohol as a men-
tal state, in such a way that the child inherits
a craving. That a craving for alcohol is in-
herited, therefore, is not proved, and the theory
is not in accordance with the facts. Probably
no one would now deny that alcohol may so
affect the parent as to cause degeneracy and
disease in the offspring, and thus indirectly pro-
duce a tendency to many abnormal habits in-
cluding excessive use of alcohol, the indulgence
in which temporarily and artificially relieves
THEORIES OF THE IMPULSE
185
pain, or satisfies an excessive and abnormal
craving for excitement. It is probable that the
offspring of the opium user is quite as likely to
succumb to a craving for alcohol, as is the alco-
hol drinker's child.
Cases in which there is said to be a craving
for alcohol due to the parent's intemperate hab-
its need careful scrutiny before they are pro-
nounced to be thus caused. The child may cer-
tainly become addicted to alcoholic excess like
his father, because he inherited his father's
temperament, including his liability to excess in
this and perhaps in other ways. This point
needs to be emphasised, and also that such a
temperamental weakness may be hereditary
with very little likelihood that the child will
become a drunkard. The fear of inheritance
is a harmful attitude of the public mind, and
helps to perpetuate the belief in the fatality of
the drunkard's career, quite in contradiction to
the facts. A few cases will illustrate the psy-
chological points that we wish to enforce.
The following case was related by a physi-
cian:“A drunkard had two daughters, both of
whom inherited from him a craving for alcohol.
One drank, at first moderately, and then to ex-
cess, and finally died from the effects. The sec-
ond has never tasted alcohol, but testifies that
she has a craving for it. It is difficult to under-
stand how one may be sure of having a craving
186 PSYCHOLOGY, OF INTEMPERANCE
for something which is totally outside one's ex-
perience. Suggestion and fear account for such
a belief, and the foundation in feeling is prob-
ably a general dissatisfaction or longing, or
nervous discomfort, which thousands of people
have who have no alcoholic heredity. Probably
the second daughter in this case was no more
likely to become a drunkard than a great many
others of nervous temperament, who have no
alcoholic heredity at all.
Another case will show how easily these crav-
ings for alcohol may be misinterpreted. A man
accustomed to careful introspection writes as
follows:
“I have never tasted alcohol in any form so
far as I know, but often, especially on going
by a saloon, I have a strong desire to go in and
get a drink. The sign, “Frank Jones' Golden
Ale' appeals to me, and the picture of the foam-
ing glass has a fascination for me especially
on a hot day. Now I haven't the slightest idea
what 'Frank Jones' Golden Ale' tastes like.
I may add that there is no history of alcoholism
in my family.'
Later this man reported that he had drunk
a glass of ale and did not like it at all. If he
had ever had the alcohol habit, or if there had
been a history of it in his family, he would have
concluded perhaps that his longing was a deep-
seated craving for drink.
THEORIES OF THE IMPULSE
187
Another case will illustrate a different side of
the question. A very normal man of forty
years remembers as a child of not more than
five having once drunk something from a pecu-
liar looking bottle. He remembers distinctly
noticing that the people present exchanged
significant looks and were laughing at him. He
remembers liking the taste, and afterwards look-
ing many times for the bottle in order to have
more of the drink, which he now knows was
cherry rum. As he grew up, remembering this
childish craving, he for years believed that he
had an inherited taste for alcohol, as there was
a history of it in the family, his grandfather
having been a very heavy drinker. He has
since used alcohol moderately and has had no
tendency whatever to fall a victim to it.
The simplest explanation of the inherited
craving for alcohol is that it does not exist at
all, but that various longings are interpreted as
such. The facility with which alcohol habits
can be exchanged for other drug habits, the ef-
fectiveness of cures which act upon the mental
processes, the abrupt cessation of the craving
when alcohol cannot be obtained, all point to a
single conclusion: that the craving for alcohol
is not a physiological craving, but a complex
mental state, that it is not as such transmitted,
and that much that is interpreted as a craving
for alcohol is not this at all, but is a more gen-
188
PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
eral craving for various forms of experience.
Perhaps the strongest evidence against the
view that alcoholised protoplasm is the physio-
logical basis of the craving for alcohol, is fur-
nished by the abundant testimony that the young
drinker is far less amenable to treatment than
the old drinker, which could hardly be the case,
if a slow process of poisoning produced the
craving. The sudden cures, especially the psy-
chic cures, offer further evidence on the point.
The widespread belief in the deep-seated phys-
ical nature of the craving for alcohol has had in
the past a pernicious effect; for the belief that
a habit is incurable serves, more than anything
else, to compel its continuance, while the effect
of the opposite belief, that the habit may easily
be broken, or that a cure has been effected, often
constitutes the whole cure, even in old and se-
vere cases.
Such a view does not of course deny that there
are physiological substrata in the habits of in-
toxication as in all other experiences. Alcohol
used in excess certainly does make demonstra-
ble inroads upon the finer structures of the
brain, and these changes are supposedly the
basis of weakened will and lessened reserve, and
other protective attitudes of consciousness.
Nor would a psychological view of intemperance
rule out of court such hypotheses as those of
Campbell, who claims that stimulants are nor-
THEORIES OF THE IMPULSE
189
mally present in the body, either created as by-
products of metabolism, or present in the food,
that they are utilised in the body, and are in-
volved in the feeling of well-being and ill-being;
and that when the normal stimulants are defi-
cient artificial stimulants are craved. We must
indeed assume physical and chemical factors in
all mental attitudes, the normal no less than the
abnormal. But no such hypotheses afford an
adequate explanation of intemperance.
A corollary of the physical-craving theory of
the alcohol habit is the oft-accepted statement
that the effect of alcohol upon the system is to
produce such a condition of the tissues that
greater and greater quantities are required to
produce intoxication, and there is a more and
more imperative physiological need. This is
by no means proved, especially in cases in which
there are even short periods of abstinence.
Waugh denies the statement that drug users in-
crease the dose because it takes more and more
to produce exhilaration. He says that all whom
he has questioned have confessed that they
increase the dose because they desire more of
the feeling. The same was found to be true in
some of our cases. Some say that less is re-
quired to intoxicate as the habit progresses. In
cases in which drinking is steady, day after day,
however, there seems to be within limits a capac-
ity for consuming larger and larger quantities
190
PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
with comparative impunity. In cases of re-
lapse after cures by the Keeley and other
methods, sudden death is sometimes caused, it
seems, by the inability of the system to consume
quantities of alcohol that were readily disposed
of while the habit was steadily maintained.
Those theories that claim for the alcohol
craving a psychic origin seem nearly all to have
hit upon truth, but only partial truth. So long
as they cleave to generalities and speak of an
instinctive craving for alcohol, or say that the
craving has become a form of second nature,
and make similar formulations, they need little
criticism, since they offer little explanation.
There is no doubt that the claim that habits of
intemperance have been perpetuated because of
the pain in the world, contains truth. But this
is only a half truth, for pain is but one motive,
and accounts for but a part of the world's drink-
ing. The theory that alcohol is used because
it causes wider variations in life, which is
otherwise too monotonous, expresses vaguely
an important psychological truth, as does also
the view that alcohol changes the relation be-
tween common sense and individual sense.
Beard's theory of the close relation between
high mental development in a race, and a love
of stimulation also accords with a part of the
facts, and roughly describes one motive of in-
toxication. Somewhat more precise is Starke's
THEORIES OF THE IMPULSE
191
view that alcohol stimulates the ego, the inner
individuality with its sentiments and passions;
and by strengthening this activity makes at-
tention to external things—to the mechanical
and acquired parts of experience-less intense.
Put into a more general form these views
mean this: Alcohol serves the purpose of re-
laxing or inhibiting the more individual experi-
ences of a man, and of stimulating the emotional
life, which is the deeper and wider life.*
It thus enlarges the individuality, and al-
lows the feeling life and imagination such scope
as might be realised in a life before the advent
of a civilisation which makes the individual nar-
row and special. That is, alcohol serves to
widen the experience, to make life more so-
cial, and to produce states like those in the
growth periods of the individual, when he is
dominated by the feelings and ideals of his
race, and is not hampered by the details and
necessities of personal achievement. The life
of purpose and ideas is aroused, and outlook
is stimulated, while the life of fact is relatively
* From an investigation of the motives for drinking made
among professional classes for the Committee of Fifty the
conclusion was reached that drinks are used mainly for their
effect upon mental action, especially upon the emotions, and
that they are sometimes used from a special desire to increase
the intensity of consciousness, but more often for their seda-
tive effects—and that the whole strength of the liquor traffic
lies in the weakness of human nature on the social side.
192
PSYCHOLOGY, OF INTEMPERANCE
diminished. The meaning of life is artificially
widened and deepened.
As to Reid's view that the craving for alco-
hol (which is equivalent for him to the craving
for intoxication, because he claims that every
dose of alcohol produces some degree of intoxi-
cation) is a product of mental evolution, and is
a specific craving for alcohol, satisfied by noth-
ing else, and controlled only by a process of
evolution which is directly against it as an
isolated factor in man's development,—all the
facts and interpretations of the preceding chap-
ters oppose it. That it is in a sense an instinct,
that it is a product of, or is related to, or is a
part of, mental evolution would be admitted,
indeed, asserted; but that the craving is a spe-
cific craving for alcoholic intoxication would be
denied. If wrong, such a view leads to very
erroneous generalisations about the course of
mental evolution, and to decidedly wrong views
of the practical problems of intemperance. The
error consists in asserting a likeness between
the craving for alcohol and a zymotic or germ
disease. If the craving were thus specific, and
were general enough, and could be stripped of
some of its economic and other complications,
evolution would perhaps act toward it as Reid
maintains. But evidence is conclusive that it
is not such a specific craving, that it is plastic,
and a part of a more general desire, which ap-
THEORIES OF THE IMPULSE
193
pears in many forms, and can be satisfied in
many ways. Any process of evolution which
weeds out those defective in control generally
will help, we believe, to eliminate the alcoholic
victim, and would at the same time prevent a
nation becoming susceptible to the inroads of
any habit. Besides, evolution does not act thus
precisely upon the craving for alcohol. The ef-
fects of alcoholic excess reach out so widely
upon those who do not possess the craving as
such, but who are made liable to it through the
hardships which it inflicts upon them indirectly
(as in the case of children of inebriates, who
are not eliminated and who tend to spread the
habit), that there can be no such uniform reduc-
tion as Reid maintains. Independently of in-
herited effects, too, whole classes of society are
made poorer and distress is perpetuated among
them by the use of alcohol, thus keeping alive
the narcotic motive for its use rather than
diminishing it. Unless at the same time the
poor as a class in society are being eliminated
by evolution the craving for alcohol is not being
checked by evolution, for it certainly persists
wherever poverty occurs in the midst of wealth.
Nor among higher classes does the craving die
out by inheritance of lesser craving, for those
who, judged by the only criteria we have, inherit
little craving as such appear readily to acquire
the habit, and so start another chain of effect
194 PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
and cause; while, too, new motives and favour-
ing conditions are continually produced.
Even though it were true that in nations
which have long been accustomed to alcohol
there is less craving for it than in nations in
which the habit has recently been acquired (as
does not seem to be the case) this would not
indicate that the length of experience is the
cause of the diminished craving. Older races
have many characteristics of old age, among
them diminished exuberance of feeling. The
history of drinking among civilised nations
shows that the elimination of the craving for
alcohol has not been a uniform process. As
we have seen, times preceding eras of high cul-
ture have been times of gross intemperance;
temperance has come with the highest culture,
and then intemperance again as the nation de-
clined. Lower races which have long been ac-
customed to native alcoholic beverages perish
when brought into contact with the stronger
drinks of civilised men, showing that their long
acquaintance with alcohol has not eliminated
from them the dangers of excess, when they be-
come influenced by the social habits of the white
It is well known that Europeans of the
lower classes, especially Italians, who, Reid
says, have not a strong craving for alcohol, on
coming to America readily succumb to the
drinking habits of the country.
man,
THEORIES OF THE IMPULSE
195
2
There is nowhere in the history of drink an
account of the sudden introduction of alcohol
into a civilised country previously unaccus-
tomed to drinking. In that case we should ex-
pect, on such a theory as that of Reid, the most
disastrous effects, for no degree of civilisation
would in itself be in the least a safeguard
against alcohol in the absence of a long period
in which selection had been at work eliminating
the craving. A good example of this, however,
on a small scale, is to be found in the case of
families who because of moral ideals have been
abstainers for many generations. On Reid's
theory we should expect that the descendants of
these would be weak in the presence of alcohol.
This does not appear to be true; in fact quite
the opposite conclusion is warranted. A few
generations of moral tradition in a family
fortify its descendants against excess and im-
morality. The sudden introduction of alcohol
into an abstinent nation in such a stage of
growth as that of our own country at the pres-
ent time, would probably not, as Reid says, re-
sult disastrously, for the reason that selection
has already produced, in connection with gen-
eral advancement of civilisation, those qualities
of control and those ideals which antagonise all
forms of destructive habits, alcoholism among
the rest.
Diminution of the craving for alcohol has
196 PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
come about, if at all, not by a process of evolu-
tion working against a specific craving, but by
a broad movement in which lower impulses have
been transformed into higher. Intoxication
once regarded as a religious duty quite gener-
ally among uncivilised nations, has come after
centuries to be regarded as sinful. Though
ideals of temperance differ greatly among civi-
lised nations, it can be said that there is an in-
creasing and spreading interest in temper-
ance, and even total abstinence; and that the
motives leading to intemperance are held in
check by this moral ideal. This motive is a
slow growth, parallel to the impulse which it
holds in check; and by inhibiting the intoxica-
tion motives it creates a tension favourable to
higher development. The central impulse of
temperance ideals is the idea of social service.
Those who drink to excess waste and pervert
enthusiasm, and become useless members of so-
ciety. As civilisation increases the individual
must more and more become a link in a chain
of co-ordinated events. He must control his
activities and be controlled; he must turn the
raw material of his enthusiasm into a product.
Therefore the ideal of control, both inner and
outer, develops, the one expressed in law, the
other in moral conscience. The spirit of in-
toxication, the force and energy of which it is an
expression, is recognised to be a precious asset
THEORIES OF THE IMPULSE
197
of the race, and our efforts are directed to
turning the lower, more immediately expres-
sive, and less organised forms of enthusiasm
into the higher. That which remains unpro-
ductive, which does not inspire useful conduct,
is socially condemned, and religious sanctions
are sought for so condemning it. Other motives
enter, for example the increasing respect for
the integrity of the self, which helps to create
public sentiment against all states in which the
individual does not rationally direct his conduct.
The obvious result of intoxication in inciting
to other undesirable acts is another motive of
temperance. The narcotic motive, the effort to
escape pain and fatigue is condemned, in pro-
portion as pain and fatigue are seen to result
from and to favour the continuance of the nor-
mal activities which society holds in highest
esteem. Every individual is directed to bear
his part of the pain, and to turn his restlessness
and distress, as forces, into useful channels.
Among some classes of society these ideals be-
come a demand for total abstinence, enforced
by laws prohibiting the sale of intoxicating
liquors. The tendency is to condemn all drink-
ing of alcohol, in part because of a theological
ideal which has condemned all pleasure as sin.
With it goes a tendency to discountenance all
the luxuries of the wealthy classes. In temper-
ate drinking is found a danger of drunkenness
198 PSYCHOLOGY, OF INTEMPERANCE
and an example which leads to intemperate
drinking on the part of the lower classes, or by
weak individuals of the higher classes; and so
gradually an ideal of complete abstinence has
spread widely. This ideal tends to be sup-
ported also by an increasing conviction that
alcohol is harmful to the body. We must leave
to the practical part of the discussion to judge
the probable future of this ideal and the attitude
toward it which should be taken from the stand-
point of the facts about alcohol and intoxication.
CHAPTER X
SUMMARY OF FACTS AND INTERPRETATIONS
HAVING come by several different methods to
various conclusions about the nature of intoxi-
cation and the intoxication impulse, it will
be well to cast a retrospective glance, in
order to know how these interpretations
may be brought together into a general
view, and to prepare for a study of the
practical problems of temperance and the
use of alcohol generally. The interest is not in
working out a consistent psychological theory,
which would be tempting if the purpose of the
study were different; for the facts about intoxi-
cation raise many interesting questions about
the nature of instinct and emotion, and the laws
of mental development in the individual and in
the race. Neither is the purpose to formulate
a single definite principle from which certain
practical conclusions may be deduced. It is
rather to organise the various facts and inter-
pretations in such a way as to bring the psycho-
logical view-points into the foreground, and
show the part they may take-combined with
other scientific factors of the problem, and with
199
200 PSYCHOLOGY, OF INTEMPERANCE
practical and common-sense considerations, and
the results of experimentation and experience
-in attaining a broad and sane outlook upon
the questions at issue.
If we are to deal in a practical manner with
habits of men, it seems as though the first im-
portant work is to understand the motives upon
which these habits are based, their history in
the individual and in the race. At the same
time we may profitably investigate our own
moral judgments, and trace their history-
we must understand the human passions with.
which we deal, both those which we try to con-
trol, and those that motivate the ideals to-
ward which we wish to bring the conduct
of others, before we shall be equipped to
proceed with the highest intelligence. In other
words we need to know why men are impelled
to drink, and why we wish to restrain them. In
studying such a problem as intemperance,
knowledge about the impulses which lead to in-
toxication must be supplemented by knowledge
about the state of intoxication itself in all its
degrees and forms. For how can one under-
take to control, abolish, or judge a thing with-
out knowing precisely what its nature is? If it
is abnormal, a disorder or poisoning of the body,
a temporary insanity, we must know how the
normal functions are related to it, just as we
must discover what normal impulses are most
SUMMARY OF FACTS
201
nearly related to the craving for these condi-
tions, which is the underlying cause of intem-
perance. These are the lines upon which our
investigation has progressed.
A study of the intoxication motive in animals
showed that even in the lowest forms of life
intoxication can be induced; and that at least
its physical phenomena are much like those of
human intoxication. Animals can acquire the
habit of intoxication, but the mental aspects
of their habit cannot easily be investigated.
Whether they ever form so complex an associa-
tion as to seek a drink which is in itself un-
pleasant for the sake of a remote mental effect,
seems quite doubtful.
Closely connected with the intoxication states
induced by alcohol are certain states of exalta-
tion related to the play and mating habits of
animals. These states appear to serve the pur-
pose of making dynamic various actions of the
animal, especially the sexual, and they also seem
to assist in bringing the nervous system to com-
plete development, and to stimulate functions
that are later, perhaps, to be called upon to pro-
duce effects remote from the purpose of their
origin. It is likely that both the mechanisms in-
volved in producing these states of ecstasy and
the motives which induce them have originated,
in part at least, in connection with the sexual
erethisms. Later, as we pass to higher forms
!
202 PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
of animal life, and to man, we see that these old
mechanisms still perform a part, and give to
many actions and desires their motive power.
These mechanisms, once special and definitely
purposeful in form, when detached from their
original purpose may become the basis of very
general activities and desires.
Every trait of the human species has a double
history: in the race, and in the individual, and
must be studied in both its aspects. Turning to
the history of the intoxication impulse in the
race, we find a long and complicated story.
The custom of using alcoholic drinks is poly-
genetic and nearly universal among tribes and
races. Intoxication has played a great part in
the religious and social life of primitive peoples.
There is evidence to indicate that it was first
induced for religious purposes, and in common
with other forms of exaltation of feeling, was
put to an important religious use. It enlarged
man's conception of the supernatural and di-
vine, and stimulated belief. Shamanism, the
first developed religion, was founded upon in-
toxication, and spread as a cult over all the
world. Every important event in the life of the
savage has been celebrated by intoxication, and
especially in the social life, alcohol has per-
formed a service. Its function has been to
widen the social life, to assist in the amalgama-
tion of tribes, and to foster co-ordinations within
SUMMARY OF FACTS
203
social groups. By stimulating belief it has
made all socialising influences more effective.
Indeed it is difficult to imagine what the social
and religious life of primitive and savage man
might have been without alcohol.
Excessive and infrequent or periodic intoxi-
cation seems to have been the usual form of
drinking among uncivilised tribes. Drinking
was carried on for a purpose, was always con-
nected with an idea, and drinking of alcohol
as a beverage was a late result. Temperance
arose first as the regulation of the rites of in-
toxication by custom and law, rather than from
moral restraint. Woman everywhere has used
alcohol to a less extent than has man, not only
because alcohol has been prohibited to her by
law and custom, but because her habit of life
is less erethic, her tasks therefore more monot-
onous, and less subject to wide variations and
sweeping rhythms: in other words because the
intoxication impulse or motive is weaker in
woman than in man. In civilisation, however,
she readily succumbs to other motives for drink-
ing, and acquires narcotic habits.
Examination of various activities of man, in
which states of exalted feeling are sought, shows
that the craving for periodic excitement is deep-
seated. Alcohol affords to man one means of
many, normal and abnormal, of breaking away
from his routines and controls, and reaching
204 PSYCHOLOGY, OF INTEMPERANCE
new levels of feeling. There is a natural ten-
dency on the part of the young to seek excite-
ment and all exalted states of feeling. The ere-
thic habit, and craving for, or instinctive seek-
ing of, erethic states is a normal and necessary
aspect of growth, favoured by selection because
it assists in perfecting and increasing the pow-
ers of the organism; because it creates a high
tension of feeling, which is the condition of ef-
fective action, and is an exercise of all the
higher enthusiasms. So both endurance of high
tension and the desire to produce it have in-
creased as the nervous mechanisms have be-
come more complex. Thus the sexual ere-
thisms, intoxication states of various kinds, ex-
citement of play, states of second breath, ecsta-
sy, religious fervour, social intensity, belief, en-
thusiasm, and the intensity of mental action
which is finally controlled and expressed in
long-sustained attention and interest, are in-
terpreted as psychological kindred, all con-
nected, it is likely, by the common utilisation of
the same mechanisms of the nervous system, and
by participating in a common impulse or in-
stinct to induce high intensity of mental ac-
tivity as a mode of mental development.
At adolescence all these intoxication motives
become intensified, and their relation to growth
becomes clear. The whole period is best char-
acterised as dominated by the intoxication mo-
SUMMARY OF FACTS
205
tives, and the strength of these motives in the
life of the individual, and their plasticity and
educability, is the test of capacity for growth,
and the basis of all future interests and en-
thusiasms. The love of alcohol intoxication is
but one expression of a plastic motive and ca-
pacity of the nervous system, a motive that is
deep-seated and fundamental. When growth is
normal, the lower, unproductive enthusiasms be-
come transformed into higher, productive and
organised activities, and the individual tran-
scends the dangers of intemperance and other
lower forms of expression of the intoxication
impulse. Both in the individual and in the race
the lower, more general, and cruder forms of
intoxication precede the higher and more con-
trolled.
Continuing the survey of the genesis of the
intoxication impulses in the race, their relation
to mental development and social organisation
becomes still clearer, as also does the relation
between the growth of the individual and of the
We find that the intoxication impulses
are strongest in the dominant races, and that
they are always more intense in periods of rapid
growth, especially at times just preceding the
greatest intellectual activity. The cult of
Dionysus in Greece is to be interpreted as a
worship of the creative force, an expression of
the longing for a larger and more abundant life.
race.
206 PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
At the time of the Renaissance the excess-
ive intensity of
of the intoxication motive
again indicates the onset of a period of
accelerated growth. Now there is a change
from outer to inner control, and for a time
no control at all. The emotional life is wid-
ened and deepened, new enthusiasms are
created and the crude growth forces are at
last brought under control in a new social era.
The rough virtues and vices that mark the grow-
ing periods of the dominant races become
transformed. The warlike spirit and intemper-
ance go together, and both are expressions of
mental and physical virility.
As national life becomes more intricate the
intoxication motives are found to be complex.
Immigration toward centres of greatest prog-
ress ensues, increasing the heterogeneity of life;
there is more flux among social classes; higher
motives act side by side with the low and ab-
normal motives; and whenever growth ceases,
and degeneration sets in, whether in small or
large groups, and the number of abnormal indi-
viduals greatly increases, the narcotic im-
pulse arises. This is the longing to escape
from pain, to seek relief in inactivity and rest;
it is a turning backward away from the stren-
uous life, or is an effort to arouse flagging en-
thusiasms, and bring back pleasures for which
there is no longer physical or mental strength.
SUMMARY OF FACTS
207
When the narcotic motive becomes general or
widespread growth has ceased. In all great
nations, centres of stagnation form, and tend to
spread, unless the life be replenished from
sources outside the stagnant group. Both
among the idle rich, and in the hopeless poor,
such centres of development of the narcotic mo-
tives are to be found. They are the expression
of old age and disease in a nation.
Thus the intoxication motives in the individ-
ual and the race run parallel to one another.
In the play of normal childhood, in the exuber-
ant feeling of adolescence, in its crude forces
and pioneer spirit, we see the motives that
lead to maturity and a broad, full life, paral-
leling the periods of growth in the race. Old
age in both brings in the narcotic motives, and
in both, whenever there is interference with
the normal processes of growth, when there is
premature strain or disease, abnormal motives
may creep in, in the midst of progress, and old
age ensues before childhood is past. Whenever
the growth force is weakened, premature mo-
tives of pain and fatigue take the place of the
normal intoxication impulses.
Such strong motives as the intoxication im-
pulses could not have failed to leave their im-
press at every step upon language and litera-
ture. The origin of wine is a frequent theme in
primitive philosophies, in folk lore and in pop-
208 PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
ular belief. Its remarkable effect upon the lan-
guage, the extraordinary number of synonyms
for intoxication, especially in popular speech,
show how profoundly this motive has affected
thought and feeling, and indicate what a power-
ful undercurrent it has become whenever
it has failed to be transformed into higher mo-
tives. In the literature of drink the two main
drinking motives, those of intoxication and of
narcosis, are expressed in an exaggerated form
in a way which shows many interesting by-
paths of human thought. In medicine, too, in
the doctrine of stimulus, the intoxication im-
pulses can be traced, influencing the course of
practice, and causing the disproportionate use
of drugs that directly affect consciousness.
The stimulant-narcotics, though they vary
much in their effects from one to another, all
are similar in their power of both exciting and
depressing the activity of living tissues. This
is true, in general, both of large and of small
doses, though precisely the physiological
mechanism of these effects is the subject of
much difference of opinion. Some physiolo-
gists deny altogether that alcohol has in a true
sense a direct stimulating effect upon the tis-
sues, and others assert that its narcotic effects
are for the most part due to redirection of
energies, and are not the result of a narcotising
of the tissues themselves. But whenever either
SUMMARY OF FACTS
209
motor or mental aspects of the effect of alcohol
are tested, the typical course of excitation fol-
lowed by depression is usually found. Experi-
ments made with small doses of alcohol to deter-
mine its effect upon various motor and mental
processes show, typically, slight improvement
followed by depression. No very large amount
of alcohol can be taken without lessening appre-
ciably the amount of mental work that can be
done in a given time.
A state or process of intoxication caused by
large doses of alcohol is similar in nature to
the effects of the small dose, but is more com-
plex. An alcoholic intoxication is essentially
a succession of emotional states, at first an ex-
altation of feeling, and then depression. Nor-
mal limits, both of pleasure and pain, are
passed, and with the widening of the emotional
field, is an increase in the activity of associ-
ations, or at least a greater freedom in their
expression. In the stage of exaltation there is
a sense of experiencing more abundant life,
social contact is widened, belief is quickened,
and the external world loses its control over the
mental processes. Activity is determined from
within. The individual feels a glow as of an
ideal life. Life seems for the time richer in
meaning, there is a definite moment when a
sense of lost control is experienced, and the mind
begins to flow free of its acquired inhibitions,
210
PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
inner and outer. This feeling of freedom and
of expansion of the individual is the condition
sought in intoxication, and is the source of the
craving for the state.
What the physiological basis of the series
of mental changes in intoxication is, cannot
as yet be determined with certainty. Alcohol
affects different tissues differently, both in
order of time, and possibly in the character of
the effect. We may suppose that stimulating
effects, narcotic effects, the results of the release
of lower mechanisms by the depression of the
higher, and the effects of redistribution of
energies and tensions go on together. There
is evidence to indicate that those functions most
closely connected with pleasure and displeasure
are singled out by the alcohol for the greatest
effects, and that this change in the physio-
logical bases of pleasure and displeasure consti-
tutes the central change in intoxication. The
result of the alcohol, however its work is ac-
complished, is to bring into activity a wider
range of nervous mechanisms, under less con-
trol from the organised habits of the individual
than in the normal state.
Two general types of organisation favour the
acquisition of habits of excessive or morbid use
of alcohol: the undeveloped type, and the de-
generate, over-sensitive, or otherwise morbid
nervous organisation. The low organism can-
SUMMARY OF FACTS
211
not transform lower into higher enthusiasms;
it is over suggestible, and its conduct is deter-
mined by least resistance, by the environment
with which it comes into contact. The degen-
erate is subject to excessive use of alcohol
because of ill-balance of the nervous forces.
He is more likely to drink from motives of pain
and fatigue, and to seek narcotic effects of
drugs. True dipsomania is best explained as a
reversion to primitive physiological rhythms,
due to the instability of higher strata of inhibi-
tions.
A study of cases of inebriety shows that in
one of its motives alcoholic excess is an adoles-
cent phenomenon. It grows out of a normal
and universal desire for the largest and most
intense life, and becomes established as excess
or disease, because of imperfect development of
the individual, due to inner defect, or outer cir-
cumstance, or both.
Contrary to popular belief a close study of
the inner life of the inebriate fails to show, in
the great majority of cases, anything that can
be called a craving for alcohol, especially as a
physical need, induced by alcoholic excess. The
habit is social in expression, and is continued
only under the influence of social suggestion.
The only chronic craving for alcohol which can
be detected is in the neurotic case, in which gen-
eral distress, fatigue and pain are quite likely to
212
PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
be mistaken for a specific need of alcohol. But
even in these cases the craving for drink is
highly plastic, and subject to mental control.
The craving for alcohol is a complex mental at-
titude; it has its roots in the social life; and it is
readily changed into other forms of desire. It
is strongest and least susceptible to treatment
during the most active decades of a man's life,
and is liable to sudden cessation or easy control
at the beginning of senescence. It is not a thing
in itself, but is closely related to all a man's in-
terests, social and even religious, and is renewed
each day by his most natural and necessary
associations.
The narcotic motive seems to reach its height
later, in the early thirties, when there is the
first decline in interest in life; it is more ab-
normal, likely to remain longer, and to retain
hold of a man even into old age. It is indeed
essentially an instinct of old age, a longing for
relief from pain, for rest, and for return to a
pristine state of health.
The great number of theories about the in-
toxication impulse and the many points of view
from which it has been observed show both its
complexity and the intricate relations of it to
normal life interests. Some have tried to ex-
plain it as a physical craving, normal or abnor-
mal, as an effect of alcohol upon the protoplasm
of the body. It is called a second nature, an ac-
SUMMARY OF FACTS
213
quired habit, an instinct in the making. Some
have found in it only a desire to escape pain,
others a wish to break up the monotony of life,
a desire to stimulate the ego, a by-product of
mental evolution, and a specific craving.
Many of these views were found to contain
partial truth, and to apply to some phase of the
question; some only to the extremely morbid
case, or the special condition of extreme intoxi-
cation or long-continued, uninterrupted use of
alcohol. Particularly that view which regards
the craving for alcohol as a physical craving
or a specific mental craving was found to be
untenable, and out of harmony with all the
facts. There is little evidence that anything
like a specific craving exists, or that a specific
desire for alcohol can be transmitted to off-
spring as a result of the habit of the parent.
These erroneous views have done much to pre-
vent the right practical attitude towards the
problems of temperance. The intoxication mo-
tive cannot be understood until it is seen in its
· normal relations. It is not a specific morbid
craving but one form of expression of a general
attitude, connected with mental evolution. Out
of the craving for states of high intensity of
consciousness has been developed mental power
which has been applied in many directions, and
which, under control and organised, is the ten-
sion that underlies long-continued effort and
214
PSYCHOLOGY, OF INTEMPERANCE
work. These states, and the impulse or instinct
to attain them, have therefore been favoured by
selection, and types of nervous organism have
been produced in which there is both capacity
for strong, intense action, and a desire to exert
the forces of the organism to the utmost limits.
This method of mental evolution has necessi-
tated stages of crude and uncontrolled force and
enthusiasm, and has been the means of intro-
ducing morbid types and diseases into the world.
The craving for intoxication is a desire that
can be satisfied in many divergent ways, and the
practical problem of its control consists, as we
shall see, in bringing its lower expressions to
higher forms. Evolution is not directed specif-
ically against the craving for alcohol, either to
produce or to eliminate it, but is producing a
certain type of nervous mechanism in which
there is a balance between desire and control.
Any individual not capable of being brought
into the wide area of variability that is nor-
mal, tends to be eliminated; but there is no
evolutionary process directed against alcohol as
such, and in a sense the presence or absence of
alcohol is an unessential factor in the present
evolution of man. Not alcohol itself, but the
motives for its excessive use must be attacked.
Temperance grows out of an ideal of social
service and individual efficiency, and movements
toward it and toward total abstinence must be
SUMMARY OF FACTS
215
tested by fitness to further social welfare. To
attack the use of alcoholic drinks as sin, without
considering concretely the nature of its sinful-
ness, is a narrow service to the ideal, and must
be superseded by more rational and more posi-
tive endeavour.
THE PRACTICAL PROBLEM
A
CHAPTER XT
THE PRACTICAL PROBLEM
THE practical questions of intoxication and the
use of intoxicants and narcotics generally, cen-
tre about three problems, which, though distin-
guishable for the purposes of discussion, must
be studied in the light of the same general prin-
ciples. To derive a theory and general stand-
point for the study of the practical problems
has been the main purpose of all the preceding
study. We have not tried, it is true, to deduce
from any fundamental position or law the prin-
ciples which explain intoxication and appraise
its moral worth, but have approached the sub-
ject from various points of view, and have
followed facts to see whither they would lead.
The result is not a definite theory or single prin-
ciple, but a general view of mental and physical
development, a picture of nature's scheme of
production of the higher mental traits from the
lower, within which the place of the intoxication
motive has been traced.
The final task is to approach the practical
questions with these view-points in mind, not
trying to deduce practical consequences directly
219
220 PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
from them, but using them as explanatory prin-
ciples to broaden the vision of practical sense
and prudential act. Thus we may perhaps pre-
vent radical and shortsighted conclusions, tem-
per the fanaticism of the narrow reformer, and
see the problems in the breadth and perspective
in which they must be studied, if we are to
act rationally.
The three questions of practical public inter-
est, about which most of the problems of tem-
perance centre are:
(1) Education of the child with reference to
temperance and the use of intoxicants gener-
ally. This includes the problem of instruction
in the physiology and hygiene of alcohol, ethical
teaching, and other resources of the school in
leading children toward an ideal of a temperate
life.
(2) The problem of the saloon. In this con-
nection appear the problems of legal enactment
in regard to the manufacture and sale of liquor,
the questions of public approval or disapproval
of all forms of drinking; and considered
broadly, estimation of the evils of club life, and
of various organisations that favour the in-
crease of intoxication; problems of public recre-
ation and hygiene; of the condition of the work-
ing man and provisions for the welfare of the
lower classes. The problem spreads out broad-
1
THE PRACTICAL PROBLEM
221
ly into questions of social ethics, hygiene and
public education.
(3) The care, control, and cure of the exces-
sive and abnormal user of intoxicants. Here
enters the problem of punishment for drunken-
ness, estimation of various methods of cure of
intoxication habits, questions of the prevention
of hereditary influences, and others that arise
in controlling the acts of the excessive drinker.
It is not within the scope of this volume to
follow out in detail all these problems. The
purpose is to apply certain general psycho-
logical standpoints to each of these questions, in
order to suggest a basis from which they may
be discussed. It is, indeed, rather in keeping
problems open and experimental than in arriv-
ing at fixed conclusions that such principles
have value.
CHAPTER XII
THE SALOON AND THE CLUB
AFTER such a preliminary study of the facts
about alcoholic intoxication, and the impulses
which motivate it, the problem of the saloon can
be approached with more confidence than from
the purely moral point of view. Like all social
problems it is complex. Scientific conclusions
alone cannot decide its questions. Science can
explain the situation, and suggest ways and
means of controlling it. In actual practice
there are many considerations of expediency.
Many interests are involved in the saloon.
The saloon is a situation which must be ob-
served and analysed before it is dealt with
practically. All its elements must be taken
fairly into consideration. Both its ethical and
its social aspects must be studied, both its prac-
tical and theoretical problems. It must be re-
garded from the point of view of economics, of
physical and mental hygiene, of medicine, of
biology, and of psychology. All this makes a
formidable programme, and as yet the evidence
is all too meager. But meantime we must do
something about the saloon. We must vote for
222
THE SALOON AND THE CLUB
223
or against it, and must enact laws of one kind or
another or refrain from enacting them. We
take, therefore, whatever scientific evidence
there is at hand, exert our common sense, and
try to gain the largest view possible of the situ-
ation. That, it can be claimed, is not commonly
attempted. Opponents and advocates of the
saloon there are in plenty, but there is too little
of painstaking study of all its aspects.
Four questions can be raised about the saloon,
about which we can reasonably expect to obtain
fruitful information from the psychological
point of view. These are:
1. What evils are caused by the saloon, or are
most intimately connected with it?
2. What normal elements, if any, does the
saloon possess? What useful function, if any,
does it perform in society?
3. What is the effect, in regard to these evils
and possible elements of good, of abolishing the
saloon?
4. Is there anything which may be substituted
for the saloon, which shall have none or less of
its evils and also contain positive elements of
good?
The form of these questions, it is true, indi-
cates certain prejudices. Evils are recognised,
and possibility of good, in advance of examining
the evidence. The former can scarcely be de-
nied; the latter, we are prepared and enjoined
224
PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
to look for, after considering the place of the
intoxication impulses in mental development.
What are the evils of the saloon? Many will
say that these are so obvious that they will need
no enumeration. The saloon is an unmitigated
evil and nuisance, the creation of the lowest ele-
ment in man's nature, the tool of base interests,
and the only remedy is to destroy it root and
branch. What are the evils which so condemn
it? Men waste both time and money in the
saloon. They neglect their duties of home and
business, and thus inflict hardship upon their
families. By making a man poor, it lowers his
social standing and that of his family. Pov-
erty brings disease through starved bodies and
starved minds. The man himself injures his
health, blunts his moral sense, acquires disor-
ders of the whole being which he may transmit
in one way or another to his offspring. These
evils spread beyond the individual and his fam-
ily; the man who drinks to excess produces con-
ditions in his environment which perpetuate the
evil of drinking. The saloon creates thus an at-
mosphere of low thought and action; and keeps
alive in society low ideals both of public and
private life.
The saloon is also in other ways an evil ele-
ment in the social life. It is the tool of petty
and unscrupulous politics; it is a power which
is sometimes said to control municipal polities;
THE SALOON AND THE CLUB 225
and it has a far-reaching effect upon all insti-
tutions; upon education, business, and even
upon the church.
All these evils are certainly centred about
the saloon, and it needs little argument to con-
vict it of most of them. Yet the whole story is
not told until we know what becomes of all these
evils when the saloon is abolished.
What elements of good, if any, does the saloon
possess? The most frequently heard argument
for the saloon is that it is the poor man's club.
The claim is made that public opinion about the
saloon is based upon the comparatively few
cases in which excessive drinking is caused by
the saloon, and that it condemns the whole insti-
tution unfairly. The workingman, it is said,
would have no place of social entertainment, if
it were not for the saloon. This is at least an
important suggestion. We have been obliged
to put great weight upon the socialising influ-
ences of alcohol, among all primitive societies.
The lower classes of society are essentially
primitive. The saloon has a social intention,
and to this extent is good. This social charac-
ter of the saloon has not been sufâciently consid-
ered by the most radical anti-saloon party. So
important is the socialising of the lower classes,
or of all classes, that any institution which can
show that it tends to help in this direction is
entitled to a respectful hearing. One important
226
PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
function of social contact, and a free flow of
ideas and ideals among all classes of society, is
that it creates common knowledge and interests.
Ideals of country, home, humanity, of party,
and of cause,-all such ideals are produced and
sustained only in a freely communicating social
flux, of personal contact of man with man. The
saloon is certainly the great meeting place of
common men; it is a fulcral point where one of
the most important impulses of man is brought
into activity. It is a live spark. But the sa-
loon, it is true, but pitifully performs its true
function. It does not fully socialise. That,
however, alcohol has performed a function at
just this point, by breaking down barriers, by
stimulating ideals and belief, by conveying to
the mind standards of social happiness and
breadth of emotional life, can scarcely be
doubted by anyone who examines the evidence.
Alcohol favours the common possession of ideas.
The world is a co-ordinated world to a greater
extent than it would otherwise be, because of
alcohol; and presumably, because of the saloon.
The social function of the saloon can be un-
derstood better by comparing it, in all fairness
and seriousness, with other institutions that aid
in socialising the common man. There is first, ,
of course, the church, to which perhaps one in
five is attached. Here various ideals are cer-
tainly made common possession. There is also
THE SALOON AND THE CLUB
227
the daily newspaper. Through this, opinion is
moulded and certain standards of conduct and
belief are popularised. Then there is the place
of amusement, which, as the recreational life
of the people is now carried on, is not yet fully
social. The theatre, the concert, is individually
enjoyed; but there is little exchange of thought
or sentiment. The occupation may be much or
little socialising; usually it is the latter.
Specialised labour confines a man's thought to
a narrow aspect of a large process. The mean-
ing and intention of the whole seldom comes to
his mind. His loyalty to his task is slight, and
the points of contact with his fellow workers
are few. The workingman's union, now un-
dergoing so remarkable a development, is an
expression of a long deferred group conscious-
ness for which man has had the motive, but
which he has lacked the initiative to produce.
On the recreational side, one other important
factor has arisen almost from nothing during
the past few years. This is the settlement and
the social movement among the lowest classes.
By this movement, means of contact are greatly
increased, and by this and similar movements,
for the first time the production of ideals in
the lower classes has been brought effectively
under direct personal control. Accompanying
this idea is now a vast movement, expressed in
many forms of which the socialising of the peo-
228 PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
ple is the purpose. This normal socialising is
civilisation experimentally and consciously car-
ried on, and it is one of the great ideas of the
age.
Of all the socialising influences of the present
time, however, it can be said that the effects of
alcohol represent a greater attraction than any
other force in bringing men together in inti-
mate relations. The saloon is still the avenue
through which the great undercurrent of idea
and ideal spreads, both the good and the evil.
It would be useless to try to estimate how much
is good, and how much evil, but the case would
not be fairly presented unless, beside the pic-
ture of evil which has been drawn, the saloon
be placed in its most favourable light, by de-
scribing the gain which men under the best
conditions of its present organisation may get
from it, and contribute through it, to society.
In the first place, the saloon is certainly a
school of rough virtues. In it a man may ac-
quire self-control, may learn standards of con-
duct, which are at least better than none at all.
He acquires certain ideals: of loyalty to party,
citizenship and patriotism. The social spirit
is fostered in him, correcting the narrow indi-
vidualism of the home and occupation. Such
influences, which keep a man in touch with the
common funds of belief and custom, with that
undercurrent of thought which never becomes
>
THE SALOON AND THE CLUB
229
in a nation formulated into code or creed, do
contribute to the making of national life. The
results are drawn upon when national spirit is
put to the test, in time of war or public calam-
ity; in times when the co-ordinations of society
are severely tested in any crisis. The saloon is
a connecting link in the chain of common be-
liefs, upon which, to a far greater extent than
many appear to understand, the welfare of a
nation depends. Anyone who has looked into
the undercurrents of thought which circulate
from one end of the country to the other must
have been astonished at the speed with which
the unwritten word, the custom, belief, and
opinion, the unformulated idea and ideals,
spread through these channels of communica-
tion. We know that the larger the city the
greater is the difficulty of eliminating the sa-
loon. The reason is in part that, in the larger
community, the channels of communication and
commonisin
part played by the saloon is more important
than in the smaller community.
What then is gained, and what is lost by abol-
ishing the saloon? Abolishing the saloon has
certainly had the effect of diminishing the num-
ber of excessive users of alcohol, has held in
check somewhat the lower motives of intoxica-
tion, has diminished the economic waste from
excessive drinking. The few certainly have
230
PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
been benefited, in obvious ways. On the other
hand, it is easy to over-estimate the good.
Withdrawal of the ready-to-hand social element
in drinking drives some to more solitary forms
of the vice. Many drink quite as excessively
as before, and add to their former low motives
complicity in the breaking of law. Vices are
interchangeable, and in many, suppression of
the habit of drinking increases other vices and
abnormalities, no better, but less easily ob-
served. Crime is more or less reduced in
amount, especially the minor crimes that result
from the instinct of combat.
Abolishing the saloon, speaking for the other
side of the case, removes a source of socialisa-
tion of the lower classes; takes away a factor
in moulding mental force, to which we have
been obliged to attach significance. Merely
closing the saloon, as a device to hold intem-
perance in check and to secure the advantages
to a community of sobriety, certainly sacrifices
one important resource. It takes away the so-
cial life of a great number of people, removes
the most important factor in the recreational
life of the lower classes, or puts it under the
ban of the law, and to this extent increases the
evils of monotonous specialisation of labour, of
narrow routine, sterile emotional life, and nar-
row outlook.
And yet, in spite of the relative good of the
THE SALOON AND THE CLUB
231
saloon, the present writer agrees with what he
believes to be the inevitable course of present
tendency and public opinion, that the saloon
must go. The drinking place, the saloon, in
which the interest centres in drinking, is a poor
institution compared with that which may be
made to take its place, and which is certain in
the long run to supersede it. But the factors
of good and evil in the present saloon must both
be estimated, and we must deliberately put the
social life of its patrons upon a better basis.
What can be substituted for the saloon, which
shall contain its virtues, and avoid its evils?
The problem is still, in part at least, experi-
mental. The method of total abolition of the
sale of liquors is or has been decidedly worth
trial. It has not been entirely a success, for
the reason that it was a radical, narrow, and
negative method. The whole problem was not
understood. For this problem is nothing less
than the organisation of the recreational life of
the people. Before this can be done rationally,
we must understand what the recreational life
is, what it should contain, what it most lacks at
the present time.
Daily labour takes up a third of the time of
the average man, and another third is occupied
in sleep. These two periods of work and sleep,
are provided for in a fairly definite and normal
way for the majority of people. The free third
232 PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
of life is unorganised, is the source of most of
the evils and the waste in human life. The
average man is in the position of not knowing
what to do with his recreational hours. He has
no plan of making them count for anything, and
he is not able to express an intelligent idea
about the meaning of a third of his life, except
to say that he uses as much of it as is necessary
for certain minor tasks, tries to rest, and have
what amusement he can.
The psychology, the physiology, and ethics
of recreation constitute a profound and far-
reaching problem, which cannot of course be
treated in detail in a chapter. But at least two
functions of recreation may be briefly stated.
The first function is to reduce the tension of
daily life, and bring the individual down or up
to the common level, upon which he can perform
with others acts that are restorative, and cre-
ative of power and enthusiasm. The second
function of recreation is to widen out the indi-
viduality of the man; ideally, to bring him into
touch with all life interests. Widening and
deepening of the individuality, then, is the func-
tion of recreation. If it is the purpose of the
saloon to be the poor man's club, the chief
source of his recreation, it has before it a great
and solemn duty to perform. How inade-
quately it performs it, need not now be said.
The positive side of public control of intemper:
THE SALOON AND THE CLUB
233
ance, and with it, of many other evils, centres
in the organisation of the recreational life, es-
pecially of the common people.
What becomes of the saloon in the ideal
recreational life? The saloon is a narrow, per-
verted, and selfish institution, which in its pres-
ent form is a mere nucleus of what is required.
Alcohol at the present time is at least a means
of collecting men for the purpose of socialisa-
tion. For one, I do not believe the time has
come when this drawing power of alcohol can
be entirely sacrificed for the sake of a tem-
perance ideal. It is likely that alcohol must
still play its part, for a long time to come, in
the socialising of the masses, though it may be
in a way a minor part. But the idea of the
saloon must be broadened, and transformed
perhaps beyond recognition, and we may con-
sider the possibilities of the institutional saloon.
The institutional saloon must provide for the
development and satisfaction of all the nor-
mal motives that bring a man to a saloon, and
must correct the abnormal motives. In the
recreational institution the drinking motive
must be merged with others and so be con-
trolled.
The business of manufacture and sale of li-
quors is a conservative business. It has been
able to control and use for its advantage power-
ful passions of the human mind; and controlling
234
PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
them, it has been able to control legislation, to
crush out competition. The saloon, in which
liquor is sold at a large profit, in which the
interests of the patron are not considered, is
the natural result. To the extent that the liquor
traffic can be infused with the spirit of normal
business, or forced to adopt it, the saloon prob-
lem will in part take care of itself. If this
were done, the same organisation of the smaller
and poorer into the larger as has taken place
in other lines of business would occur, and the
saloon would be superseded by the larger, more
central institution, in which the interests of the
public would be served, in which moral aspects
of the use of intoxicants would be considered,
and profits reduced by giving to the patron
what is now denied him by the saloon,-normal
recreational elements. The saloon has evolved
but little for lack of normal competition. The
drawing power of alcohol and the social needs
of the people have been so great that there has
been little competition for the recreational in-
terests of the masses. It is likely to remain a
line of least resistance. Therefore, it seems,
that unless the whole alcohol industry can be
reformed, the initiative must come from public
sources, or large organised philanthropy. This
competition of public and private philanthropy
with the saloon, we already see in the recrea-
tional movements in the larger cities,--in the
THE SALOON AND THE CLUB 235
settlement, the recreational centres and organ-
isations, local libraries, and the like.
In the efforts to combat the saloon by provid-
ing public recreation, however, the function of
alcohol is not yet fully understood. It may still
have a place, and it may for a long time be an
important factor in the control of the recrea-
tional life of the people. At least this is open
to experiment, and can fully be determined only
so. The organised recreational institution
must compete with the saloon in drawing the
public. Competition cannot come from the res-
taurant, the coffee house, and the temper-
ance saloon. The substitution of non-alcoholic
drinks, of tea and coffee and the like, for the
alcoholic drink, does not satisfy the psychical
motives of drinking. The love of excitement
and enthusiasm that keeps the alcohol habit
alive, must be transformed, but not suppressed
nor ignored.
With the recreational functions of the in-
stitutional saloon (since we are speaking of
ideals) must be included opportunity for sat-
isfaction of æsthetic interests. Here enter all
the possibilities of the dramatic and musical
arts, including dancing, in controlling the intoxi-
cation motives. But this is not all. There
should be provision for two other functions
of the ideal recreational institution. There
should be educational opportunity, especially in
236 PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
the form of the more educational pastimes, and
provision for the cultivation of interests which
lead to avocation. Thus the play motive may
be made to lead on to practical results, even to
occupational enthusiasms. The great problem
of public education, at the present time, is to
provide for a continuance of growth and a
broadening and development of the enthusiasms
among those classes in which there must be
early specialisation of labour. It is this raw
material of enthusiasm which is so likely to
degenerate, or to remain at a low, unproductive
plane, and be taken up in low forms of recrea-
tion and abnormal habit, that must be directed.
To be efficient, power must not only be created,
but it must be directed and balanced, and the
recreational life more than anything else has
for its problem the distribution of interests, and
direction of them into proper channels.
Whether or not the present analysis of the
intoxication motives and of the recreational life
has been correct, the soundness of the stand-
point from which the problems have been stud-
ied can hardly be questioned. The evils of the
saloon are widespread, and they are deep-
seated in our social life. To try to abolish
these evils by mere legislation is a narrow and
ineffective means, for we do not thus control
the passions that keep these evils alive. No
THE SALOON AND THE CLUB
237
single institution will ever be adequate to cope
with intemperance. The problem is nothing
less than the organisation and direction of the
whole recreational life of the people. Wher-
ever men congregate or tend to organise there
is presented a practical problem of temperance.
The motives thus expressed must be studied,
and directed by the philanthropist and edu-
cator These motives cannot be suppressed,
nor can motives and forces be created merely to
hold them in check. Control must be a natural
outgrowth of the desires themselves which are
at work producing evils.
Intemperance in the so-called upper classes,
and among those who most directly derive their
habits from these classes, presents peculiar and
difficult practical problems. Especially those
who, by reason of wealth and favour, are able
to place themselves to a certain extent beyond
the reach of laws and the influence of public sen-
timent and education, are baffling. And yet it is
in this tissue of society that some of the worst
conditions in a nation take their origin: condi-
tions which favour the development and con-
tagion of disease and degenerative ideas. Un-
like other classes they are but little influenced
by progressive ideas taking rise without the
class. Their ideals are inbred. They are
moved by the changing and shallow motives of
i
238 PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
fashion, and are especially prone to introduce
the unwholesome ways of older and degenerate
peoples into our midst.
As society is at present constituted, the in-
temperance of these upper classes is not amen-
able to control by any measures we can easily
command. The true remedy is educational, a
remedy which, perhaps, abandons hope for the
present adult generation, and seeks to lay a
foundation in the next. A method which shall
seize upon and mould childhood in its demo-
cratic and plastic age is the only remedy for
intemperance in the upper classes that will be
permanently effectual. The aim must be to
make the recreational ideals of the upper classes
altruistic and productive-to direct energies
into channels which turn toward the improve-
ment of the lower classes. An ideal of public
welfare is the best directive force of the unused
energies of the idle and privileged members of
society. So long as self-improvement and
pleasure absorb the energies of the rich we shall
not check their intemperance, nor prevent the
production of destructive habits that take rise
among them. The only radical cure for intem-
perance in any class is a normal zest of life
expressed in productive activity, and thus hold-
ing in check and transforming the motives of
intemperance that arise from undirected capac-
THE SALOON AND THE CLUB 239
ity, and power, and from a weariness of life in
which there is no deep satisfaction.
Of many recent studies of the problem of the saloon, two
seem especially to have reached fundamental principles. Cal-
kins, in Substitutes for the saloon, a study made for the Com-
mittee of Fifty, concludes that the best means of controlling
the evil of the saloon is to take away from the saloon the
function of entertainer of the people, and develop the recrea-
tional life of the people in every possible way. Various means
are mentioned: extension of peoples' clubs already in existence,
development of workingmen's clubs (perhaps granting licenses
to them), the central recreational institute, municipal night
schools, lecture courses, industrial schools, reading rooms, set-
tlements, lyceums, billiard halls, dance halls, the theatre, es-
pecially the melodrama, properly conducted pugilism, all ath-
letics, public baths, parks and playgrounds, the peoples' thea-
tre, operas, concerts--all such means are recommended as sub-
stitutes for the saloon, satisfying normally the desires which
the saloon satisfies abnormally.
The most complete outline of a practical method of substi-
tuting normal social life for the unwholesome life of the saloon
has been made by Paton, in Counter Attractions to Public
Houses; a plan that has already been worked out in England
with good results. The plan is essentially an organisation
of the social life of the people, through local social clubs, with
a central organisation, using so far as possible schoolhouses
and other public properties, and leaving the control mainly in
the hands of the people themselves. The aim of the organ-
isation is to bring together in an effective way all the elements
of a normal social life for the people. The outline contains
provisions also for the extension of the functions of the even-
ing departments of the public schools, and for increased effi-
ciency of the Sunday School organisations.
CHAPTER XIII
EDUCATIONAL AND PREVENTIVE MEASURES
This is a day in which prevention rather than
cure of social evils dominates our ideals of pub-
lic welfare. The adult generation is in many
ways but little plastic to new ideals, and some
classes of society, we have asserted, are quite
unchangeable in all their ways, except as they
are influenced by the currents of fashion which
no one can fully predict or control. It is far
easier to teach children how to become good
citizens, than to teach adults how to correct
themselves. In other words, our best means of
controlling all social evils is through those in-
stitutions by means of which the ideals of the
progressive public come into direct contact with
the growing child. The public school, more
than any other institution, controls the future;
with its improved methods, its widened
scope, and with the auxiliary resources of the
public playgrounds, the library extension, and
other public educational movements, the school
is in a better position than ever before for mak-
ing rapid headway in the building of ideals
and now,
240
EDUCATIONAL MEASURES
241
which shall control the abnormal and immoral ·
tendencies in society.
Facts have been brought to light which show
clearly what motives produce the evil of intem-
perance, and which indicate what the danger
periods are. The intemperate life is a social
product, and its raw material is in great part
the undeveloped or perverted growth forces of
youth. The great majority of youth of our
public schools leave the control of the school
and enter occupational life, with very little mo-
mentum for completing their mental growth in
a normal way. There are no interests strong
enough to carry on normal development, the
special occupation which they enter upon too
often lacks interest; it does not absorb the en-
thusiasm which is the normal product of the
growth forces. Therefore, the enthusiasms re-
main upon a low plane, they break out in the
line of least resistance, seek satisfaction in un-
productive and unwholesome social relations,
and in various forms of excess. Later these
undeveloped desires, these potentialities of
happiness that have gone to waste, arise, the
ghosts of misspent youth, to lead on to narcotic
habits, to indifference, and premature mental
old age. The great problem of education at
the present time is not so much to fit youth for
special work, as to establish interests and habits
that will make the individual a complete in-
242
PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
dividual, and correct the stunting effects of
early specialisation in occupation.
What can the public school do to prevent
these evils? The craving for intoxication, and
for stimulants and narcotics, we have had much
evidence to prove, is not a specific craving. It
is not a craving that can be satisfied by one form
of habit alone, but is a plastic force, capable of
direction into various channels. The mistake
often made in dealing with all the practical
problems of temperance is to centre effort upon
the narrow and superficial aspect of the impulse
that shows itself in the habit of alcoholic intoxi-
cation, and to ignore the deeper roots. The
function of education is difficult to perform
just in proportion as the whole problem is un-
derstood, and easy to the extent that teaching
is made direct and specific. Education must
prevent the intemperate life by laying a certain
foundation for a normal life; and for this there
are two main services to be performed. The
school must prepare, indirectly at least, for oc-
cupational life, both by training in the funda-
mental co-ordinations of industry, and by estab-
lishing those social and moral ideals which
alone can make work purposeful, and not
merely a mechanical task. There is no occu-
pation, however humble, that may not be made
thus wholesome and normal. The second func-
tion of the school is to establish habits and
EDUCATIONAL MEASURES
243
interests leading to a broader recreational life,
in the sense in which we have already used
this word. Given a life well started toward a
correct balance of interests, in occupation and
recreation, the rest can be left to take care of
itself. When these fundamental principles of
training are understood, one has the clue to all
the special resources for training the child in
habits and ideals that lead to the temperate life.
Whoever thinks that so deep a social habit as
drinking can easily be controlled, that the in-
dividual may easily be fortified against the
allurement of this world-wide passion of drink,
is greatly mistaken.
To bring these principles of control to a
sharper focus it may be well to point out more
specifically the means of fortifying the child
against intemperance, most ready to hand in
the school. Four main divisions of the work
can be made :
1. Specific teaching of facts about alcohol.
2. Moral teaching.
3. Industrial education.
4. Training in recreational interests.
Of all the educational methods of dealing
with the liquor problem, the teaching to children
of the facts about alcohol, though perhaps of
some value if properly done, is the least of all
in importance. As commonly taught the facts
are repeated year after year, and memorised
244
PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
con-
without much interest. The mere facts about
the use of alcohol, if they are honestly con-
sidered, do not by any means point to total
abstinence with absolute certainty; and of
course this is the lesson that the school is try-
ing to impress. Zeal in impressing the truth of
the danger of excess often leads the teacher to
distort the facts. The spirit in which this is
done is well shown by the remark of a promi-
nent temperance lecturer, with whom I once
remonstrated for stating dogmatically
clusions which were decidedly open to doubt,
and were at the time being subjected to much
scientific discussion and experiment. The
lecturer replied, “We shall continue to teach
the facts, until science has disproved them.”
There is a tendency in scientific thought toward
the belief that alcohol is in some sense a food;
that its permanent deleterious effects upon
body and mind, except when used in great ex-
cess, are less than was once supposed. At least
the picturing to young children of the gross
effects of extremely abnormal drinking as
typical results (cases in which there is almost
always abnormality causing the drinking rather
than the reverse) is unwholesome and unæs-
thetic; and tends to impress wrong ideals of
human life, as well as to contradict the facts
of science.
For the most part, too, the young and healthy
EDUCATIONAL MEASURES
245
person is not much impressed by the picture of
dangers to the body from excess. He has an un-
bounded confidence in the endurance of his
own body, and although he may imagine that
someone else may be injured, it is difficult for
him to believe that he will become a drunkard,
or will ruin his health by drinking. Moreover,
it is not those who know most about the harm-
ful effects of alcohol who are least likely to be
injured by it, and no one knows better its ter-
rors than the drunkard himself.
Teaching of the facts about alcohol should
be brief, not extended over all the years of
school life, but centred about the early adoles-
cent period. The relation of alcohol to physical
strength, to personal appearance and courage,
to efficiency and usefulness, should be empha-
sised rather than its effects upon internal or-
gans. And it is.-wrong-to preach much about x
total abstinence. Some good biographical ma-
terial illustrating both the temperate and the
intemperate life should be made use of. Over-
emphasis upon the moral wrong of drinking is
vicious, and the sentimental, morbid, and effemi-
nate appeal to refined ideals of perfection is the
worst of all. For the teacher to try to impress
ideals which the growing boy suspects are due
to lack of experience with the world is to lose al-
together the power of conveying moral sugges-
tion, and this failure must certainly be avoided
246
PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
by a teacher. The boy must learn that no sound,
strong man drinks to excess; that all men dis-
respect the hard drinker, and regard his trouble
as due to mental weakness or disease. As
likely as not such teaching will inspire the boy
with a determination never to taste liquor.
As to direct moral teaching in regard to the
use of intoxicants little needs to be added to
what has been said about the teaching of hy-
giene. Moral ideals are best imparted to the
child and youth indirectly, by example, by direc-
tion of social activities, by well-chosen advice
when most needed, directed to the specific case
in hand. Moral principles, and adult ideals of
conduct do not influence conduct in proportion
to the effort spent in inculcating them. The
problem of intemperance has been far too much
regarded as individually moral, to the neglect
of its other phases; and it has been approached
on the practical side far too much by the
methods of morality and religion, and too little
by the method of indirect control through edu-
cation. The moral purpose may well be the
inspiration of teacher and social worker, but he
should keep it in the background, and not make
of it his sole method. We do not need so much
preaching and teaching to the child, as normal
education of those parts of his nature which
precede morality, and are the foundations upon
which moral behaviour are laid. To produce a
EDUCATIONAL MEASURES
247
temperate life, therefore, we must direct our
efforts to the co-ordination and direction of all
the interests, and not centre attention upon a
single sentiment, nor even upon the moral life
as a whole.
Intemperance is but a type and single ex-
pression of a fault of mental and physical de-
velopment. Whatever retards or perverts the
development of an individual, and prevents the
harmonious balance of his functions favors
wrong habits of all kinds; and whatever makes
for normal and full development makes for
temperance. Given a sound heredity, and nor-
mal opportunity for the development of the
instincts and interests, with proper direction of
the social activities during the formative years,
and the individual may be allowed to take
care of his own morals in after life. Whether
he drinks moderately or not at all will be of
comparatively little consequence, and will be
determined largely, and perhaps rightly, by the
ideals of the society in which he lives. At least
the question of total abstinence is not now the
most important consideration.
The indirect education for the temperate life
is the most important, and the most difficult; it
is as yet, we may say, the ideal rather than the
practice of the public school. Industrial teach-
ing is the first to consider. In the past, and
to a great extent now, the public school has
248 PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
failed to connect with the working life of the
man. It has given him information, but no
lasting interests. When he enters upon his
trade he does so with no deep roots of educated
interest. In the industrial idea is the means of
overcoming this evil. Training, in school, in
the foundations of industry serves to connect
occupation with play, and to bring to it interests
which are otherwise not co-ordinated with prac-
tical activities. Industrial training affords op-
portunity, too, for normal socialising of indi-
viduals, as the older methods of the school have
not. The child sees his activities as part of a
whole, becomes an individual by becoming a
link in a chain, and so grows to understand the
purposes and ideals of society. He comes to his
life work not only with actual preparation, but
with interests co-ordinated in such a way that
the work may draw upon deep enthusiasms
which would otherwise go to waste.
In another respect the education of the pres-
ent stands at the verge of a new ideal. In the
past the recreational or play life of the child
has been entirely undirected by the school, and
all its force has been lost. Now not only is the
play spirit of the child being brought into the
work of teaching, but the play life is being ex-
tended and directed at many points. It is seen
that if the child grows by play, it is possible to
continue his growth after he has left school, by
EDUCATIONAL MEASURES
249
the momentum of his play interests. The
school in the past has rarely succeeded in im-
parting to the child any interest which he main-
tains after he leaves school. Unless there is
immediate use for it in occupation, the boy sel-
dom continues his school work, but lays it en-
tirely aside, and turns to new interests. The
present ideal is to make play not only a means
of motor training, of establishing interests in
active sports, which will help to keep the en-
thusiasms normal while progressive, but to
make it the basis of permanent intellectual and
social interests. By taking away much of the
dull routine of school work, and making school
life more active, more social, and more pleas-
ant, and connecting its interests in many ways
with recreational interests outside the school,
a means is provided for extending the nor-
mal interests of the individual to maturity,
whether he remains in school or leaves and
goes to work. This must be the greatest
function of the school, to develop interests
which will persist into adult life, and carry
growth to completion. In this work the school
must be aided by other institutions which will
take the child when he leaves the school, and will
connect with the interests he has formed there.
All such movements as those described in the
last chapter are efficient aids of the public
school, in directing the recreational interests
250 PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
of those who, though having completed school,
are still in their most active growing periods,
and still in the greatest need of public control.
The strengthening of individuality, the acquire-
ment of broader life experience, is what must be
attained, and it can be attained only in a whole-
some social environment. The later stages of
growth, like the earlier, are certain to take on
the character of the social environment in which
they are passed, and unless the social environ-
ment can be controlled, no amount of prepara-
tion of the individual by his school life can be
entirely successful. Therefore, we repeat, so
to educate the child that he will continue to
grow in all his functions after he leaves school
and enters upon occupation is the most impor-
tant work of the school; and to expand our sys-
tem of education so that it shall provide for the
later stages of growth is the greatest public
need of the day. It is certain that to provide
the right recreational life for the people is quite
as necessary a part of public education as any-
thing that is done in the school.
In another respect the modern school is mak-
ing progress toward the elimination of the ex-
cessive drinker and other defectives from so-
ciety. There is at least a good beginning of a
science of individuals, one of the most impor-
tant practical services of which is the detection,
EDUCATIONAL MEASURES
251
in the early stages, of cases of defective moral,
mental, and physical organisation. Its prob-
lem takes into account also the factors of en-
vironment, and effort is being made to diagnose
the whole situation of unpromising individuals,
with a view to controlling their future.
Much more could and should be done in the
public schools in the study of individuals in
order to detect in the making the drunkard and
other criminal, vicious, or defective types and
conditions. Those who are suspected of weak-
ness or abnormality, and those whose conditions
of life are bad, should be individually studied,
and enough of their history and progress re-
corded to form conclusions about the direction
of their tendencies and the best means of con-
trolling them. We have at present almost no
reliable knowledge about the early stages of
most of the abnormalities, and we must look in
great measure to the school for it. Each fresh
discovery of a great criminal, each new instance
of an apparently well-conditioned man going
to ruin because of alcoholism, excites our won-
der. Our next door neighbour or old school
companion commits a crime, or becomes insane,
or a drunkard, and then we recall how eccentric
he was as a child, or how unfortunate his sur-
roundings. But he went through the schools,
and no one detected abnormal tendencies. He
252
PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
was treated like all the rest, and took his chance
in the mass. The school should at least mark
for study the unusual case, and collect informa-
tion which can be used later.
CHAPTER XIV
CARE, CURE, AND CONTROL OF THE DRUNKARD
FROM the facts and laws already presented the
main principles of the care, control, and cure of
the abnormal case can readily be inferred. Be-
tween drunkenness and moderate drinking there
is no fixed line, and what has been said about
the control of social drinking applies, when es-
pecially adapted, to the drunkard.
Two kinds of excessive users of alcohol must
be distinguished from one another. The ab-
normal dipsomaniac or periodical drinker is a
diseased person, and he requires the attention
of the specialist in nervous disorders. Such
cases are to be treated by all the hygienic and
remedial measures now known to the practice of
neurology. They require both physical and
mental hygiene, education in mental control,
suggestive and other psychotherapeutic treat-
ment. There is no specific cure for drunken-
ness, and from its very nature there cannot be.
Moral and religious motives certainly are a
powerful aid to the medical methods, and cure
of drunkenness made by conversion or other re-
ligious or moral methods is sound and in accord-
253
254
PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
ance with the principles of psychology Pro-
found changes in the moral life, such as are pro-
duced by conversion, are alterative of all the
mental and social habits, and the periodicity of
a nervous disorder is often broken up by these
means. Whatever convinces a man that he
will drink no more is certain to facilitate the
cure, whereas the belief that the craving for
alcohol is rooted in the structure of the body
helps to keep up the suggestions which lead to a
breakdown of the will. Many cases in which
there are pronounced abnormalities of body or
mind, or signs of nervous disorder of any kind,
although the drinking may not be periodic, and
perhaps not greatly excessive, also require
medical advice and treatment. Confinement in
.
penal institutions for all such inebriates is
worse than useless, for there conditions are
usually both mentally and physically unhy-
gienic.
The common drunkard, the man who drinks,
as a rule, whenever he has opportunity, is a
somewhat different problem. His drinking is
almost entirely social, and whether he shall
drink or stay sober is determined by his en-
vironment. He has little if any craving for
alcohol as such, but his difficulty lies largely in
his undeveloped nature, his narrow individ-
uality, and entire lack of inner sources of
growth and interest. He has little moral re-
CARE OF THE DRUNKARD
255
sistance, even if he has ideals, and it is useless
to ask him to stay sober, when he is in the midst
of drinking company.
From this class most of the chronic drunkards
who fill our jails and almashouses are recruited.
As a rule they are not vicious, and they differ
from thousands of respectable, but mild and
purposeless, members of society mainly in the
social environment and the habits of life, into
contact with which they have been thrown by
birth or circumstances. Detention does not
cure these people, and they have no pronounced
disease of the nervous system yet recognised
which needs treatment. They are not in the
least changed for the better by a term of con-
finement. It is the social surrounding and
social habit that is at fault, and in the entirely
unsocial life of the jail they learn nothing and
acquire no new social habits. Instead of ac-
quiring control thus, the will deteriorates.
They yield to whatever vices can be indulged in
within the walls of prison, and leave worse, or
no better, than when they came. Some assert
that the regularity and routine of prison life
teach regularity of habits, but such training is
like some of the class work in school, it fails
to connect with the natural life, and leaves no
impression. No method of treatment that does
not have in view to change radically the social
habits of a man, can go far towards effecting
256
PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
a cure for drunkenness. Prison life we say can
make no radical change in a man's habits. He
emerges from it, as from a long slumber, to take
up life just where he left it. Our houses of
correction do not usually deserve the title, for
they do not correct. They do not even punish
effectively, for life in them is so empty of con-
tent, whether of pleasure or pain, that while it
seems long in passing, it appears short in ret-
rospect, and lacks the sharp, clear emotional
qualities a punishment must have, if it is to be
deterrent of misdemeanours. That detention is
not deterrent of drunkenness, the history of
any hundred men who have been committed
abundantly shows. Most return again and
again, some voluntarily; and the county jail is
to a greater extent than many know the winter
resort of the tramp element who find outdoor
life in the cold season unpleasant.
How incompetent the drunkard is to construct
from within his cell an escape from his vices,
is well illustrated by one of my own cases.
А
somewhat prepossessing young man who had
already been committed several times for
drunkenness, was asked what he thought his
prospects for the future were, whether he
would be likely to drink again. He said that
he should never drink another drop. He had .
no taste for liquor, anyway, and it was only
when he was with drinking companions that he
CARE OF THE DRUNKARD
257
drank at all. When asked about his acquaint-
ances he said they were all drinking men, some
moderate, some heavy drinkers. In fact he
knew no other social life than that of the saloon.
He was then asked whether he thought he would
be able to go back among his associates and
stay sober, or perhaps drink moderately. That
he said at once would be impossible.
“What will you do then?" I asked him. .
"How will you spend your time when you are
not at work?” He thought a minute, and re-
plied,
"Well, I am not going to go with the fellows
any more."
23
"Where will you go?”
"I will go off to walk by myself in the even-
ing.'
One may imagine how long such a resolution
would be effective, and yet such a plan is a fair
example of the drunkard's power of self-direc-
tion. Apparently this young man had given no
thought till he was asked, about the ways and
means of reform. He had vaguely come to the
conclusion that he would never drink again, but
that such a radical change in his life would re-
quire more than a simple decision seems not to
have occurred to him, although it is likely that
he had made the same resolution many times
before, and failed to keep it. Of course it is
futile to expect the drunkard to reform himself.
258
PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
It is the work of others to furnish the resources
of control for the drunkard, and teach him how
to develop inner strength.
When it is recognised that the work of re-
form of the drunkard must be radically educa-
tional (re-educational, for the man must be edu-
cated over again as from childhood), a clue to
the method of treatment will be obtained.
Generally speaking it is a long process, to “re-
form" a drunkard, with need of skilful treat-
ment at every point. He needs usually physical
upbuilding. He needs in many cases to learn a
trade, some new occupation in which the con-
ditions for self-control will be better than in
his old life. He needs moral ideals, and rec-
reational interests. All these he usually lacks
both from want of initiative to get them for
himself, and from lack of sufficient suggestion
from environment.
When a man is legally detained, to a certain
extent his future is under control. Now is the
time to bring to bear upon him all possible
educative influences, so as to leave him at the
end of his term faced toward a normal social
life. The industrial farm seems the best of all
reformative situations for the drunkard.* He
needs to get back to fundamentals; to learn to
* The Farmfield Reformatory for Inebriate Women at Horley,
England, with its cottage system and home and garden work
seems to offer almost ideal conditions for the class it treats.
CARE OF THE DRUNKARD
259
dig out his living, to be situated where work
may be to some extent co-operative and social,
the very opposite of that which is found in the
jail where every man is doing the same thing
individually. Most of these offenders are easy
to control, from the very fact that they lack
self-direction. Terms should be indeterminate,
and there should be authority to direct the oc-
cupational life and to release on trial. We can
teach the defective and undeveloped man to live
a normal life, only by placing him in the midst
of one, and this should be the basic principle of
the treatment of the form of inebriety of which
we are speaking. Some cases, probably most,
need permanent direction and control.
Something further should perhaps be added
about the religious cures of drunkenness. Facts
gathered at the McAuley Mission and at other
missions in New York City leave no doubt in
the mind of the writer that conversion, under
the conditions in which the missions are able to
accomplish it, is a powerful means of control-
ling drunkenness. Many men come to these
missions drunk, and pass through some kind of
an experience which frees them from their
habits of drink. Some of these cases, it must
be said, however, are very morbid, and their
cures seem rather a change in the form of their
disease than a real cure. They become in-
temperately religious and moral, and show
260
PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
signs of their weakness of mind and character
in everything they do. Many too are at the
time of life when sudden cessation of the habit
of intoxication is likely to occur, or when the
power of the habit is declining.
Whatever supernatural factor may be present
in conversion, and this need not be discussed at
this point, the cure is made permanent by
changing the social habits of the man. Не
casts off his associations with men who drink,
and forms a new social life for himself among
those who do not drink. When this new life has
taken sufficient hold of his interests, and his new
behaviour has strong enough social reinforce-
ment, he may then be safe in the midst of much
temptation, and is likely not to revert to his old
ways. This is the desired end of all meth-
ods of treating inebriety. Change the social
habitat and the habit is largely controlled. A
serious limitation of much of the excellent work
of the churches is that they have no organised
means of creating a new social habitat for their
convert. They can command a little of his time
on Sunday, an hour in the mid-week perhaps,
and an occasional evening, but the church does
not reach out as it should into the actual life of
the man. Just to the extent that the church can
affect the social and recreational life will its
power to control such evils as drunkenness be
increased.
CHAPTER XV
SUMMARY OF PRACTICAL PRINCIPLES
THE practical principles of the control of in-
temperance which have been suggested can now
be gathered up briefly in a few conclusions. It
is always true of every great social problem,
from the very complexity of the factors which
produce the condition, that no single principle
can be laid down which shall serve as a guide
to the practical solution of it. The problem of
intemperance involves broad questions of hu-
man evolution; intemperance is a product of
impulses which lie at the very bottom of human
progress. . The practical questions of control
must ultimately be studied from many scientific
points of view—from the medical, psychological,
social, and ethical and then the conclusions
must be adapted to concrete situations in which
problems of expediency and local conditions
must also be taken into consideration. There
can be no hard and fast rule of procedure de-
duced from science, for the solution of a social
problem. Often too much is expected of science.
All it.can do is to bring its report of facts and
interpretations of them, and suggest what,
261
262 PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
various conditions being assumed or ignored,
should be done to produce a given result, with
perhaps a higher degree of probability. It may
suggest that the method must be one of trial
and error, or it may point out with confidence
some one line of action better than all the rest.
There is always much more to be learned and
the scientific point of view is never complete.
In the meantime, action must take place, and
the scientific conclusions will have greater or
less weight according to the complexity of the
problem. We must understand that the control
of intemperance must still be in a large measure
experimental. We must try various methods,
and any broadly conceived plan of action, made
reasonably probable of success after all the evi-
dence that can be brought to bear upon it has
been sifted, is worthy of trial. Practical com-
mon sense, scientific insight, and an open-
minded experimental attitude toward the prob-
lem will together produce the best results.
It is possible that the scientific evidence
might warrant the conclusion that the best
method of curing intemperance is to abolish the
manufacture and sale of alcohol. Considering
the question purely from the physiological side,
this might fairly be deduced from the facts.
Psychological evidence, as has been explained,
casts doubt upon the wisdom of this, and a
study of the intoxication motive makes it rea-
SUMMARY OF PRINCIPLES
263
sonably certain that this result cannot be at-
tained. The intoxication impulse often con-
trols the very legislation which would be neces-
sary to abolish alcohol, and would even over-
ride the law. Yet the misery and poverty
which is certainly inflicted upon many innocent
victims by alcohol, would seem on superficial
view to warrant the concentration of effort up-
on the legislative problem. But this remains
still experimental. We do not know what legis-
lation can be secured, or precisely what its
effect will be until it is tried Trial of local
and state prohibition of alcohol has certainly
not been remarkably successful. Drinking is a
symptom of deep forces and to treat merely the
symptom, as we do by legislation, does not seem
enough. The study of the saloon shows that it
exists because to a certain extent it fulfils a
normal need of man. This need must be recog-
nised and met in the treatment of intemperance.
The way in which that may most naturally be
done has been pointed out. The problem is that
of working out in a practical way a social hy-
giene,- physical, mental, and moral,—a method
of controlling the recreational life of the peo-
ple, and providing for the expression of all
normal motives. This hygiene must extend
into the occupational life, and rightly conceived,
the problem is one of conscious evolution. The
work is positive, and not merely negative. We
an
264. PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
must discover what the factors of evolution are,
what the factors of degeneration are, and put
them more completely under control. This is
not a mere generalisation and an abstract
theory, but is rather a justification of what is
already the trend of the best public effort. All
institutions, the church, the school, the recrea-
tional institute, must be made to extend out-
ward their influences, each from its own centre,
into the social life of the people in a definite,
planned manner, and control the motives which
lead to the intemperate and inefficient life.
This is striking at the root and not at the flower
of the evil. Whether or not alcohol shall still
play a part in this scheme may be left an open
question. In a certain sense it is a minor mat-
ter. Life may be temperate with or without
alcohol--and it may be intemperate also under
either of these conditions. This is not an ar-
gument against prohibition. But it is emphat-
ically an argument against the belief that when
legislation is secured that prohibits the sale of
alcohol, the effort of social reform may cease.
It is now needed more than before. The situa-
tion must still be regarded as experimental;
there is no permanent, accomplished achieve-
ment. Too often the cause of temperance is at
a standstill the day after the no-license vote has
been secured. Positive effort in communities
in which the license system prevails is now more
SUMMARY OF PRINCIPLES
265
1
important than to secure more local legislation.
It is in the large city, where local legislation
cannot be secured, that the best work must be
done. It seems as though all must admit that
eventually temperance in the presence of alco-
hol is better than temperance where alcohol can-
not be obtained. It is inner control through
organised interests that is the ideal of an edu-
cation of the individual, and the same ideal must
be maintained in the education of society. It
is temperance through inner control that we
must work toward if we wish to live in moral
freedom, and not in a stage of development in
which a large part of the energy of one group
must be expended in controlling the actions of
another, thus using two sources of energy with
a wholly unproductive result. Control must
often be a temporary expedient, but it is a make-
shift, not an ideal and final procedure. The
normal development of society, as of the in-
dividual, is from outer to inner control, and any
mode of treating a social problem which does
not produce progress toward this end is short-
sighted if not totally mistaken.
These are the reasons why the problem of
intemperance is educational rather than legis-
lative. The broadest and deepest work must be
done in the school, in prevention, in forming
habits which will control in adult years all those
impulses and desires which are the source of all
266
PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
the social evils. The best indications of prog-
ress toward temperance, therefore, are found
not in the results of the fall elections, but in
the appropriations of local governments for the
schools, in the introduction of industrial meth-
ods in education, and the provision for play-
grounds and other organised modes of control-
ling the recreational life of the people.
The same principles must be applied to the
treatment of the excessive user of alcohol. The
root of his trouble is in an abnormal social life,
and an unbalanced or undeveloped complex of
interests. Cure for the most part must be the
outcome of organisation of his interests, and
the reconstruction of his social habits. The
drunkard must be re-educated, in other words.
His habits must be broken down, and reas-
sembled on a higher plane, and only when this is
done can he be said to be cured. We shall some-
time look back upon the treatment of the drunk-
ard and other delinquents, which prevails at the
present time, as a relic of barbarism and prim-
itive ignorance in the midst of civilisation.
What for example could be more completely
wrong than to try to cure the drunkard by
punishment and isolation, when his greatest
need is a normal social life? It is not to be won-
dered at that our officials who administer justice
almost invariably believe the drunkard incur-
able.
REFERENCES
1. Jellyfish, Starfish, and Sea Urchins. P. 227.
2. W. H. Kesteven. A Note on the so-called Stimulating
Effect of Alcohol on Protoplasm. Quart. Jour. of Ineb. Vol.
30, 3.
3. The Descent of Man. P. 7.
4. Morgan, Habit and Instinct.
5. Morgan. Op. cit.
6. Music and Dancing in Nature.
7. Play of Animals.
8. Early Man in Britain and His Place in the Tertiary
Period. P. 293.
9. Mescal Buttons. Medical Record, 1896. Vol. I, pp.
258-266.
10. Social History of the Races of Mankind. Vol. IV, p.
249.
11. Ethics. Vol. I, p. 441.
12. Featherman. Op. cit., Vol. II, p. 499.
13. The Folk-Lore of Plants. P. 103.
14. Featherman. Op. cit., Vol. III, p. 128.
15. Featherman. Op. cit., Vol. III, p. 161.
16. Featherman. Op. cit., Vol. IV, p. 459.
17. Featherman. Op. cit., Vol. IV, p. 459.
18. Primitive Industry. P. 315.
19. Featherman. Op. cit., Vol. III, p. 170.
20. Featherman. Op. cit., Vol. II, p. 115.
21. Featherman, Op. cit., Vol. III, p. 164.
22. Featherman. Op. cit., Vol. III, p. 550.
23. Featherman. Op. cit., Vol. II, p. 350.
24. Bancroft. Native Races. Vol. I, p. 550.
25. Bancroft. Op. cit., Vol. I, p. 551.
26. Bancroft. Op. cit., Vol. I, p. 706.
267
268
PSYCHOLOGY OF INTEMPERANCE
27. Featherman. Op. cit., Vol. IV, p. 115.
.
28. Andaman Islanders. P. 44.
29. Featherman. Op. cit., Vol. III, p. 341.
30. Customs Among the Natives of East Africa, Journal of
the Anthropological Institute, 1891, p. 367.
31. Hall. Adolescence.
32. Havelock Ellis. Affirmations.
33. Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries.
34. Greek Lyric Poetry. P. 102.
35. Critical History of the Language and Literature of An-
cient Greece. Vol. III, p. 88.
36. Ellis. Affirmations.
37. The Civilisation of the Period of the Renaissance. Vol.
I, p. 181.
38. Civilisation During the Middle Ages. P. 365.
39. Op. cit., Vol. II, pp. 246–7.
40. Renaissance in Italy. Vol. I, p. 411.
41. Leuba. National Destruction and Construction in France
as seen in Modern: Literature and in the Neo-Christian Move-
ment. American Journal of Psychology, July, 1893, Vol. V,
No. 4, p. 498.
42. Geddes and Thomson. The Evolution of Sex. Pp. 18,
270.
43. Man and Woman. P. 2,
44. Evolution of General Ideas. P. 76.
45. The Quatrains of Omar Khayyam. Introduction.
46. Anstie. Stimulants and Narcotics.
47. Stimulants and Narcotics. One may consult also on
these points standard works on materia medica and therapeu-
tics, such as Wood, Brunton, etc.; also standard works on
poisons.
48. W. S. Hall. Jour. of Ineb. Vol. XXXIII, 2.
49. J. G. Null. Jour. of Ineb. Vol. XXXII, 1.
50. For the evidence for classing alcohol among the foods
see Alcohol, by J. Starke.
51. W. S. Hall. Jour. of Ineb. Vol. XXX, 4.
52. The Liquor Problem. Published for the Committee of
Fifty.
53. For a good review of the most important experimental
REFERENCES
269
nomena.
studies of the effects of small doses of alcohol consult M. A.
and A. J. Rosanoff's Evidence Against Alcohol.
54. For a complete report of these experiments see American
Journal of Psychology. Vol. XI.
55. Evidence Against Alcohol. M. A. and A. J. Rosanoff.
56. Summarised from reports of sixty cases gathered from
the literature of the subject.
57. Psychology of the Emotions. P. 424.
58. Jour. of Ineb. Vol. XXXI, 2.
59. G. R. Wilson. Clinical Studies in Vice and Insanity.
60. Leuba. A Study in the Psychology of Religious Phe-
American Journal of Psychology, April, 1896, Vol.
VII, No. 3, pp. 309–383.
61. Alcohol Inebriety, 1883.
62. From Thomann's Real and Imaginary Effects of Intem-
perance.
63. In correspondence.
64. In correspondence.
65. In correspondence.
66. Degeneration.
67. Quart. Jour. of Ineb.
68. Alcohol. The Sanction for Its Use.
69-71. Quart. Jour. of Ineb.
72. Popular Science Monthly, 1879, Supplement. N. S. I,
p. 30.
73. Quart. Jour. of Ineb.
74. Stimulants and Narcotics.
75. The Present Evolution of Man.
INDEX
as
Abandonment, craving for, Baboons, intoxication in, 15.
37; in intoxication, 104. Bacchic and Eleusinian mys-
Abnormal cases, 133–; rela- teries, 45.
tion to normal, 6, 9.
Bancroft, 36.
Adams, 48.
Beard, 175–
Adding, 122.
Black drink, 32.
Adolescence, intoxication mo- Braintwaite, 160.
tives in, 56, 204; love of Burckhardt, 48.
excitement in, 41.
Adrenal system, 130.
Calkins, 239.
Alcohol, and ideals, 226; as Carnivals in Venice, 48.
excretion, 86; as food, 87; Chapman, 17.
socialising influence, Child, excitement in, 40.
228; effects of large quan- China, 42.
tities, 88; effect upon oxi- Church, social aspects of, 226.
dation, 88; experimental Civilized nations, drinking in,
study of effects, 89-, 101-; 42, 206.
future of, 264.
Classification of drunkards,
America, intemperance in, 54. 133, 210.
American Indians, 36.
Committee of Fifty, 56.
Analytic methods, 83.
Control of intemperance, 5.
Animals, psychology of, 12; Conversion, 152, 259.
excitement in, 17; intoxi- Craving for alcohol, 135-,
cation in, 11-, 201; sexual 165-, 211.
excitement in, 18.
Crothers, 159, 161.
Anstie, 84.
Creeks, 30, 33.
Arion, 46.
Aristotle and Plato, doctrine Dancing, 38.
of soul, 80.
Danielewski, 169.
Associations, experiments
Darien Indians, 29.
upon, 105-, 109–
Darwin, 15.
271
272
INDEX
of, 44.
Dawkins, 25.
Gonds, 35.
Day, 169.
Greece, 43.
Death and intoxication, 30. Greek, art, 46; dithyrambic
Delabarre, 100.
poetry, 76.
Destrée, 91.
Groos, 18.
Developmental periods and Guatamalans, 34.
intoxication, 47.
Dionysus, 26, 205; worship Habits and motives, 200; ex-
planation of, 19–.
Dipsomania, 150.
Hadley, 160.
Dogs, intoxication in, 14-. Fens, intoxication in, 14.
Drinking habits, age when ac Higher classes, intemperance
quired, 157–
in, 238.
Drugs, experiments with, 100. Hindus, 26.
Drunkards, care of, 221; con- Hodge, 15.
finement of, 255; control of, Hudson, 18.
253–; social life of, 255-. Hunt, 88.
Dyaks, 34.
Huysmans, 54.
Dyer, 29.
Indeterminate sentence, 259.
Education for temperance, Individual, and race, 207;
220-
study of, 250.
Educational measures, 240-. Indra, 25.
Ellis, 58.
Industrial, education, 247-;
Emotional changes in intoxi- farm, 258.
cation, 120-
Inheritance, 184–; of habits,
Estimation of time, 122.
173.
Experiments upon sarsia, 13. Intemperance, and evolution,
195; and legislation, 236;
Farnell, 46.
and warlike spirit, 50.
Featherman, 27, 30, 36. Intoxicants, and narcotics,
First drink, 157.
82; universality of, 35;
Forel, 172.
origin of, 23.
French-Sheldon, Mrs. 39. Intoxication, abandonment in,
Fuegians, 35.
131; excitement in, 45; and
literature, 79; and lan-
Genetic methods, 22.
guage, 72; and growth,
Glooscap, 32.
203-; and religion, 24;
INDEX
273
emotional changes in, 120–; Man, E. H., 35.
experimental case of, 108; Marriage and intoxication, 30.
in higher classes, 237; in Mayer, 91.
savage and child, 40; mo- Mental cures, 152-.
tives and development, 61-; Mental processes, effects of al-
and instinct, 66; among
cohol upon, 96.
civilized peoples, 50; in Mensius, 42.
Greek poetry, 76; in litera- Mescal ceremony, 26–.
ture, 71; physiology of, Monin, 174.
120, 126-; varied uses of, Moral, attitudes, 4; teaching,
in primitive society, 29.
243-
Intoxication impulse, meth- Mosquitos, 34.
ods of studying, 7; prob- Mosso, 52.
lem of, 3, 5, 6; theories of, Movement, experiments upon,
164-
122.
Moxon, 174.
Mure, 46.
Kava ceremony, 33.
Muscular power, effects of al-
Keeley Cure, 156.
cohol upon, 80-; experi-
Keres, 34.
ments upon, 102.
Kesteven, 13.
Myth and wine, 72.
Khayyam, 77-
Kiawa Indians, mescal cere- Napoleonic wars, excitement
mony of, 26.
after, 53.
Kräpelin, 89, 96.
Narcotic motive, 51, 55, 161,
Kuertz, 91.
206, 212.
Narcotics in eastern
tries, 43.
Language and intoxication, Neolithic man, 25.
72.
Nervous system, effects of
Lapps, 30.
drugs upon, 85.
Legislation and intemperance, Neurotic conditions and reli-
236.
gious excitement, 24.
Lett, 166.
Nietzsche, 44, 45, 52.
Liquor business, 233-,
Nirvana, 51, 71.
Literature and intoxication, Nordau, 166.
79.
Lombard, 95,
Occupation, 227, 231.
coun-
274
INDEX
ages, 33.
Paget, 68.
Religion, and intoxication,
Parrish, 157.
24; excitement in, 24.
Paton, 239.
Renaissance, intemperance in,
Periodic drinking among sav- 48; immorality in, 49.
Renan, 72.
Personality sense in intoxica- Rhythms in activity, 59.
tion, 131.
Ribot, 128.
Philippines, 'natives of, 28. Romanes, 13.
Physical treatment, 170-, Rosanoff, 98.
Physiology, and pathology,
teaching of, 245; of alcohol, Saloon, 220, 222; evils of,
86-; of intoxication., 127. 223; normal features of,
Physiological, basis of intoxi- 225; social aspects of, 226;
cation motive, 67; view, substitutes for, 231.
limitation of, 68-.
Sajous, 130.
Practical principles, 261-; Samuelson, 42.
problems, 219,
Saxon races, intemperance in,
Prairie chickens, excitement 32, 49.
among, 17.
Schneider, 91.
Prentiss and Morgan, 27, 100. Scientific attitude, 8.
Primitive peoples, drinking Seminoles, 32.
among, 22-, 61, 202.
Sex differences in intemper-
Prohibition, 230, 262.
Psycho-analysis, 151.
Sexual excitement, 38; and in-
Pueblos, 27, 34.
toxication, 44; among ani-
Pulse rate, in intoxication, mals, 18; relation of to in-
124.
toxication, 20.
Public school and intemper- Sin and alcohol, 164; and in-
ance, 241-
temperance, 9.
Shamanism, 27,
Shooking and Sheeking, 43.
Reaction time, 89.
Slang and intoxication, 72.
Recreation, 232; and intem- Social, excitement, 135-; hy-
perance, 248; and the sa- giene, 263; life and intoxi-
loon, 233; institute of, 235. cation, 64, 266.
Reid, 177-, 192.
Soma worship, 26.
Reflex action, 123; experi- Spencer, 27, 36.
ments upon, 103.
Starke, 87, 128, 166.
ance, 58.
INDEX
275
State of intoxication, 100.
Stimulants and narcotics,
84-; effects of, 208m.
Stimulus, doctrine of in med-
icine, 80.
Strenuous life and narcotics,
55.
Symonds, 49.
Synonyms for intoxication,
73–.
Taylor, 45.
Temperance, 36, 214.
Theories, of intoxication, 164,
212-
Thomann, 168.
Tobacco, use of by American
Indians, 32; craving for,
149.
Tuscaroras, 30.
Urabas, 31.
Wabanaki, 32.
War dance, 38.
War physic, 33.
Wasps, 14.
Weir-Mitchell, 100.
Williams, 134.
Wilson, 134.
Wit in intoxication, 106.
Woodcock, excitement in, 17.
Worth, 17.
Writing and adding, effects of
alcohol upon, 96.
Yakuts, 27.
Yeast plant, 86.
Zend Avesta, 26.
UNIV. OF MIONICAM,
FEB 11 1913
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
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