SECTION II.

THE USING OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS AS HABITUAL BEVERAGES, A CAUSE OF INTEMPERANCE.

A HIGH degree of value having been attached to distilled and fermented liquors, partly through ignorance of their real nature, and partly through man's constitutional tendency to seek the gratification of his sensual appetites, the habitual use of them, as ordinary drinks, followed, as a matter of course, wherever the means of obtaining them were possessed.-In every country, however, there must have been a period when they were first discovered, or introduced, and, consequently, a period when intemperance had no existence. This formidable evil, then, has evidently grown out of the use of intoxicating liquors; and there is abundant evidence to prove, that, in every country, its magnitude has ever been proportioned to the variety, and strength of the liquors, in general use, and to the frequency with which they have been employed.

In countries which possess the grape in such abundance, as to be able to use the pure juice of it as a

common drink, intemperance has ever been confined to a very few individuals, who have been as much despised, by their fellow men, as if they had belonged to some inferior, and disgusting race of beings. This has been owing to the comparatively unintoxicating nature of the pure juice of the grape; which, although, when fermented, it contains a portion of the alcoholic principle, possesses it in so mild a form, as to have no tendency to create for itself, much less for stronger liquors, such an intemperate appetite as leads to actual drunkenness. The northern tribes of Europe, to whom the vine has been denied, have for many centuries preferred the more stimulating liquors. This has, in all probability, in some measure, arisen from their inhabiting a colder and damper climate than is suitable to the vine; and also from their being, by nature, more torpid and phlegmatic, than the inhabitants of warmer regions; in other words, from their being so constituted as to derive a high degree of pleasure from the influence of ardent stimulants. At all events, the circumstance of their attaching a fictitious value to ardent liquors, in particular, has caused them to become, at once, the most frequent consumers of them, and of all other tribes, as might justly be expected, the most addicted to drunkenness. But to come to the case of individuals.-It has already been observed that no man is naturally a drunkard; and it may, with equal truth, be remarked that no man becomes a drunkard on a sudden. The pro

gress of an individual, towards actual inebriety, is generally so gradual, as to be unobserved by the individual himself. Of the six hundred thousands of drunkards, now living in Great Britain, it is probable

that but very few can recollect the period when they crossed the line, which divides the temperate, from the intemperate use of intoxicating liquors. It was the daily practice of most of them for years, to drink a certain quantity of such liquors in moderation, because they were taught by their relatives, their neighbours, and their friends, to esteem them as necessary and valuable; but as their age increased, the love of those liquors increased with it; and from not possessing the moral and religious principles, which are the only efficient restraints upon the animal appetites, they at length came to be numbered among the wretched slaves and victims of intemperance. With respect to some individuals, owing to the peculiarities of their physical organization, rather than to any original moral defect, there is reason to believe that the most moderate use of intoxicating liquors, persevered in for a given length of time, will as certainly be followed by the intemperate use of them, as that the explosion of gunpowder will be followed by the putting of a spark to it; and consequently, so long as such liquors shall be in general, and habitual use, there is reason to believe that a race of drunkards will never be wanting to curse the land which sustains them, and to move the pity of the compassionate.

Dr. Caldwell regards a propensity to drunkenness, in many cases, as a form of insanity, resulting from cerebral disease; and as capable of being transmitted, from one generation to another, as any other form of madness. "A long continued habit of drunken

ness," he says, "becomes as essentially constitutional, as a predisposition to gout, or pulmonary consump

tion" and he adds, "It is a settled belief, resulting from observation-an inference derived from innumerable facts. In hundreds and thousands of instances, parents, having had children born to them while their habits were temperate, have become afterwards intemperate, and had other children subsequently born. In such cases, it is notorious that the younger children have become addicted to the practice of intoxication, much more frequently than the elder in the proportion of five to one.' Now it is well known, that a predisposition to disease is not, at all times, sufficient to produce disease;-something must transpire, favourable to its developement, before it will display itself; in other words, there must be an exciting cause of it, as well as a predisposition to it, in order that it may fully be brought into existence. Wherever there is a predisposition to the intemperate use of intoxicating liquors, nothing can be more calculated to strengthen it, and to render it, ultimately, an actual cause of drunkenness, than the habitual use, from early life, of any alcoholic drinks: and hence, in a country already extensively under the influence of intemperance, it is perfectly reasonable to expect, that one race of drunkards will continue to succeed another, as long as the present customs of society shall remain unchanged.

But it is not necessary that there should exist a predisposition to intemperance, in order that the habitual drinking of intoxicating liquors, may become, extensively, a cause of drunkenness. Man, in all ages, climes, and conditions, is the creature of habit. He is, indeed, capable of regulating his conduct by the * Transylvania Journal. Page 341-2.

dictates of his reasoning faculty, but he is rarely inclined to do so. It is only necessary to habituate him, from his earliest years, to any practice, however superstitious, unholy, and absurd, to render him blind to its folly, or its wickedness, and to induce him to cling to it with true conservative affection. No one ever better understood the principles of human nature than Solomon; and never did he more clearly demonstrate his wisdom, than when he said, "Train up a child, in the way in which he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." Unhappily, throughout Britain, the training of its inhabitants, for ages, has been in favour of the daily use of intoxicating liquors. They have been taught, from their infancy, to regard them as wholesome and necessary beverages, without which neither health nor comfort could be enjoyed. In reality their training has been in favour of intemperance; for with all our moral, intellectual, and religious advantages, as a nation, we are pre-eminent among other nations for drunkenness ; so that scarcely is a family to be found, except among the Quakers, who have always been distinguished by their refusing to bow down to customs which they could not conscientiously approve, and by their objecting to the use of ardent spirits in particular, in which there is not one or more individuals, whose love of strong drink, or whose misconduct arising from intemperance, is not felt to be a burden and a disgrace.

Many, who are now among the most degraded and miserable slaves to intemperate habits, were first taught to value intoxicating drinks, by the erroneous lectures they heard delivered upon their virtues, at