Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/737

 NOTES AND ABSTRA CTS 7 1 7

we have, in general, no other method. We may cite here the statement of Helmholtz concerning the effect of alcohol on the complex mental processes and note that he used the subjective method. We cannot explain alcoholism without this psychical method or merely by the objective method. I believe psychological observation will agree with what has been verified by the biologists, pathologists, and psychiatrists. What I have to say will be drawn from the experience of a number of observations of others and from my own experience.

1. In the first place, all who had given thought to this question admitted that in excessive drinking they gained no real satisfaction. One feels that a person deceives himself and others in seeking arguments for the defense and praise of drinking. Professor Meyer has said that all alcoholism rests upon an illusion. It is self- deception. The physical as well as moral indisposition occasioned by intoxication cannot be denied.

2. This psychological judgment of alcoholism gives us the key to the sociological analysis. What is its meaning, considered from the culture-history point of view ? I have asked professional men, noted artists, and good psychologists what their motive is for drinking. In short, their answer is that their principal motive is the desire for or pleasure in the Rousseau state of nature. When I call this " practical romanti- cism" I do not repudiate all romanticism. But I may call attention to the fact that many of the romanticists of this century have desired to vegetate, to lead the life of a plant or an animal. Comte went back to fetichism and attempted to explain the superstitions of civilized men on this basis. There are many defenders of superstition in modern times, and psychologically I consider the defense of the taste for alcohol the artificial employment of a superstition.

a) The modern man, not only the drinker, has a certain fear of clearness, preci- sion, and purity of thought ; he fears intellectualism or vigorous thought. Alcoholism, as Krapelin shows, injures the power of thinking. The drinker desires and has a need of foggy thinking. Alcoholism is therefore culturally and politically unprogressive, conservative, and radically reactionary.

b) One of the defenses of alcoholism is that it gives something artistic, poetic, idealistic. Noted artists have often said to me : "Ohne Wein gehts nicht!" I admit that there are great artists who pay homage to wine, and much might be said upon this question, yet with reference to art it must be said that there is a distinction between fantasy and the fantastic. Or to say that in alcohol one finds idealism is a remarkable misuse of the word. To use idealism in this sense is to allude to myths and the mythical.

c) Another argument is that alcoholism increases cordiality, good nature, and sentiment. On the contrary, it does not promote, but rather injures, the emotional life. In alcohol one finds, not sentiment, but sentimentality. Investigations of the relation of alcoholism to crime show that it leads to violence rather than to fineness of feeling. With reference to the sexual life, which Professor Torel treated, I can only say here that alcoholism kills true love.

3. Relation of alcoholism to degeneration. While degeneration is not to be found in alcoholism only, it does furnish one of the threatening factors. The modern man is restless, and in the habitual use of alcohol searches for a new Eldorado. From this optimism he passes to a pessimism that leads to dipsomania and suicide.

4. I came to this congress a skeptic. I had not decided whether moderate drink- ing or total abstinence was right. I have heard the arguments pro and con, and they have made a decisive impression upon me. Not that I think the methods of the anti- alcohol advocates are entirely exact, not that I accept all that is attributed to alco- holism. A number of factors must be considered in this relation, such as nicotine, etc. I am inclined to think that certain arguments as, for example, that alcohol is unnecessary are not sound. There are many apparently unnecessary factors in civilized life which nevertheless serve some purpose.

The scientific argument for the tactics of abstinence and first of all it is a ques- tion of tactics is sound and convincing. I close with the confession that the argu- ment for the tactics of abstinence convinces me that a life free from alcohol guarantees a higher conception of life, and therewith a happier and purer tone to life, and finally more beautiful conduct in life. PROFESSOR DR. T. G. MASARYK, " Die sociologische Bedeutung des Alkoholismus," Sonderabdruck aus den Verhandlungen des VIII. Inter- nationalen Congresses gegen den Alkoholismus, Wien, 1901.

E. M.