Page:George Archdall Reid 1896 The present evolution of man.djvu/337



statistics place beyond question the fact that alcohol is a considerable cause of mortality. But his figures, however significant, are by no means significant enough. Alcohol not only causes disease and death among the bread-winners of the community, to whom his statistics chiefly refer; it is also a cause of destitution to their families, and therefore a factor in the elimination of those who, inheriting the inborn traits of their progenitors, would in the next generation indulge in it to excess. Every shilling spent on drink is a shilling less for food, clothing, shelter, and the provision of better sanitation. Moreover, apart from the question of disease and death, individuals who indulge in alcohol to excess, i.e. to such an extent as to leave them appreciably poorer, or to such an extent as to damage their health, must on the whole have fewer offspring than those who do not so indulge, for the reason that they are less able to support wives and families, and because men and women are generally unwilling to marry the intemperate.

In generation after generation alcohol is therefore the cause of a considerable elimination of the unfit in relation to it, and therefore, like a very prevalent and deadly disease, in generation after generation it must be the cause of a considerable evolution against itself. This evolution may be in one or both of two directions; it may