Page:George Archdall Reid 1896 The present evolution of man.djvu/346

334 to differences in education and example, but it is forgotten that the craving for alcohol, albeit a bye-product of mental evolution, is an instinct, not an acquired trait. It is comparable to hunger or thirst, or to sexual or parental love, not to a love of books, or of paintings, or of scenery, or of country, or of a particular religious system. It is conceivable that a man might be reared in entire ignorance of women, but in such a case, though he knew not what he desired, he would yet 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, and his passive desires are quickly stimulated into activity by indulgence in it.

It is true, as regards man, in whose mental nature acquired traits play so large a part, that example and precept may do much to counteract instinct. Thus, for example, religious enthusiasm, a purely acquired trait, may so counteract the dictates of sexual instinct as to cause men and women to become monks and nuns, or so counteract the instinctive love of life as to cause them to throw themselves beneath the wheels of Juggernath or mount the funeral pyre; thus also love of country, obviously another acquired trait, often impels men to difficult and dangerous enterprises, from which all their instincts call them to abstain; thus also religious enthusiasm has, more or less, banished alcohol from Mahomedan countries. When, however, an instinct is not opposed by counteracting acquired traits, the part played by it is of course generally proportionate to its strength, and we know of nothing, and it is inconceivable that there is anything, in the mental traits acquired by the Greeks and Italians, for example, that would counteract the craving for alcohol, were it as strong in them as it is in savages, or even in some North