Page:George Archdall Reid 1896 The present evolution of man.djvu/348

336 cassava intoxicant, and the Africans, with their pombé beer, who are only able to manufacture alcohol so dilute that it is difficult to drink an injurious quantity of it, crave ardently for a more concentrated beverage wherewith to gratify their desire for deep intoxication. If the above topsy-turvy theory were correct such races should be more abstemious than the Italians, while savages, such as the North American Indians, who have never been able to manufacture alcohol, should be more abstemious still, whereas the contrary is the case. It cannot be true, therefore, that the degree of concentration in which any race uses alcohol in any way determines the strength of its craving for drunkenness, except in so far as results from the survival of the fittest; though, on the other hand, it is certainly true that the strength of the craving for drunkenness determines in great measure, when there is a choice, the degree of concentration of the alcoholic beverages used. It is quite possible, indeed quite easy, for the most resistant individual, the most seasoned toper, to drink "natural," i.e. unfortified wine, like that used by the South Europeans, to such an extent as to produce the deepest intoxication; that is, to such an extent as to place him, from loss of health, &c., at a great disadvantage in the struggle for existence; and therefore natural wines are quite strong enough to be a source of considerable elimination, and therefore of evolution. In fact, though these natural wines do not possess the immediately poisonous properties of much stronger solutions of alcohol, yet, since alcohol is rarely, very rarely, drunk at any place of such strength as to be immediately poisonous, and since the deepest intoxication may be produced by imbibing them, they are practically speaking as efficient causes of elimination and therefore of evolution as the strongest spirits.

The degree of intoxication desired by the average