Page:George Archdall Reid 1896 The present evolution of man.djvu/353

Rh cannot be destroyed by opposing acquired traits, though it may be counteracted by them, especially when it is weak, as among the Italians, or when the counteracting traits are very strong, as among ardent temperance reformers. When it is strong, and the counteracting traits are weak, as among the North American Indians, and when, moreover, an abundant supply of alcohol is accessible, the race is doomed to disaster, perhaps to extinction. Thus, also, the sexual instinct is not destroyed, but is merely counteracted by the mental traits which monks and nuns acquire. The craving for alcohol, age after age, is born anew with each generation, undiminished, except by Alcoholic Selection, and in a race which has undergone Alcoholic Evolution, is increased age after age, and generation after generation, in the absence of such selection. But acquired passions change from generation to generation and from age to age, especially when such passions involve a limitation, not an. extension, of instinct. Who then can doubt that when a changing acquired passion is opposed to an unchanging instinct, in the end the instinct will be triumphant? Who can doubt that when an inborn craving for alcohol is opposed to an acquired detestation of it, that in the long run the inborn craving will prevail, and therefore that if here in England we succeed at first in an attempt to counteract the inborn craving by moral influences, by acquired mental traits, that in the end the inborn craving will prevail, especially in such a race as ours, which has undergone some alcoholic evolution, and is therefore prone to undergo alcoholic retrogression when the stringency of selection is abated?

It will certainly be argued in reply, that since moral influences have caused Mahomedan races to abstain from alcohol for twelve hundred years, and for all we know will continue to do so for an indefinite time