Page:George Archdall Reid 1896 The present evolution of man.djvu/382

370 further follows, that if a race which has undergone evolution against any particular narcotic be debarred from the use of it, it may, by seeking to satisfy its craving by indulgence in a narcotic of which it has had little or no experience, be drawn into much greater excesses, and therefore be much more injured than it was by the narcotic of which it already had had a long and disastrous experience, and therefore against which it had undergone protective evolution. For instance, if the natives of India are debarred from the use of opium, or if Englishmen are debarred from the use of alcohol, it is possible, by substituting alcohol for opium in the one case, and opium for alcohol in the other, that each race will suffer much more than it otherwise would.

In any case the question is by no means so simple as it is thought to be by temperance reformers, with whom as to ends I am in the heartiest sympathy, but with whom as to means I am at issue.

In conclusion, it is surely clear that if the world is to become more temperate it must be by the elimination not of drink, but of the excessive drinker. If Artificial Selection be found impracticable in the future, as, owing to the state of public opinion, it undoubtedly is at present, then the only alternative is Natural Selection, in which case the world will never be thoroughly sober until it has first been thoroughly drunk.