Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 83.djvu/262

262, pain, sorrow and care are ever present in human life, making the universality of the desire thus far intelligible.

But clearly the narcotic theory encounters difficulties from the same sources as the "demand for joy" theory. It fails first to account for the lesser desire among women, who have certainly at all times had their share of sorrow, pain and care. It fails likewise to account for the increase of the desire in times of prosperity and activity, or in times like the present of improved hygiene, increased longevity and multiplied pleasures and comforts. Finally, the narcotic theory, if it were true, would seem to be nature's checkmate upon itself, for pain in all its forms is evidently purposive. Are we to suppose that nature has discovered a way to tear down its own danger signals? The narcotic theory would be available only in respect to times of degeneration and national decay, Nordau, who explains the desire for alcohol in this way, regards the present as such a time of degeneration, and Partridge, who recognizes the narcotic motive as one of the elements in the desire, seems to think that so far as it is present it betokens "old age and disease in a nation." But since the desire flourishes most strongly, as we have seen, in times of great national vigor, such for instance as prevail at the present time in Germany, England and America, the narcotic theory seems to fail. Nevertheless, it may appear below that the narcotic motive is present, after all, only not in the form hitherto recognized.

Another writer, Reid, has broached the theory that the desire for alcohol is a by-product of evolution, a specific craving which nothing but alcohol will satisfy. It is coextensive with the human race and harmful in its results, and is to be met in only-one way, namely, by the automatic action of "evolution against alcohol," by the action of natural selection in gradually eliminating those not immune to the desire. It is part of Reid's theory to maintain that the people of southern Europe have become partly immune to alcohol, owing to its abundant supply, and are therefore more temperate. Almost all the facts upon which this theory is based are open to doubt.

Partridge, while recognizing the narcotic motive in the desire for alcohol, "the longing to escape from pain, to seek relief in inactivity and rest, a turning backward from the strenuous life," apparently believes that the so-called "intoxication motive" is more important. It springs from the desire for states of consciousness of higher intensity, for feelings of exaltation, for life and life more abundant, for freedom and expansion, for states of higher tension. It is the erethic impulse, a craving for excitement. But the evidence is overwhelming, as we have seen, that alcohol, so far from contributing to the more abundant life, contributes from every point of view to the less abundant life, and as for the desire for states of higher tension, there is every reason to believe, as will be shown in what follows, that alcohol produces states of lower tension and is desired for precisely this reason.