The general point of view may be indicated in a few words. For centuries opinion has been divided on the subject, and the human experiment has been repeated, generation after generation, by individuals and on a national scale. But man is the most highly complex, most variable, most adaptable of animals, and the human problem has proved itself too complicated for scientific interpretation. Some men fail with alcohol, others fail as completely without it, and the same is true of success. Even "statistics relating to inebriety are too confusing," we find admitted in the Quarterly Journal of Inebriety.[1]
Some may contend that the alcohol problem does not depend upon the science of physiology for its solution; but rather upon the moral, religious, or political functions of society. It should be remembered, however, that physiology is a broad science, whose ultimate aim is no less than to discover the laws and conditions under which may be developed the highest possible typo of man. By the intimate correlations between body and mind, and under the recent outgrowths of the mother science into modern psychology and neurology, physiology would cover the whole man, body, mind, and soul. And it would have not only a healthy soul and a sound mind in a sound body, but the most perfect soul, mind, and body which can be developed under physical conditions. Thus problems touching human welfare, even questions of ethics and social science, must ever draw important factors for their solutions from this science which is fundamental to the conditions and processes of life itself.
Extreme difficulty in solving such complicated equations is in part accountable for our lack of definite knowledge. But even this, it seems to me, does not constitute the most serious hindrance to the progress of science. In this country our greatest obstacle consists in a deficient notion as to what constitutes a scientific answer to a question. We are far too prone to say we "know" a thing is "true," when we lack sufficient evidence to convince an unprejudiced person of the fact. We mean simply that we "think," or we "guess," or we have a strong "prejudice" that such and such is the fact. Affirmation and prejudice are promptly met by contra-affirmation and prejudice, and with people who are satisfied with this sort of procedure scientific advance is at a standstill. We are too slow to realize that all progress in knowledge depends upon accumulation of wholly impartial evidence. Lacking this, no amount of legislating and voting and vociferating, can lay a smallest gravel corn of truth in the roadbed of human progress. As Bacon said so long ago, concerning the man who loses sight of this distinction and clothes his own
- ↑ Kinney, C. Spencer, M.D. The Quarterly Journal of Inebriety, 1896, p. 223.
