flagrant drunkards; but incomparably more terrible to our whole society are the consequences of what is considered the harmless, moderate use of spirits, wine, beer, and tobacco, to which the majority of men, and especially our so-called cultured classes, are addicted.
The consequences must naturally be terrible, admitting the fact, which must be admitted—that the guiding activities of society: political, official, scientific, literary, and artistic—are carried on, for the most part, by people in an abnormal state : by people who are drunk.
It is generally supposed that a man who, like most people of our well-to-do classes, takes alcoholic drink almost every time he eats, is, next day, during working hours, in a perfectly normal and sober condition. But this is quite an error. A man who drank a bottle of wine, a glass of spirits, or two glasses of ale, yesterday, is now in the usual state of drowsiness or depression which follows excitement, and is therefore in a condition of mental prostration, which is increased by smoking. For a man who habitually smokes and drinks in moderation, to bring his brain into a normal, condition would require at least a week or more of abstinence from wine and tobacco. But that hardly ever occurs.[1]
- ↑ But how is it that people who do not drink or smoke are often morally on an incomparably lower plane than others who drink and smoke? And why do people who drink and smoke often manifest the highest qualities both mentally and morally?
The answer is, first, that we do not know the height that those who drink and smoke would have attained had they not drunk and smoked. And, secondly, from the fact that morally gifted people achieve great things in spite of the deteriorating effect of stupefying substances, we can but conclude that they would have produced yet greater things had they not stupefied themselves. It is very probable, as a friend remarked to me, that Kant's works would not have been written in such a curious and bad style had he not smoked so much. Lastly, the lower a man's mental and
