CHAPTER XVI.

RETROSPECT—CONCLUSION.

The hasty survey which has been made in the preceding chapters, of the drinking habits of our race in various lands and ages, will, we trust, have had the effect of modifying some of our theories, based upon preconceived ideas, concerning the causes of intemperance. That climate is not a permanent source of that evil has, we think, been clearly proved. Nor is the popular theory tenable that barbarism and an aboriginal condition of mankind mean purity and sobriety, but that drunkenness is the invariable concomitant of a high state of civilisation. For, at the time when man is supposed to have been in a state of paradisiacal innocence, the standard of his morality was very low indeed, both as it concerned his indulgence in drink, as well as in other respects; and although purity and simplicity of faith appear at all times to have been accompanied by similar moral qualities, yet religion alone, excepting in one or two cases, has not exercised an important controlling influence upon the passion for drink in the human race. On the other hand, however, the superstitious rites and ceremonies with which religion has been more or less encumbered in all ages have countenanced if not patronised the use of intoxicating beverages.

It is quite true that every phase and form of civilisation has at one time or other been debased by its association with intemperance, and has frequently ministered to man’s self-indulgence. Music and the arts have not disdained to become the handmaids of debauchery; poetry has been degraded by its influence; the artifice of politics and the designs of priestcraft have found it a convenient tool. And as to science, she has consented in a hundred different ways to multiply man’s opportunities for self-debasement or to furnish him with palliatives for mitigating the evil effects of his dissoluteness. But, on the other hand, if we can trust our imperfect knowledge, we see already that the wave of intemperance has invariably reached its highest point, not when nations have been the most highly civilised (if any nation can be said to have attained that condition), but either before it was fairly educated, or during the national decadence.

Nor is the expression “waves of intemperance” purely imaginative, for they have had a real existence in the history of the past. One or more such waves rose high in ancient China, and probably overwhelmed dynasties, and yet modern China is not reckoned amongst inebriate states.

Another reared itself in India, where it broke against the barriers which were opposed to it by Buddha and his disciples. The pure descendants of the Indian and Persian races, the Hindoos and Parsees, who are the best educated, are at the same time amongst the most temperate of the Eastern races. In ancient Rome, on the other hand, the wave of intemperance reached its greatest altitude when the arts were languishing, when her military prestige was waning, and when the barbarians whom she had subdued were becoming in their turn her conquerors. That wave was never broken, but for the time being it helped to wreck the civilisation of a large section of the human race over which it passed. Another smaller wave travelled from Central Asia towards the south-west, and there Islamism was the rock upon which it burst. This is, perhaps, the most conspicuous instance in which religion, aided, however, by the sword, has offered an effective resistance to the spread of drunkenness. The same tide which had submerged the Roman empire rolled on with undiminished force, and nearly overwhelmed the empire of Germany. But there, for the first time, we clearly apprehend the fact that drunkenness does not run side by side with true civilisation, at least if the latter is represented by all that is noble and refined in æsthetic tastes, all that is enlightened in literature, science, and philosophy. For the Germans were the greatest drunkards at the time they were mere fighting men; not, perhaps, when they faced the legions of Germanicus, and certainly not when they stood opposed to those of Napoleon III.; but whilst they were still a nation of uncultivated boors, submissive followers of a band of robber-barons, whose highest conception of human greatness consisted in feats of arms and deeds of chivalry. But with the extension of commerce and intercourse with surrounding peoples came habits of temperance and frugality, in which the nation was soon confirmed by the spread of knowledge, by intellectual culture in the upper classes, and by the education of the great mass of the people.

And so, too, it has been in modern Scandinavia, in England, and in the United States of America. In each of those lands the tide of intemperance rose to its highest before the masses began to be educated, and in all three the ebb appears to have set in with greater or less rapidity. So far, then, it would appear, from a careful study of the history of drink and its influence upon the various races and upon the different classes of society, that barbarism and religious credulity are accompanied by immorality and unbridled intemperance, whilst sobriety, virtue, and self-restraint are the concomitants of pure religion, and of the arts of civilisation.

But we must not content ourselves with the negative proposition that intemperance is not the necessary outcome of civilisation, nor even with the general statement that the latter brings with it self-restraint and sobriety. The most potent check upon immorality, especially in recent and modern times, has been enlightened public opinion, which is the expression of advancing civilisation; and it is upon the conduct of those who have moulded public opinion that the morality of every age has been largely dependent. Evil examples in high places and a disregard of public propriety have done as much to encourage the vice of intemperance as the passion from which it springs. Whilst the priests of the ancient faiths intoxicated themselves at the altar, and portrayed the deities whom they served with tastes similar to their own, it was not likely that the crowd of worshippers would practise sobriety. In those days the priesthood to a large extent represented public opinion, and, as we have seen, they not only countenanced drunkenness, but hallowed its exercise. When the military heroes of ancient Rome gave away a hundred thousand congiaria of wine to the mob, or kept cellars of 10,000 casks, or devoted whole days and nights to drinking bouts, it is no wonder that the ragged plebeians, without shoes or a mantle, spent the hours of the night in obscene taverns and brothels in the indulgence of gross and vulgar sensuality; for it was the great military leaders of that age who moulded public opinion. And so, coming nearer to our time, when, in our own country, the installation of a shepherd in the fold of Christ was commemorated by a feast at which 300 tuns of ale and 100 tuns of wine were swallowed down, and when the ladies of the court of Charles the dissolute “rolled about in a state of intoxication,” it was only a necessary sequence that the lower orders should get drunk upon gin at a penny a head, and whilst in that condition they should herd together upon straw in dark cellars which would have been unfit receptacles for the brutes, below whose state they had fallen. And although in our day the public feeling is expressed rather than created by those who occupy high places, still the utterances of ministers of state such as those we have quoted, and the open countenance and encouragement which is given by influential party-leaders to persons who profit by the intemperance of the ignorant and depraved, cannot fail to produce a very pernicious effect upon public sentiment, and to militate against the exercise of its due influence upon the national morals.

Looking at the other side of the question, we find that all great temperance reformers have appealed to public opinion to aid them in their efforts. Confucius did not say to his disciples, “Be careful not to drink wine to excess, for it will enervate your bodies and debase your intelligence.” He was more practical than that. “The superior man when he is at table does not glut his appetite,” he said; and “when you go abroad be not given to excess in wine.” In other words, “Don’t lower the standard of morality, nor degrade yourselves in public estimation, by setting a pernicious example; for, remember, you are superior men, the leaders of society.” The Buddhist priests were ordered not only themselves to refrain from using strong drink, but they were told that “there is no reward for him who gives intoxicating liquors.” And St. Paul advised abstention from drink lest others should be “made weak” by the example. Pliny, too, denounced the public drinking practices of his age, and the scandalous conduct of the great military leaders, who, as we have already said, moulded public opinion; and Mahomet said of drunkenness, that it diverted the attention of mankind from its highest and noblest occupations, prayer and the remembrance of God.

And if this has been the policy of temperance reformers in past ages, much more conspicuously is it so in the present day, when public opinion is becoming the censor of morals and the approver of merit and virtue. That it is absolutely essential for them to have the popular sentiment on their side has been conclusively shown in connection with every phase of the question. It is futile for earnest men to lecture to drunkards amongst the lower classes, so long as the great mass of the electors, guided by unscrupulous party-leaders, choose publicans to represent them in town councils, and promote them to the aldermanic or civic chair. Equally idle is it for clergymen to preach temperance sermons to decorous congregations whilst those who are enriched by the results of drunkenness are permitted, in consequence of their wealth and influence, to hold a higher rank than the parishioner whose calling is innocuous, and even above him whose profession ministers to that health and comfort which are undermined and uprooted by the gin-palace. Repressive legislation, however wise and however indispensable it may be, is, as we have seen, quite inefficacious unless supported by public opinion. It is in those countries where not only the upper ranks, but the whole mass of the people, enjoy the benefits of education, where, in fact, an enlightened public opinion is a possibility; in Sweden, Norway, and the United States of America, that the interference of the State authorities has proved of any avail in the work of temperance reform. The duty of Englishmen, in what is by many believed to be an important crisis in our history, is therefore very plain. It is because the abuses to which frequent reference has been made are tolerated and sanctioned in our own country, that our people abroad as well as at home are stigmatised as—the words come most reluctantly from the pen of one who is proud of his nationality—as a nation of drinkers; and it is the duty of men in every rank and station to express their disapproval of intemperance and the causes which lead to its prevalence, and so to influence public opinion in favour of sobriety.

And now let us say, in conclusion, that if the perusal of these pages should have removed any misconceptions, or have suggested any important truths, in connection with the subject of which they have treated; if it should induce any who have hitherto been calculating, or timid, or indifferent, to extend a warm and disinterested support to the cause of temperance reform; or if it should afford help and encouragement to those who are already labouring to raise the standard of morality and to ameliorate the condition of the poor and ignorant, their publication will not have been in vain, and we shall certainly have no cause to regret having invited our readers to bear us company in this cursory and imperfect glance over the history of drink in every age.

FOOTNOTES

[1] On the Action of Alcohol on the Mind, pp. 11, 12. W. Tweedie.

[2] Results of Researches on Alcohol, p. 6 (“An Inbred Enemy”). W. Tweedie.

[3] Descent of Man, i. 12.

[4] Brehm, Thierleben, b. i. 1864, a. 75, 86. Also on the Ateles, s. 105, and elsewhere.

[5] Morewood’s Inebriating Liquors, p. 55 and subsequent pages, which contain numerous references. Dublin: W. Curry, jun., & Co. 1838. In referring to this work, we shall in future simply say “Morewood.” An earlier but much less perfect edition was published by Longmans in 1824.

[6] Researches in South Africa, p. 411. Murray.

[7] Researches in South Africa, pp. 186, 630, &c.

[8] The Malay Archipelago, vol. ii. p. 102.

[9] Striking instances will be found in the chapter on America in the present work.

[10] Morewood, p. 65, where Malte Brun, Whittington, and other travellers are referred to as authorities on the same subject.

[11] The Heart of Africa, vol. ii. p. 13. Sampson Low & Co.

[12] Heart of Africa, vol. i. p. 183.

[13] Morewood, who quotes authorities, p. 349.

[14] Ibid., p. 350.

[15] History of Europe, vol. i. 7th ed. p. 21.

[16] This will be further strikingly shown in the chapter which relates to the habits of the tribes on the River Plate.

[17] Herodotus, iii. 20-22.

[18] Keller’s Lake Dwellings, p. 344, Longmans; and Nilsson’s Stone Age, edited by Sir J. Lubbock, pp. xxiii., xxix., Longmans.

[19] For full information, see abstract of the treatise on the plants of the lake-dwellings in Keller’s book (cited), p. 336, where illustrations will be found of a great variety of plants in use at that early age.

[20] Keller’s Lake Dwellings, pp. 41, 342.

[21] One of our leading ethnologists, Mr. J. Crawfurd, F.R.S., expresses the view, in a paper read by him before the Ethnological Society, March 10, 1868, that the discovery and art of manufacturing some kind of intoxicating drink may be said to be coeval with the first dawn of social development, for it has soon been made by barbarians of every race in possession of the requisite raw materials; it is mere wandering savages, he says, that have been found ignorant of it. The same author considers that the vine is indigenous in several parts of Western Asia and Southern Europe.

[22] Confucius et Mencius, par M. G. Pauthier, p. 152. Paris: Charpentier.

[23] Wright’s Homes of Other Days, p. 269. Trübner & Co.

[24] Confucius et Mencius, p. 153, _et seq._: “dejà entrées en putréfaction.”

[25] Confucius et Mencius, p. 108.

[26] Ibid., p. 114.

[27] Ibid., p. 144.

[28] Ibid., p. 148.

[29] Ibid., p. 333.

[30] Ibid., p. 355. This game was made an excuse for gambling, a vice still prevalent in China.

[31] Legge’s Chinese Classics. Trübner & Co.

[32] Legge’s “She-King, or Book of Ancient Chinese Poetry.” Trübner & Co.

[33] Legge’s Chinese Classics, vol. iii. pt. i p. 274.

[34] Other accounts are to be found in the “Shoo-King” of the condition of China at the time, and one (vol. iii. pt. i. p. 274) describes the people as being given up to highway robberies, villainies, and treachery; the nobles as violating the laws; and that there was no certainty of the apprehension of criminals. All this was attributed to the growth of drunkenness.

[35] The She-King, pp. 182, 183.

[36] The She-King, p. 252.

[37] Ibid., p. 308.

[38] Ibid., p. 314.

[39] Ibid., p. 207.

[40] The She-King, p. 375.

[41] Ibid., p. 261.

[42] Ibid., p. 322.

[43] Ibid., p. 195.

[44] The She-King, pp. 266-268.

[45] The great reformer known to us as Buddha was born at the foot of the mountains of Nepaul, and his death took place according to one writer 543 B.C., according to another 477 B.C., consequently about a year before the date assigned for the death of Confucius. See Max Müller’s “Chips from a German Workshop,” vol. i. p. 247.

[46] Hardy’s Eastern Monachism, p. 24. Partridge & Oakey.

[47] Ibid., pp. 80-82.

[48] Morewood, p. 231, and elsewhere. This author gives interesting details of the distilling processes in China.

[49] Social Life of the Chinese, by the Rev. Justus Doolittle, p. 500. Sampson Low & Co.

[50] Ibid., pp. 500-512.

[51] Chinese Sketches, by H. A. Giles, of H.B.M. Consular Service, p. 154. Trübner & Co.

[52] This is explained by Mr. Doolittle, who says that many games are played, in the course of which the loser is compelled repeatedly to empty his cup of wine.

[53] Chinese Sketches, p. 12.

[54] History of the Ancient Sanskrit Literature, pp. 523, 572. Williams & Norgate.

[55] Haug’s Essays on the Religion, &c., of the Parsees, pp. 280-283. Trübner & Co.

[56] The Bases of Temperance Reform, p. 113. Rev. D. Burns, M.A. London: Tweedie & Co.

[57] Rig-Veda, 1. 4. 2. Most of these extracts from the Rig-Veda have been translated for this work from the original Sanskrit by Dr. Myriantheus, an able Sanskrit scholar, and compared by the author where it was possible with Wilson’s and Langlois’ translations of the Rig-Veda. With respect to the foregoing quotation, Dr. Max Müller translates it (in a letter to the author): “The intoxication of a wealthy man bestows wealth;” that is, a wealthy man when intoxicated is generous. Nothing can be more convincing than this rendering that the Aryan conception of the gods was but a reflection of the character of the people themselves.

[58] Rig-Veda, 1. 9. 1.

[59] Ibid., 1. 52. 5.

[60] Ps. cxxxvi., and Rig-Veda, Langlois’ translation, p. 174.

[61] Rig-Veda, 8. 1. 23.

[62] Ibid., 10. 119.

[63] Ibid., 10. 112. 3.

[64] Ibid., 3. 58. 6.

[65] Rig-Veda, 1. 54. 8, and 3. 43. 5.

[66] Ibid., 5. 43. 3.

[67] Aitareya Brahmána, vol. ii. p. 507.

[68] Rig-Veda, 1. 191. 10.

[69] Ibid., 8. 2. 12.

[70] Chips from a German Workshop (R. V. 7. 86. 6).

[71] Manu was a religions and moral lawgiver, whose doctrines united the spirit of Buddhism with that of the Brahmans. One of his translators and commentators, Sir William Jones, believes him to have lived in or before the ninth century B.C. Professor Wilson, one of the translators of the Rig-Veda, places him about the sixth century B.C. Gautama Sâkya (Buddha) is, however, supposed to have lived in the sixth or fifth century B.C. These are discrepancies which we cannot attempt here to reconcile. The extracts in the text are from Sir William Jones’s translation of the “Institutes of Hindoo Law, or the Ordinances of Manu,” chap. xi. Allen & Co.

[72] Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, vol. xlii. p. 10 _et seq._

[73] Morewood, p. 162, and Table, p. 717.

[74] Ibid., p. 182.

[75] The Natives of India, by James Kerr, pp. 171-173. Allen & Co.

[76] Wanderings of a Pilgrim, vol. ii. pp. 147, 148. Pelham Richardson.

[77] India and its Native Princes, by Louis Rousselet, p. 173. Chapman & Hall.

[78] In Doran’s Table Traits, p. 300 (Bentley), will be found a drinking-song which was sung in the army not very long since during the prevalence of cholera, when, the author says (not defining the exact period), drinking in India was fearful. We extract two verses to show the callousness that prevailed.

“Not a sigh for the lot that darkles, Not a tear for the friends who sink, We’ll fall ’mid the wine cup’s sparkled, As mute as the wine we drink. Come, stand to your glasses steady! ’Tis this that the respite buys. One cup to the dead already; Hurrah! for the next that dies.

“Who dreads to the dust returning? Who shrinks from the sable shore, Where the high and haughty yearning Of the soul can sting no more? No, stand to your glasses steady; This world is a world of lies! One cup to the dead already; Hurrah! for the next that dies.”

[79] Avesta, Die heiligen Schriften der Parsen, by Dr. F. Spiegel, vol. i. p. 8. Leipzig: Engelmann.

[80] Haug, Essay on the Religion of the Parsees, p. 282. London: Trübner & Co.

[81] Vendidad, by Dr. Spiegel, vol. i. p. 207.

[82] Vendidad, vol. i. p. 253. See also vol. iii. p. xlix.: “Die Daevas Kunda, Banga und Vibanga als Gegner des Craosha, es sind die Dämonen der Trunkenheit.”

[83] And judging from the Zend-Avesta, to other gross forms of immorality.

[84] Born at Halicarnassus, B.C. 484.

[85] Herodotus, i. 133.

[86] Ibid., i. 126.

[87] Ibid., i. 212.

[88] Ibid., iii. 20-22.

[89] Sale’s Koran, p. 84. F. Warne & Co. “Lots, and images, and divining arrows” are explained to mean “all inebriating liquors and games of chance.” See also sec. v. and chap. ii. p. 23, where it is said that “in lots and wine there is great sin.”

[90] Sale’s Koran, p. 199.

[91] Ibid., pp. 95, 96. Also the present chapter and the chapter on the Egyptians; also Morewood, p. 721, table, from which it will be seen that there were imported into Turkey between the years 1827 and 1834 inclusive, 229,460 gallons of spirits, besides wines, beer, and ale, and that 11,272 gallons of wine were exported from Turkey during the same period.

[92] Morewood, pp. 85-89.

[93] Allgemeine Culturwissenschaft, by Dr. G. Klemm, vol. ii. pp. 338, 339. Leipzig: Romberg.

[94] Fraser’s Persia, p. 332. Oliver & Boyd.

[95] Through Persia by Caravan, by Arthur Arnold, vol. ii. p. 322. Tinsley. See also Klemm’s Culturwissenschaft, p. 323: “Man geniesst den Wein vornehmlich gern des Abends,” he says of all Moslems.

[96] Ibid., vol. ii. p. 20.

[97] Ibid., vol. i. p. 283.

[98] Max Müller’s Chips from a German Workshop, vol. i. p. 161.

[99] The Parsees, by Dosabhoy Framjee. Smith, Elder, & Co.

[100] Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible, Art. “Wine.”

[101] Scripture Testimony against Intoxicating Wine, by Rev. W. Ritchie, D.D., p. 224, and elsewhere, Houlston & Wright; and “The Basis of Temperance Reform,” by Rev. D. Burns, chap. v., Pitman; and “Bacchus Dethroned,” by F. Powell, chap. vii. Kempster.

[102] Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible, Art. “Wine.”

[103] Scripture Testimony against Intoxicating Wine, p. 68.

[104] Scripture Testimony against Intoxicating Wine, p. 65.

[105] Exod. xxix. 40, 41; Lev. xxiii. 13; Judges ix. 12, 13: “Then said the trees unto the vine, Come thou and reign over us. And the vine said unto them, Should I leave my wine, _which cheereth God and man_, and go to be promoted over the trees?”

[106] The Talmud, by H. Polano, pp. 349, 355. F. Warne.

[107] The Mishna, De Sola and Raphael, pp. 7-9. The author has to thank the Rev. M. Joseph of Liverpool for some of these references.

[108] Babylonian Talmud, Treatise _Berachot_, fol. 35 a.

[109] The Mishna, De Sola and Raphael, p. 48.

[110] Lev. x. 9.

[111] Num. vi. 3, 20.

[112] Jer. xxxv. 7.

[113] Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible, Art. “Wine;” also note at end of