The bases of the temperance reform: an exposition and appeal./ With replies to numerous objections. By Rev. Dawson Burns.

Bad Social Conditions a Result of Drinking. 29
remain. The evils-or "abuses," as the objector styles
them-are patent and appalling —ca lthey be separated
from the system? Let this be proved, if proof is procurable; but where is the proof? Can it be proved, for examiple, that the froductioit of alcoholic drink is separable
from the waste of nutritious food, and from a great loss
to industrial labor? Can it be proved that the circulation
of drink is separable from much temptation, much seduction, much ruin? Can it be proved that the conistumetion
of strong drink is separable, while human nature remains
what it is, from a-long catalogue of appalling miseries,
sins, sorrows, crimes, and other social calamities? It is
easy to theorize, and to draw pictures of "might be";
but reasonable men have to do with experience and facts;
and all these go to show that what are softly called the
"abuses " of the drinking system are, in truth, either inseparable elements of it, or irrepressible tendencies and
evolutions of it in connection with human temperament,
appetite, and habit. All the evils do not always appear
in all persons; the effects of the worst systems of error
and vice are never absolute and universal; but the specialty and frequency of the evils, even when all the previous conditions have been favorable to their repression,
make it evident that the so-called "abuses" (when not
inherent in the drinking system) so naturally spring out
of it as to render them fairly chargeable upon it. Especially is this the case when it can be shown that the very
nature of intoxicating liquor, as alcoholic, is the initial
and efficient cause of the subsequent evils or " abuses"
by its action on the nervous system. In the light of this
distinction, to talk of "'abusing the drink " is a manifest
inversion of the fact, which is that the drink abuses the
drinker, and therefore that the production and use of
alcohol as an article of beverage is in itself an abuse,
because inconsistent with the welfare of man. The only
question, then, that remains is, Wh/ether the benefits out