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

The Drink4itg Sj,s/cin an Inconpaz-able Evil. 33
ence has previously been made, and to what is there advanced, it may be added'that the force of this objection
must depend upon the following considerations: Ist,
that the benefits pertain to the drinking system as such
2d, that they are benefits clearly established to be so
3d, that as benefits they bear some proportion in value
to the evils that attend them. But on none of these
points is there evidence that can satisfy the honest
enquirer. On the first, it is true that both the production and circulation of alcoholic drinks are a means
of employment and wealth to many persons; but it is
demonstrable that the money spent on drink, if spent on
other articles, would yield employment to many more
persons, and would distribute a larger amount of wealth
over a larger surface of society-besides extinguishing
the evils now springing from the drinking system. On
the second, there is good and sufficient reason for
believing that the health and happiness of society would
be increased, and not lessened, by the abolition of the
drinking system.* Tried by every test that can be
applied, it is made apparent that health does not suffer
by abstinence, while there are considerations (to be
afterwards assigned) that go to mark an injury to health
in proportion to the quantity of alcohol used. No doubt
there is a peculiar gratification experienced in drinking,
else it would not be so common; but a gratification is
not necessarily a benefit, and in the case of strong drink
the gratification is keenest where, by universal admission,
no benefit but lasting and largest injury is the result.
Gratifications, too, are relative, and whatever may be
lost in this respect by abstinence is more than replaced
-in the judgment of those who have made trial of both
sides-by the more varied and the higher gratifications
flowing from another application of pecuniary means, and
*This is asserted in the great Medical Certificate of x847. (See Appendix G.)