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

Tlz6e Physiological Exects of Alcohol.
of selections are given from the written evidence of governors of jails and masters of workhouses, declaring that
the consequences flowing from this peremptory interdiction are of a salutary kind. * If, at all and to any, intoxicating liquors are a necessity, or an aid to health and
strength, it niust be to those who are deprived of that
liberty and social intercourse by which the spirits are
cheered and the animal vigor sustained; yet, if prisoners
can live and thrive on a dietary into which alcohol does
not enter, it may be inferred that other persons, with so
many advantages of life, do not stand in need of it, but
would be better without it, if they had the wisdom to
adopt, and the courage to continue, the abstinence plan.
The conclusion, then, to which we are drawn by a candid
consideration of medical principles, and a wide induction
of facts, past and present, in great abundance, is adverse
to any use of alcoholic beverages, and in favor of the
iudgnent which treats them as essentially injurious to
the physical health and vigor of our species.
O BJECTIONS.
I. It may be said that " inloxzicalzng agents of somze kind
have been used in all a,es and by all nations, and/ hat this universal usage constitutes a defence of the practice and a reason for believing that it always will be continued."
But this argument from universality is both historically
and morally unsound. It would be impossible to prove
that in any age of the world even a majority of the persons then living had been users of some kind of intoxicating substance. The highest moral utterances of the
most ancient historical religions-Judaism (in its Nazarite
institution), Brabminism, Buddhism, and Mohammedanism
-have been distinctly on the side of separation from
*See Appendix J.
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