DRUNKENNESS A VICE,-NOT A DISEASE. 
A PAPER 
BY 
Rev. JOHN E. TODD. 
Read at the General Association at Middletown, June 21, 1882, 
and by Vote op that Body Printed and Distributed 
to the Churches. 
HARTFORD, CONN.: 
PRESS OP THE CASE, LOCKWOOD & BRAINARD COMPANY. 
1882. IS DRUNKENNESS A DISEASE, OR A VICE, OR BOTH?* 
The last part of this question is easily answered. Of course 
the whole question has reference to drunkenness in its later stages. 
No one doubts that drinking to excess is in its earlier stages a 
vice, and not a disease. The question is whether habitual drink- 
ing to excess becomes at last a disease, or rather, an unavoidable 
result of disease induced by drinking. Nor does any one doubt 
that in drunkenness in its later stages there is, usually at least, a 
diseased condition of the system. The question is, whether in the 
later stages of drunkenness the act of surrender to drunkenness 
has a physical origin, in a diseased brain, or a moral origin, in a 
depraved will, whether it has a physical or a moral cause, whether 
it is a misfortune or a crime. The supposition that the act has 
both a physical and a moral cause is unnecessary, and therefore, 
in the absence of evidence, unphilosophical; and, except for the 
materialist, it is self-contradictory and absurd; for the impulse to 
drink either can or cannot be resisted, so far as the state of the 
physical system is concerned; if it can, the yielding is vicious; if 
it can not, the yielding is the result of disease. The same act can 
hardly be both physical and moral, both necessary and voluntary, 
both criminal and innocent, both the result of the working of 
physical laws and forces and the result of the exercise of volition, 
at the same instant. 
The prevalent opinion at the present day is, that drunkenness is 
a disease. Medical authorities are divided on the subject. Many 
physicians, especially specialists who make the treatment of drunk- 
enness a business and source of profit, are positive that it is a 
disease. The American Association for the Cure of Inebriates, a 
society composed chiefly of officers of inebriate asylums, at their 
first meeting adopted this as the fundamental article of their 
creed; and various papers were subsequently read by Dr. Parrish, 
the president, and others, in explanation and maintenance of it; 
and at their fifth meeting they declined to accept a report pre- 
sented by Dr. Harris, the physician to the Franklin Reformatory 
•Habitual Drunkenness and Insane Drunkards, By John Charles Bucknill, M.D., 
F.R S., Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, Late Lord Chancellor’s Visitor of 
Lunatics, Lond., Macmillan & Co., 1878. This little book is the foundation of the follow- 
ing essay, and has furnished many of its statements and somewhat of its language. With 
this general acknowledgment it ha* been thought unnecessary to indicate indebtedness 
more particularly. 3 
for Inebriates, at Philadelphia, in which he treated drunkenness 
as a habit, sin, or crime, and spoke of cases being reformed, and 
not cured as in a hospital, on the ground that the truth of intem- 
perance being a disease was the base of their organization, failing 
which their very name would be a fraud upon the public. 
Dr. Bodington, in a paper read before the British Medical Asso- 
ciation, is very precise in his declaration that all drunkenness is a 
disease; and that there are not two kinds of habitual drunken- 
ness, but that the cases are one and all cases of dipsomania, of 
irresistible, uncontrollable, morbid impulse to drink stimulants. 
Dr. Cameron, of Glasgow, in a speech before a committee of 
Parliament, says that “ Prolonged indulgence in alcohol or other 
stimulants, after a time—longer in some cases, shorter in others— 
brings about certain structural alterations, especially in the ner- 
vous system. The results of these deteriorations are, first, a 
depression of vital force, giving rise to a craving for stimulants; 
and second, a depression of the force of the intellect and the will, 
which renders the patient unable to resist that craving.” 
I pause here merely to throw out the suggestion that if this 
theory is the true one the phrase “Reformed drunkards,” or, to 
adopt the absurd slang of temperance, “ Reformed men,” is not 
only inaccurate, but a libel upon the characters of unfortunate 
beings. The only proper phrase is, “Cured drunkards,” or 
“Cured men.” 
In opposition to the medical authorities just quoted, a very 
large proportion of the leading physicians deny emphatically that 
drunkenness is in any sense a disease. Among many other sim- 
ilar testimonies which I have received, an eminent London prac- 
titioner writes me, “ I have never said that there were no such 
drunkards as insane drunkards; I have only fought against the 
mischievous and foolish contention that all drunkenness is a form 
of disease, especially when it has lasted a certain time, and has 
attained a certain intensity.” Men who have had large experience 
in the work of reforming drunkards take the same view. Mr, 
Gibbons, the Superintendent of the Franklin Reformatory at 
Philadelphia, who has had over 1,900 drunkards in his care, 
writes, that “the time has passed for giving soft names to sin,” 
and that his institution teaches the men who seek its shelter that 
liquor drinking is in their case a sin, and that they are the victims 
of a vice, from which nothing but the grace of God can rescue 4 
them. Mr. Bunting, the Superintendent of the New York Home 
for Intemperate Men, writes me, “ I agree with you that drunken- 
ness is not a disease, but a sin.” 
In order to answer the question before us intelligently and cor- 
rectly, we must first settle what disease is, and what vice is, and 
how they differ. 
Disease may be called an abnormal or morbid condition of the 
body, or some part of it. But this is loose and inaccurate; for a 
wound may put some part, and even the whole, of the body into 
an abnormal condition, and yet the patient may be free from dis- 
ease. A more exact medical definition is, “Disease is a condition 
of some one or more parts of the organism, inherited or acquired, 
which always involves and implies an abnormal state of the 
nutrition of those parts, and necessarily tends, if prolonged and 
increased, to diminish or destroy the vital activities of the organ- 
ism.” Disease is always an affection of the body. There is no 
such thing as disease of the mind. When we speak of disease of 
the mind, we either speak figuratively, and use a very improper 
figure, or we mean disease of the brain, affecting mental opera- 
tions. Possibly this statement might be controverted; but it is 
unnecessary to discuss the question here; for it is not claimed by 
any one that drunkenness ordinarily proceeds from disease of the 
mind; the theory is, that drunkenness induces a diseased con- 
dition of the brain and nervous system, which destroys the free- 
dom of the will. 
The same author who gives the definition of disease above 
quoted defines vice as “ a habit of the nervous centers of energizing 
in an emotional direction mischievous to the well-being of the indi- 
vidual and of the community, but consistent with healthy nutrition, 
and not necessarily tending to destroy the vital activities of the 
individual.” The definition is a physiological, and, perhaps, 
somewhat materialistic, treatment of mental operations. It may 
be correct. But I prefer the more general statement, which leaves 
out of sight the physical phenomena of volition, that vice is the 
habitual choice and practice of evil. In popular language vice is 
usually limited to habitual choice and practice of excessive indul- 
gence of some bodily appetite; but the word has a wider sweep. 
Avarice, envy, and ambition, when excessive and habitual, are as 
much vices as drunkenness and licentiousness. 
It is the more necessary to distinguish accurately between dis- 5 
ease and vice that there are some resemblances between them. 
Thus the tendency to disease is sometimes hereditary, and so is that 
to vice. The causes of acquired disease are sometimes small, 
gradual, and accumulative, and so are those of vice. By contin- 
uance and repetition diseased conditions become inveterate, and so 
do vicious ones, indeed, by far the more so. And disease is 
cured by reihoving the cause, and vice is abrogated by the same 
means; and in both, when the cause returns, the effect is repro- 
duced. Such are the resemblances pointed out by Dr. Bucknill. 
But on the other hand there are essential differences between vice 
and disease. Disease consists solely and entirely in some change 
in the organization, which is often known to and is always think- 
able by the physician; but it is not known that vice consists in or 
is even accompanied by any such change. Certain vices may pro- 
duce such a change as an effect, but such changes are not known 
to exist as constituent conditions of vice. The causes of disease 
are physical, and the last link in the chain of causation, the causal 
condition, is invariably so; the cause of vice, on the other hand, is 
always moral, even where the conditions of the vice are grossly 
material and sensual. The remedies for disease are mostly physi- 
cal, and are invariably of a physiological nature; the remedies for 
vice are of a different nature, and are mainly directed to elicit 
opposing desire, to make indulgence more immediately painful, 
and to influence the judgment. With some exceptions, persons 
suffering front mental disease are not conscious of their misfor- 
tune; the vicious man is generally conscious of his vice. Few 
men are diseased; but all are vicious. The one state is an accident 
to man’s nature; the. other is an element of it. These are Dr. 
Bucknill’s distinctions. 
Keeping these distinctions steadily in mind, we are prepared to 
discuss the question, Is drunkenness, in its last stages, an irresisti- 
ble propensity caused by a diseased condition of the brain, or is it 
from first to last the choice of a depraved and wicked will ? 
Perhaps it is necessary to point out the bearing of the question 
a little more definitely still. The question is not, whether the con- 
dition of drunkenness is a condition of disease. “ It must be ad- 
mitted that when a man is actually drunk his organism is in a 
state of disease, as the same must be admitted of him when he has 
eaten more than he can easily digest, or when he is exhausted by 
debauchery, or actually suffering disturbance of healthy function 6 
from any other sensual excess; for any condition of the organism 
by which its healthy functions are disturbed, and which, if indefi- 
nitely prolonged and increased, would tend to their suspension, and 
even death, must be called a diseased condition.” But the ques- 
tion is, not what a man’s condition is when he is drunk, but what 
is the cause of his action in the intervals in which he is compara- 
tively sober. "When he is not specially under the influence of 
liquor, when he has been perfectly sober for days or weeks or 
even months, what is it that makes him go to drinking again, 
though perfectly aware of the ruin that he is bringing upon him- 
self ? Is it a diseased brain ? Or is it a depraved will ? 
Nor does the question relate to cases of actual insanity. Some- 
times the propensity to drunkenness is directly caused by a pre- 
vious diseased state of the brain, inherited, or resulting from 
injury, such as accidental concussion or sunstroke; or at least the 
way to it is prepared by such insanity. Sometimes intemperance 
produces genuine insanity; though it is the testimony of experts 
in insanity that alcoholic insanity is oftener found in the children 
or grandchildren of moderate drinkers than as the immediate 
result of excessive drinking—a powerful argument against moder- 
ate drinking. But in all such cases there are always other symp- 
toms of insanity than the mere craving for drink. And these 
cases are comparatively rare. There are also on record cases of 
genuine dipsomania, that is, morbid impulse to drink, in persons 
otherwise sound in body and mind, and virtuous in character. 
“ As the kleptomaniac steals, not for the sake of possessing the 
thing he steals, and the homicidal maniac destroys life, not for the 
purpose of making any person cease to live, so the dipsomaniac 
drinks, not because he likes to drink, or likes to get drunk, but 
because he has an uncontrollable and morbid impulse to swallow 
intoxicating liquor.” But genuine cases of dipsomania are so 
rare that physicians of large experience in insanity declare that 
they have never met with a case. 
Dr. Bucknill writes : “In a somewhat large experience, I have 
myself never yet met with an undoubted instance of pure dipso- 
mania; and I observe that very few examples are on record in 
medical literature, and that these are copied by one author from 
another in a manner which sufficiently testifies their rarity. The 
evidence, however, of credible observers is perhaps sufficient to 
establish the fact of their occasional occurrence.” Mr. Bunting 7 
writes me: “ I do not think that in the five years that I have been 
in the New York Christian Home for Intemperate men we have 
had one case of dipsomania, although in that time we have had 
nine hundred confirmed drunkards.” 
These instances of connection between intemperance and gen- 
uine insanity, comparatively few in number, are admitted, and are 
left out of this discussion. The question before us relates to the 
great mass of common drunkards, who evince no other symptom 
or manifestation of insanity than the habitual propensity to get 
drunk. 
Once more, the question is not whether the drunkard is in a 
healthy or diseased condition; but it is, whether he has a disease 
which is the cause of a resistless propensity to drink, and is not 
merely an effect of drinking. 
It is claimed that microscopic examination of the brain of the 
drunkard, after death, reveals structural changes, consisting prin- 
cipally of shrinkage of the nerve cells of one of the brains. 
However this may be, it proves nothing, until it is shown that 
such structural changes are, or indicate the presence of, disease 
which produces irresistible craving for drink. The mere existence 
of an abnormal condition of the brain proves nothing. There 
must be proof that this abnormal condition of the brain is the 
cause of an irresistible propensity to drink, and not a mere effect 
of drink; otherwise we might as well reason that because drunk- 
ards usually have red noses and ragged breeches, therefore their 
red noses and ragged breeches are the cause of an irresistible 
propensity in them to drink. It has never been proved that the 
structural changes observed in the brains of some defunct drunk- 
ards are the cause of anything. The very existence of such 
structural changes is not yet admitted by the highest medical 
authorities generally. Nor is it apparent that the subjects dis- 
sected were carefully selected as mere habitual drunkards, and 
did not belong rather to the class of insane drunkards, whose 
brains we should naturally expect to find in an abnormal con- 
dition. 
We can decide the question respecting drunkenness, therefore, 
only by the consideration of outward facts and phenomena. 
I observe then that there is no apparent difference between drunk- 
enness in its first and drunkenness in its last stages. In both 
cases there is an appetite, and a will to gratify it. The man 8 
drinks simply because he likes drink, or likes to be drunk, and 
because he likes it better than anything that he can get by not 
drinking. 
But it will at once be said, that the difference is, that in the 
later stages of drunkenness the appetite is irresistible. To this 
I reply, in the first place, by questioning the fact. I have known 
of cases in which men who were far gone in drunkenness, subject 
even to periodical attacks, under the influence of pride, or some 
such motive, having given a promise, or made a bet, or formed a 
resolution, or signed a pledge, instantly ceased drinking, and re- 
mained totally abstinent for one, two, or even several years. In 
fact, the whole policy of getting drunkards to sign pledges is 
based upon the belief that they can stop drinking. I have never 
heard of a temperance society’s refusing a drunkard’s pledge, on 
the ground that it was impossible for him to stop drinking; and 
therefore it is reasonable to conclude that all temperance societies 
believe that the drunkard is not subject to an irresistible propen- 
sity. 
All’ temperance orators and workers appeal to the intemperate 
among their hearers, with expostulations, remonstrances, argu- 
ments, encouragements, warnings; from which we may conclude 
that they do not believe that their hearers are the helpless victims 
of disease. Physicians do not remonstrate and argue with their 
small-pox patients, and appeal to them to get well; they give them 
medical treatment. Almost all the methods and operations of 
temperance reformers are perfectly useless and absurd, and utterly 
erroneous and unsuitable, if drunkenness is a disease. 
Dr. Bucknill cites the following case: “Many old Rugbeians 
will remember, as I do, J. S., the clever, amusing drunkard, who 
used to entertain their boyhood with music and legerdemain in 
the dining-halls. After a heavy debauch he made a bet of one 
guinea that he would not get drunk again for a twelvemonth, and 
he won it. He waited until midnight of the last day of his 
sobriety, and then steadily recommenced theprocessof drinking him- 
self into his grave. He was never sober again.” The reason why 
men do not resist the appetite for drink is, that they prefer the 
gratification of that craving to everything else, and choose it. If 
it is possible to put before a drunkard something that seems to 
him preferable to that, he will without difficulty refrain from 
drinking. Without denying that there are, or may be, cases in 9 
which the drunkard is subject to a resistless propensity, I con- 
sider it certain that the great multitude of drunkards could stop 
drinking to-day and for ever, if they would; but they don’t want 
to, and they won’t. 
But, it will be asked, may not the will become so weakened and 
broken-down through indulgence, that the man is unable to resist 
the craving of appetite ? Possibly it may; the question is wheth- 
er it does. The drunkard’s will weak ! That is news ! Put a 
drunkard in circumstances in which it is difficult for him to get 
liquor, and see how weak his will is! There is no man of such 
desperate determination and force of will, as the drunkard who is 
bound to have his dram. The very difficulty with the drunkard 
is, that his will is so strong. If his will were weak, it would be 
easy to influence him not to drink. It is just because he is so 
determined to drink, that it is impossible to save him. 
But, it is said, his will is weak in certain directions; he is weak 
about doing right. Precisely; that is, he has a depraved will; 
Ibut if we are going to recognize a depraved will as a physical 
disease, we had better turn our churches into hospitals, and our 
ministers into physicians, and accept materialism as our theology. 
What is wickedness but depravity of will ? 
But, it is said, these helpless victims, in the intervals of drunk- 
enness, most earnestly desire to be delivered from their bondage, 
pray, weep, vow, sign pledges, take medicines, and use every 
possible means, and show every possible desire, to escape. Yes, 
just as in all our congregations there are men who think that they 
want to be Christians, seek religious counsel, exhibit feeling, ex- 
press earnest wishes that they were Christians, and, in a vague, 
general way, do wish it; but they are self-deceived; put before 
them the duty of immediate submission to Christ, or let some 
real temptation arise, and let the will be summoned to act, and 
they will turn away to “ the flesh, the world, and the devil.” So 
with these “victims”; when they have no particular temptation to 
be otherwise than sober, and there is no special occasion for the 
will to act, they do really, in a vague and general way, want to be 
sober; but the moment that they are put to the test, and their 
real choice must be made, they will take the “ drunk ” every time. 
Granting, for the sake of the argument, that in some extreme 
cases, or even in many or all cases if you choose, the will is help- 10 
less. This is not necessarily or probably the effect of disease. 
For it is in the nature of vice to become inveterate. A man may 
reject the gospel to such a point that it is impossible for him to 
repent; but it is not a disease with him. Any habit may become 
a despotic tyrant, an irrefragable chain; but habits are not dis- 
eases. It is good theology that every wicked will is more or less 
in bondage, that all sin is servitude, that hopeless confirmation in 
wickedness finally results from long-continued practice of wicked- 
ness, as a judicial infliction ; but the devil and his angels are not 
diseased. If they are, no doubt they have plenty of doctors with 
them ; let us hope that they will get cured. 
It is important to observe that all vices partake of the nature, 
and exhibit the phenomena of drunkenness, to a greater or less 
extent; yet it is not pretended in the case of any other of them 
that there is disease. Opium eating is a terrible vice. Those who 
are guilty of it are quite as hopelessly enthralled as drunkards 
are; but in medical works generally opium-eating is not reckoned 
a disease. There is certainly no authority whatever in support of 
the idea that licentiousness is a disease; yet libertines are often 
more enslaved and worse diseased than drunkards. I would 
rather undertake to reform a drunkard than to deliver a miser 
from the avarice which holds his soul in bondage; but no one will 
pretend that avarice is a disease. 
The opinions of drunkards themselves are worth noting. I 
have had them say to me, “ This notion that drunkenness is a dis- 
ease is all moonshine; I know perfectly well that I can stop drink- 
ing if I want to.” Such testimony is of very little value, for the 
speaker may have been deceived, or he may have lied; all drunk- 
ards are incorrigible liars; and there is abundant testimony on the 
other side, which may also rest on self-deception or falsehood. 
But there is a meaning in the universal unconscious testimony 
of drunkards. When they come out of their spells of debauchery, 
if they have any moral sense at all left, they are always ashamed, 
penitent, remorseful. What on earth are they ashamed of, or re- 
morseful about, if they have only had an attack of disease ? Men 
are not ashamed of having had the typhoid fever, or penitent for 
having had the rheumatism. Ah, the drunkard knows that he is 
guilty, and not unfortunate. 
I hold that there is a great deal of tenderness misplaced on the 
drunkard ill these days, and that he does not, in public opinion, 11 
occupy the place to which he is entitled. Consider for a moment 
what a drunkard is, and what he has done. Very few men are 
born with inherited taste or appetite for liquor. The children of 
drunkards are not apt to be drunkards; they have seen enough of 
it. The children of moderate drinkers are much more apt to be- 
come drunkards; but their tendencies are easily accounted for by 
referring to early influences and training. Medical testimony is 
precise and abundant on this point, that inherited tendency to 
drunkenness is comparatively rare and slight. The popular idea 
on this subject is an immense exaggeration of the truth. 
In the last annual report of the New York Christian Home for 
Intemperate Men I find that out of 176 confirmed drunkards who 
were admitted to the Home last year, only 28 had intemperate 
parents. And it does not follow, even in these cases, that because 
the parents were intemperate the children inherited a tendency to 
intemperance; which shows, as the Report well says, “the 
fallacy ” of the notion of inherited appetite. 
It is the universal testimony that there are very few who like 
and crave liquor from the first. The appetite for drink is ac- 
quired, and usually not without considerable effort. The drunk- 
ard, then, has made a deliberate effort to acquire a degrading appe- 
tite; he has sedulously cultivated that appetite for years ; if he had 
any hereditary predisposition or liability to it, and knew it, so 
much the worse for him. He has poured poison down his throat to 
the loss of health, property, respectability, influence, honor, man- 
hood, mind, and soul; he has brought untold suffering and misery 
upon his family, grief and shame upon all his friends, a pernicious 
influence upon the whole community; he has made a worse than 
beast of himself, a shipwreck of time, and a hell of eternity; and 
he has done this for the sake of a little sensual gratification, 
deliberately, knowing all the time what he was doing, and, cer- 
tainly until the very last stages, perfectly able at any time to 
change his course. If there is any man on earth who deserves 
the abhorrence of mankind and the curse of God it is the drunk- 
ard. The latter he gets abundantly. Whatever controversy there 
may be about the attitude of the Word of God with reference to 
the use of wine, there can be none with reference to its denuncia- 
tion of drunkards. It gives no uncertain sound. It deals in no 
mealy-mouthed language about the disease of alcoholism and the 
victims of intemperance. 12 
“Woe to the drunkards of Ephraim!” “Woe unto them that 
rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink; 
that continue until night, till wine inflame them.” “If any man 
defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy.” “Nor thieves, 
nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall 
inherit the kingdom of God.” 
Pity the drunkard? Aye, pity him, by all means! Pity him 
as you do the libertine sinking into the grave, in mind and body a 
mass of rottenness; pity him as you do the lost soul in hell; all 
sin and suffering call for compassion, even as they have received 
the tears of the Son of God. But I must protest vigorously 
against all this cloaking of the vice of drunkenness with euphem- 
isms; this calling drunkards “diseased men,” “inebriates,” “vic- 
tims of intemperance ” ; this throwing of the responsibility and 
guilt of drunkenness upon liquor-sellers, who have guilt enough 
of their own, instead of upon drunkards, where it chiefly belongs; 
this coddling and nursing and effusively compassionating and 
petting and puffing of drunkards; this lifting of men out of the 
gutter onto platforms and into pulpits and glorifying them and 
making heroes and saints of them. I have heard a newly-re- 
formed drunkard address a whole churchful of Christians and 
ministers who had all their lives been humbly and consistently 
following Christ, and, without the slightest apparent contrition or 
sense of having done anything wrong, throw all the blame for his 
misfortunes upon the liquor-sellers who supplied him with drink, 
and Christians whose apathy let him go on drinking; and as I 
listened, and heard how derelict and sinful I was, I almost re- 
gretted that I was not a nice innocent drunkard, who only of all 
sane men is without responsibility and devoid of guilt. The 
whole tendency of public opinion at the present day is, to regard 
the man who controls his appetites, and never drinks enough to 
disturb his brain, as the sinner and villain par excellence; even 
the totally-abstinent poor man is not worthy of notice, and may 
toil and suffer without any one’s caring much about him; but if 
he will only drink without restraint, and make a beast of himself, 
and make his bed in the gutter, there is hope that he will be some- 
body, and find rich friends, and have a great deal done for him, 
and very likely become a famous public orator, and have crowds 
sit at his feet, and take a high place in heaven. 
I believe that the influence of all this is fearfully demoralizing; 13 
that it tends to blind the drunkard himself, and those who are in 
danger of becoming drunkards, to the real nature and guilt of 
the vice of drunkenness; to confound and obliterate in the public 
mind all moral distinctions, and to set a premium upon vice. 
What is this man staggering up the street? What is this well- 
dressed,. seeming gentleman, whose bloated face and blood-shot 
eyes and trembling hands and feeble gait speak of wine-dinners 
and midnight carousals and incipient delirium tremens ? He is a 
miserable drunkard, a vile sot, who has made his belly his god, 
and has deliberately sacrificed to beastly intoxication duty, man- 
hood, love, honor, happiness, heaven, and everything else. Let us 
call things by their right names. The sooner that the drunkard 
takes the place in public estimation to which he belongs, the 
sooner will young men begin to hesitate about applying for the 
situation. No drunkard shall enter the kingdom of God! What 
a horribly unjust and cruel sentence, if the drunkard is only a 
poor, helpless victim of disease ! Why should not the drunkard 
enter the kingdom of God? Because he is wicked; one of the 
most wicked men that live. That is all. 
There is no gain whatever in the establishment of the theory 
that drunkenness is a disease. Of course the object is, to relieve 
the drunkard of responsibility, and to shield him from the con- 
demnation of his fellow men. In the latter respect the attempt is 
no doubt to a great extent successful. But there is no real deliv- 
erance from responsibility. It is impossible to evade or destroy 
responsibility in this way. The drunkard is not helped at the bar 
of infinite justice by these subterfuges. It is not only in accord- 
dance with the dictates of conscience and common sense, but it is 
a well-established judicial decision, that a man in a state of intox- 
ication is responsible for everything that he does, for the reason 
that he is responsible for being in that state. It has been repeat- 
edly held in the highest courts, that-, drunkenness is no justification 
of a crime, or excuse for it, but is rather an aggravation of it; 
and men have often been hung for murders committed in a state 
of intoxication, of which they subsequently had no remembrance. 
A man cannot voluntarily destroy his conscience or will, and then 
plead innocence in all that he may do after that. On that princi- 
ple the devils in hell are by this time as innocent as the angels in 
heaven Whether a man’s surrender to drunkenness is the result 
of a resistless propensity caused by a physical disease which he 14 
has voluntarily brought upon himself, or is the result of a resist- 
less propensity caused by a moral depravity which he has brought 
upon himself, or is an act of his own free choice, he is equally 
responsible for it. The flattering unctions which men. lay to the 
soul of the drunkard, and with which they seek to extenuate his 
fault, and soften public opinion, may succeed with the unthinking 
multitude, but will not bear the slightest examination at the bar of 
human reason; much less will they avail at the bar of God. 
I believe that a very large part of the effort that is put forth 
for the reclamation of drunkards is wasted, and would be far 
better expended in other directions. The men to work upon are 
those who are not drunkards. Aside from the universally ac- 
knowledged difficulty of permanently reforming drunkards, I 
doubt whether, as a class, if they could be reformed, they are 
worth the powder. I mean, of course, in comparison with other 
classes that need saving. Every human soul is worth saving; but 
what I mean is, that if a choice is to be made, drunkards are 
about the last class to be taken hold of. 
Were it not for the criticism and indignation which this passage 
has called forth, I should hardly think that with its carefully 
worded qualifications it could be misunderstood. But since it has 
been misunderstood, permit me to call attention to the qualifica- 
tions. I am speaking of drunkards as a class, and not of the 
brilliant exceptions, which will occur to every one. Nor is it my 
wish unnecessarily to wound any one’s feelings. If any one has 
intemperate friends, let us allow that they are among the excep- 
tions. Probably the world would not always agree with the par- 
tial estimate of friendship; but let us admit that they are excep- 
tions. This does not invalidate the remark with reference to 
drunkards as a class. Nor do I literally mean that drunkards, or 
any class of them, are not actually worth saving, as I have taken 
pains to explain. My intention has been merely to express in a 
very strong way the opinion that drunkards as a class are very 
inferior men, aside from their drunkenness. 
The drunkard is a poor creature, not only when he is drunk, 
but also when he is sober. An eminent medical authority says of 
drunkards, that “they are half of them fools to begin with, and 
the other half become fools by their indulgences; they are usually 
facile, sensual, irresolute liars, devoid of the rudiments of con- 
science, self-control, or true affection.” And here let me interrupt 15 
the thought, to call attention to the argument supplied by this 
fact. It is imaginable that a diseased condition of the brain 
might cause enfeeblement of the will; but, unless we are prepared 
to accept materialism flat-footed, it cannot be allowed that false- 
hood, torpidity or decay of conscience, and loss of natural af- 
fection, are results of disintegration of the brain. These things 
are the natural concomitants and effects of vice, not of disease; 
and their accompanying drunkenness shows that it is a vice, and 
not a disease. 
The things that I have known drunkards to do, in their sober 
moments, and not under the influence of craving for drink, in the 
way of heartlessness, falsehood, and folly, are almost beyond be- 
lief. No doubt their worthlessness has been greatly increased by 
indulgence in vice; but it existed from the beginning. In vino 
veritas. Drunkenness merely develops and manifests natural traits 
and infirmities. The man who beats his wife and children when 
he is drunk is the man who, before he was drunk, deliberately 
preferred his own self-gratification to their happiness. There is 
no confidence to be placed in such a man’s professions or manifes- 
tations of love to his family. No doubt, when he comes to him- 
self, he professes a great deal of contrition, and manifests a great 
deal of tenderness toward his family, and sheds a great many tears; 
drunkards are apt to be sentimental, emotional, demonstrative, 
snivelling, slobbering, slavering, sappy; and this they call—love I 
Bah ! I tell you that the men who really love their families don’t 
get drunk. 
I utterly reject the common notion that the warmest-hearted 
and noblest and best men are most likely to become drunkards. 
We constantly hear it said that the men who are ruined by 
intemperance are the choicest and most glorious of the race. The 
doctrine is not substantiated by facts; and its only tendency is, to 
lead young men to think that they must drink, in order to show 
that they are choice spirits. On the contrary, I would say to 
every young man, “ If you want to demonstrate to the world your 
utter worthlessness, keep on drinking.” Who are the young men 
who are ruined by liquor, as a rule ? They are those who haven’t 
moral courage enough to bear* the ridicule of their companions, 
who have not moral principle enough to refrain from what they 
know is wrong and foolish, to whom character and success in life 
are of less moment than a little present physical gratification, or 16 
dissipation in which they do not find much gratification. "Who 
are the men who have achieved position, made money, obtained 
influence and power, risen high in the world, but those who had 
some manhood ? It is a pleasant fancy for drinkers that they are 
the geniuses, and that young men who refuse to drink are milk- 
sops, mean, stingy, narrow, bigoted, etc.; but it isn’t true. 
Gifted, brilliant, witty, lavish, genial, agreeable, fascinating, the 
men often are, no doubt, who become victims of conviviality and 
good fellowship; but their excellences are apt to be superficial 
and false; their generosity is often recklessness; their affection is 
often an unmeaning demonstrativeness; they are often to the 
center of the soul utterly selfish and heartless. And they invaria- 
bly have some weak streak, some radical defect, some screw loose, 
some moral perversity in them. I don’t think much of drunkard 
timber. If there is any relieving feature of the case in regard to 
drunkenness among us, it is that, as war among barbarous tribes, 
so intemperance among civilized nations is a great provision of 
nature by means of which an immense amount of worthlessness is 
eliminated from the human race, and the survival of the fittest is 
secured. As a rule, the victims of intemperance are those whom 
the world can best spare. And by the provision that reduces by 
two-thirds the increase in the families of drunkards, nature has 
secured the obliteration of the worthless breed. 
Attempts to reform drunkards are generally failures. I do not 
at all call in question the reality and genuineness of reforms 
produced by true conversion and the operations of divine grace; 
on the contrary, I recognize real conversion as a sure, and the 
only sure or hopeful, means of reform. A great many drunkards 
and opium-eaters and other vicious characters have been rescued 
as brands from the burning by the Saviour of sinners. It is com- 
mon to regard these wonderful changes as miraculous. And, in 
fact, this is the natural and only possible explanation of the 
instantaneous and permanent reform of a drunkard, on the theory 
that his drunkenness is a disease. And this in itself shows that 
the whole theory is false and absurd. The power which is ex- 
erted in the regeneration of a drunkard is not miraculous; it is 
supernatural. His conversion is ndt accompanied with, still less 
does it consist in, a magical, miraculous healing of disease in him; 
but it is the renewing and transforming of his wicked will, by 
the power of the Spirit of God, 17 
Let me read to you two or three accounts of reformation 
through conversion. 
“One man, a Mr. P., a merchant of this city, from one of 
our oldest and best families, had drank liquor for fifty-six years. 
At the time he came with us, had reached the age of 72. He 
became a converted man while in the Home, and abandoned the 
use of liquor immediately, and from that time to the present, 
three years, has never used the intoxicating beverage, but as far 
as we can learn has lived a consistent Christian life. Another, a 
Mr. E., had been a confirmed drunkard for forty years. Came to 
the Home at the age of 61, and from the date of his conversion 
here with us, which is now some three and a half years ago, has 
lived a most worthy Christian life. A Mr. 0. had been con- 
stantly under the influence of stimulants for ten years. Had 
been a drinking man for twenty years. Was converted, is now 
an active member of the Methodist Church, and through his pious 
example, has been the instrument under God of bringing his wife 
and daughter to a saving knowledge of Christ, nearly five years 
ago. Another; a Mr. P., now my assistant in the religious work 
of the Home, was for ten years a drunkard, five years an aban- 
doned wretch; made his home in the station house, and Tombs, 
and the Island. For the five years, seemingly, was a most hope- 
less case; accepted Christ in this Home, over four years ago. 
All these men men I have named, have lived noble Christian 
lives; and further, have never had the desire to taste liquor since. 
So I can give you the names of scores and hundreds that have 
been converted to Christ in this Home. Sound in body and mind, 
perfectly healthy, they have been, ever since the liquor was out and 
God’s grace in.” 
In another part of the same letter the writer says, “We have 
sometimes not had a physician in our institution for several 
months at a time.” 
Now does any one believe that these confirmed and seemingly 
hopeless drunkards, who, under religious constraint, and without 
medical treatment, and without the aid of a physician, can in- 
stantly leave off drinking, and remain totally abstinent and Chris- 
tian men for years, are diseased men,—that disease can be cured 
in that way ? 
But, apart from such religious transformations, reformation of 
confirmed drunkards is very rare. Here and there, after the 18 
expenditure of enormous labor and care, there is produced a case 
of reformation which seems to be radical and permanent; but it 
is allowed on all hands, that it is one of the most difficult things in 
the world to reform a drunkard. At one of the meetings of the 
Association of Medical Officers of Asylums for the Insane at 
which this subject was discussed, not a tittle of evidence was 
forthcoming that any considerable proportion of habitual drunk- 
ards were cured, while on the contrary, Dr. John Gray, superin- 
tendent of the Asylum for the State of New York, asserted, “ I 
can recall some very remarkable cases of restoration from that 
habit, lasting eight, ten, or twenty years, that is, from the time of 
their discharge from the asylum to the present ; but I can count 
them all upon my angers.” The Commissioners in Lunacy for 
Scotland, public men of large views and wide experience, who 
possess abundant opportunities for observation, who have watched 
the considerable number of habitual drunkards who place them- 
selves voluntarily in the Scotch asylums, and who also officially 
visit the Scotch inebriate asylums, to see that no really insane 
persons are detained therein, in their report for 1872 say: ‘'It 
would not be easy to point out a single case of permanent and 
satisfactory reform.” The latest report of the Inspector of 
Retreats for the intemperate in England says, '• I am unable to 
point out a single case where a permanent cure has been effected.” 
Young men who are indulging in the use of intoxicating drinks, 
under the impression that they can leave off whenever they choose, 
will do well to ponder these facts. Those who already have con- 
firmed habits of drinking will do well to take note that, except 
in immediate and thorough conversion and renewal by the grace 
of God, there is hardly the ghost of a chance for them. 
In a discussion at a meeting of the Social Science Association 
of England, Dr Ellis is reported to have said that “ he had for 
the last fifteen years kept a private establishment for the recep- 
tion of persons habitually intemperate, and had had under his 
charge persons of the highest position, ladies and gentlemen of 
title ; but his experience was that, having passed a certain line, 
they were incurable.” 
Dr. Cuyler, who is well known as one of the foremost temper- 
ance-workers in this country, writes me, “ I also believe that 
voluntary drunkenness may at last place a person under such 
wretched conditions that recovery is hopeless ; appetite becomes 19 
invincible ; the man is a rotten wreck .... I too have ceased 
to whine about poor drunkards, in the mawkish style of the plat- 
form ; I tell boys and young men, it is suicide.” 
It is a relief, however, to find that such institutions as the two 
at New York and Philadelphia which I have repeatedly referred 
to, wdiich do not treat intemperance as a disease, but handle it as 
a vice to be reformed by moral and religious methods, claim, with 
apparent justice, to save about one-third of those who are brought 
to them. The one at Philadelphia has a society of about six 
hundred graduates, who are encouraging and helping one another, 
and are apparently reclaimed. 
Inebriate asylums have proved costly failures. In some places 
expensive buildings, originally designed for such institutions, 
have been turned into asylums for the insane, as in the province 
of Ontario, in Canada, avowedly because of the failure of such 
institutions in this1 country. We are informed that there are 
more than sixty inebriate asylums in the world, and that they are 
constantly increasing. If so, it is in regions where they have 
not been tried, and their worthlessness has not been found out. 
they have been tried, they have failed. Two at least have 
perished in Hartford. The Binghamton Institution has been a 
public scandal from its beginning. An English physician of 
eminence visiting this country for the express purpose examined 
all our inebriate asylums a few years ago and found them all 
worthless, with the exception of the Reformatory at Philadelphia. 
In most of them no medical treatment was attempted. Every 
community among us has its graduates from these asylums, who 
are living testimonials of their worthlessness. Discharged as 
cured, many of them have been drunk when they arrived at home. 
All this shows that labor expended upon drunkards is for the 
most part labor wasted upon the wrong end of the inclined plane. 
But it shows something more. Why have these institutions 
proved failures? Because they have been based upon a false 
principle. Hospitals for well people cannot succeed ; asylums for 
sane people cannot prosper ; institutions for the cure of burglars 
would not accomplish anything ; and yet an asylum for the cure 
of thieves would be as reasonable and sensible as an asylum for 
the cure of drunkards. Inebriate asylums cannot cure drunkards, 
because, apart from its more physical effects, there is nothing in 
drunkenness itself to cure. Every now and then we hear of some 20 
drug of newly-discovered properties which is going to prove an 
antidote to drunkenness, and a cure for all intemperance. We 
wait anxiously, but we wait in vain; nothing ever conies of it, 
and nothing ever will come of it; as well might we search the 
materia medica for a cure for blasphemy. “Cure her,” cried 
Macbeth to the physician: 
‘ ‘ Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased, 
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, 
Raze out the written troubles of the brain, 
And with some sweet oblivious antidote 
Cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff 
Which weighs upon the heart? ” 
The physician, wiser than some of his professional brethren of 
later times, replied, “ Therein the patient must minister to him- 
self; this disease is beyond my practice.” 
What drunkards need is reform; but that is not within the 
scope of medical science. The very incurableness of drunkenness 
shows its real nature. Every disease is controllable, and to a 
large extent curable, by medical skill. If drunkenness were a 
disease, there would be a very considerable percentage of cures; 
but the large percentages once boasted by inebriate asylums have 
shrunk into lamentable insignificance, with the enlargement of 
experience and the tests of time, and the asylums themselves are 
fast passing away as failures. A habit of mind is more inveterate 
than a disorder of the body ; vice is more unmanageable than 
disease; wickedness, beyond a certain point, is more desperate 
than death itself, more remediless than the grave.