THE   DOGMA
                     OF

HUMAS   RESPONSIBILITY,

      Moee Especially as it Relates to Inebriety,
Being a Paper Read before the Last Annual Meeting of the American
  Association for the Cure of Inebriates, and Published in the Sep-
      tember Number of the "Journal of Inebriety," 1877.
          Rev.  J. Willett,

Su/vrintendmt of the Inebriates'' Home, Fort Hamilton, Kings County, N. V.

SEPTEMBEE
1, 1877.-S /$, a
            3fo*it Hamilton;
PRINTED AT THE INEBRIATES' HOME FOR KINGS COUNTY.
1877. 
 
           the  dogkmla.
                       OF
Human  Responsibility.
               The Universality of Law,
  In every age and in every clime, under every divine dis-
pensation and under every form of temporal government,
the dogma of man's responsibility has invariably been recog-
nized.  The  human family may be said to be divided into
two classes, viz., those who govern and those who are governed.
  Whatever  the form of government, whether  savage or
sage, from democracy to despotism, the people  are amenable
to the powers that be.
  This dogma of responsibility to law presupposes the exis-
tence of will power and the mental  and physical capacity to
render obedience.
  All legislation, whether divine or temporal,  is assumed to
be restricted to the capacity of the human intellect, and also
the physical ability of each individual amenable to authority.
             The Antiquity of Natural Law.
  The dogma of human responsibility is, indeed, older than
all known temporal law and dates back to the first generation.
  Blackstone, the standard jurist, says, " It is clear that the
right of punishing crimes against the law of nature, as mur-
der  and the like, is, in a state of mere nature,  vested  in 
4
every individual—for it must be vested in somebody; other-
wise the laws of nature would be vain and fruitless, if none
were  empowered  to  put them  in  execution;  and if that
power is vested  in any one, it must  also be  vested in all
mankind, since all are by nature equal.   Whereof the first
murderer, Cain, was so sensible, thafwe find him expressing
his apprehensions  that  whoever should find him would slay
him.
               The Sovereign Power of L.H.W.
   " In a state of society this  right is transferred from indi-
viduals to the sovereign power; whereby men are prevented
from being judges in their own causes, which is one  of the
evils that civil government was intended to remedy.  What-
ever power, therefore, individuals had of punishing offences
against the law of nature, that is now vested  in the magis-
trate alone,  who bears  the sword of justice by the consent
of the whole community."
                 Exeniptional Provisions.
   Inasmuch as general laws embrace within their provisions
the whole community to which they relate, no persons can
be excused from rendering obedience except those who are
expressly exempted by said laws.
   Blackstone defines the  various pleas for exemption from
the punishment of violated laws as follows:
   " All the  several pleas and excuses which protect the com-
mitter of a  forbidden  act from  the  punishment which is
otherwise annexed thereto may  be reduced to this single
consideration—the want or defect of will.  An involuntary
act, as it has no claim to merit, so neither can it induce any
guilt: the  concurrence of the will, when it has  its  choice
either to do or to avoid the fact in question, being the only
thing that  renders human  actions either praiseworthy or
culpable.  Indeed, to make a complete crime cognizable by
human laws there must be both a will and an act.   *   *  *
For which reason, in all temporal jurisdictions, an  overt act,
or some open evidence of an intended crime, is necessary in
order to  demonstrate the  depravity of  the will before the 
5
man is liable to punishment.   And,  as  a vicious will with-
out a vicious act is no civil  crime, so, on the other hand, an
unwarrantable act without a vicious  will is no crime at all.
So that, to  constitute a crime  against  human  laws, there
must be, first, a vicious will; and, secondly, an  unlawful act
consequent  on such vicious will."
            Classification jof Exemptional Cases.
  The learned writer then proceeds to  classify  the cases
which come under the exemptional provisions of law on the
ground of "defect  of will,"  and since  they are so clearly
and tersely stated, we cannot do better in the consideration of
this phase of  the question than to further quote his illustra-
tion of these  conditions of will-power.   He observes:
  "Now  there are three cases in which the will does not
join with  the act.   1. Where there is a defect of the under-
standing.   For where there  is  no  discernment there is no
choice, and  where there is no choice there can be no act of
the will, which is nothing else but a determination of one's
choice to do or to abstain from a particular action:  he, there-
fore, that has  no  understanding can have no will to guide
his conduct.  2. Where there is understanding  and will suf-
ficient residing in  the party, but not called forth or exerted
at  the time of the  action  done, which is the case of all
offences committed by chance or ignorance.  Here the  will
sits neuter,  and neither concurs with the act nor disagrees to
it.   3.  Where the  action  is  constrained by some outward
force and violence.   Here the will counteracts the deed, and
is so far from concurring  with, that it loathes and  disagrees
to what the man is obliged to perform."
  He then proceeds to define the several  species  of defect
of will and classifies them  under the heads  of " Infancy,"
" Idiocy," " Lunacy," and " Intoxication."
                         Infancy.
  In reference to the first class, the question  of responsi
bility is not to be regulated by age, but rather by the capacity 
                            6
of the child to comprehend the requirements of law.  It is
a question of the measure of the understanding, judgment,
and will power.
                   Idiots and Lunatics.
  As regards the second and  third classes, viz., idiots and
lunatics, the above rule will to a considerable extent apply.
Under the English law the idiocy must be passed upon by a
jury as total, or  the insanity as  absolute, before the perpe-
trator of crime can be excused from the guilt and punishment
of an illegal or criminal action. If the insane person have lucid
intervals of the  understanding, judgment, and will, he is,
during those intervals, as  much  amenable to law as though
he were a person of sound mind.
  While temporal laws cannot take cognizance of  the fact
that lunacy is frequently induced by the voluntary action ot
the  victims of this  malady, nor that  in many instances it
is the sad result of indulgence in  intemperate and vicious
habits which at  one  time they had  full physical and
mental power to control  or resist, the interest of good gov-
ernment and the protection of society from violence demand
that all pleas of immunity from the punishment due  to crime
on the ground of the insanity of the perpetrator should be re-
garded with suspicion and should undergo the severest tests be-
fore they are allowed to prevail.   In almost every case where
physical disease  is assumed  the skillful physician can easily
detect any attempt at fraud; bv»t  it  is not uncommon for
criminals  to feign lunacy and frequently to deceive those
who claim to be  experts on all questions  pertaining to men-
tal diseases.  On the other hand, though a person  may de- 
                            7
liberately commit a criminal act while in a sound condition
of mind, and should subsequently lose the powers of memory
and  reason, and  consequently not  be able  to  plead when
arraigned at the bar of justice, he ought  not to be tried until
the faculties of his mind are restored;  if after conviction he
become insane,  the punishment due to  the crime of which
he has been found guilty should be suspended until the return
ot sanity.
   Lunacy, when  once established  by competent authority,
should be held to be a bar against all procedures of law which
are framed on the basis of  the responsibility of  the party in
question.
                        Inebriates.
   The fourth and last class of persons for whom exemption
from punishment is sometimes claimed on account of " defect
of will" are those who commit crime while intoxicated.  The
police courts of all our cities bear daily testimony to the fact
that violence, unnatural crimes, and even  murder itself, are
in the greatly preponderating majority of cases unmistaka-
bly traceable to the drunkenness of the perpetrators.
   Blackstone  defines intoxication  as  "artificial, voluntary
contracted madness by drunkenness  or  intoxication, which,
depriving men of their reason, puts  them in  a temporary
frenzy."  He adds:  "Our law looks upon this  as an aggra-
vation of  the offence rather than as an excuse for any crimi-
nal misbehavior."  Sir  Edward Coke says, " A drunkard,
who is a voluntarius dcemon, hath no privilege thereby; but
what hurt or ill soever he  doeth, his drunkenness doth ag
gravate it."
  The views of  these ancient jurists, as above stated, do, 
                           8
with some modifications, continue to  prevail in most of the
nations of Europe and also in this country.   The question as
to how far they are correct, when viewed from the standpoint
of advanced science, is one of grave consideration, and inas-
much  as  cases involving the  same  are  constantly arising
for adjudication in our  criminal  courts, a  review of these
doctrines must sooner or later force itself upon our several
legislative assemblies.   Those who have  given the closest
attention to the various phases  of this question must, we
think,  be free  to admit that the whole subject is surrounded
with difficulties of no ordinary character.   But the fact of
the existence of  these difficulties  should  impel thoughtful
men to  the  further pursuit  of  their investigations rather
than deter them  from   their consideration.   If the  ques-
tion as to  how far inebriates are de facto responsible for
their actions is as yet undefined, seeing  that we live in thJs
nineteenth century, and in the centennial year  of this  great
republican  empire, does  it not behoove  us, in the light of
science, to  determine where  and when that responsibility
shall terminate, as we have already determined where and
when it shall commence ?
  The laws  of the State of New York have long since pro-
vided that  " The Supreme  Court shall have  the care and
custody of all  idiots, lunatics, persons of unsound mind, and
persons who shall  be  incapable of conducting  their own
affairs  in consequence of habitual drunkenness,  and of their
real and personal estates, so that the same shall not be wasted
or destroyed;  and shall  provide for their safe-keeping and
maintenance, and for the maintenance of their families and 
                              9
 the education of their children, out of their personal estates
 and the rents and profits of their real estates, respectively."
 In the  above-quoted provision we find drunkards classified
 with " idiots, lunatics, and persons of unsound mind," and the
 custody of their persons and estates is placed at the disposal
 of the Supreme Court.  The reason assigned is because they
 are "incapable of  conducting  their own affairs by reason of
 habitual drunkenness."   Does not this  law virtually recog-
 nize that condition of mind which Blackstone defines as " the
 want or  defect  of will?"   The Supreme  Court, of course,
 performs these functions by proxy, and appoints a committee
 to take charge of the person and property of the inebriate.
 That committee may, at  its pleasure, dispose of the  person,
 by  placing  him either  in  a  lunatic or inebriate asylum, or
 even in  a prison, or sa>d committee may  elect to permit the
 inebriate  to  roam  abroad at  his  own discretion.  If during
 the time of his incarceration  in a  lunatic asylum the inebri-
 ate, witlvout  imbibing intoxicating liquor,  should  kill a jel-
 low  inmate  or  one  of his keepers,  it  is  almost certain that
 he would be  acquitted of  the crime  of murder on the ground
 of  insanity.   But  suppose  the  committee   allowed   this
 same man   the  liberty of his  person,   and  that  while  in
 a  state   of  intoxication  he  should  smite  down  a  fellow
 passenger  on the  cars or a  stranger  on  the  streets,  the
 chances are  that he would suffer  death as  the  penalty  of
 his crime.  Take another  view of this subject.   According
 to the  returns of  the  highest authorities  on lunacy,  the
most prevalent  cause of  insanity is the excessive  use  of
alcoholic  liquors.   Drunkards and  their  offspring throng 
                            10
our lunatic asylums, and the probable outside candidates for
admission are far in excess of the present occupants of those
overcrowded abodes of madmen.  Does it not therefore be-
come a peculiarly interesting question to know how many of
this outside class have arrived  at that  stage of the disease
which would justify their incarceration ?  In the mean time
should not the law  define how far they ought to be held re-
sponsible for their actions %
       The Majority of Inebriates Responsible to Law.
   We are  very far  from assuming  that all inebriates are
irresponsible either  for their excesses or for the  crimes which
they  may commit  when  intoxicated.  On the  other hand,
after  many years of careful  investigation, surrounded  with
facilities for  inquiry and study which few  men have been
able to command,  we  are free  to state, that  while we are
forced to regard drunkenness as a disease, at the same time
we are fully convinced that in its preliminary stages it is in
the large majority of cases voidable,  and therefore  this class
of inebriates are mentally and  physically  responsible  for
their  debauches and for all the consequences  resulting there-
from.   There are, however,  advanced stages of this disease
which are only curable by skillful medical treatment; and
since  one of the symptoms is the entire suspension of will
power; another, the loss of all appetite except for  alcoholic
liquors,  and a third,  a  condition  of sleeplessness  which
must  soon culminate in delirium-tremens and  probably death,
it is therefore essential that  the physician's  remedial treat-
ment  should  be  supplemented by the care and restraints of
the hospital.   It  becomes a  serious  question for the friends 
                            11
 of the inebriate  to  determine how far they are justified in
 permitting him to drift from stage to stage into this probably
 fatal condition without using the  means  at their disposal to
 restrain  him  before his property is wasted, his family im-
 poverished, and he himself is found staggering on the thresh-
 old of the door  of a  lunatic asylum or  on the verge of a
 drunkard's open  grave.
   But we must pursue this question of the responsibility of
 the inebriate  still further.  In the  first  place  we will take
 the cases ot
                    Inherited Appetite.
   The victims of  an  inherited  appetite  for  alcohol  are
 considerably more  numerous than the fragmentary records
 of published  statistics  would lead   us  to  suppose.   In
 the  large  majority  of  these cases  the  patient  evades
 every question   and  tries  to baffle  every inquiry which
 would  stamp the  brand  of drunkenness on either  of
 his parents.   It would be well for him if he could only blot
 out of the book of his remembrance the  sad record that  his
 father or his  mother, or perchance  both, were drunkards,
 and that he is only an inheritor of this vicious constitutional
 propensity.   This man  drinks because one or  both of  his
 parents drank before him!  Is he  responsible for his action %
 Let us see!
   The celebrated Dr.  Darwin says:  "It is remarkable that
 all the diseases from drinking spirituous or fermented liquors
 are liable to become hereditary even to the third generation,
gradually increasing,  if the cause be  continued, until the
family becomes extinct."
   Dr. Willard Parker, of New York, says; " The inherit
ance is a sad one: a tendency to the disease of the parent is 
12
induced as strong as that of consumption, cancer or gout,
and with the tendency he must wage  perpetual  war, or he
becomes a drunkard.     *    *     #    .*      There are
nations or large communities with whom this fearful tenden-
cy to drink is an inheritance, as we have seen, to the perver-
sion  of their  own character."
  Dr. Parrish remarks that " this appetite is often an inheri-
tance with which its possessor would gladly part if he could.
It constitutes an element in  his temperament.  It is a part
of his constitution.   He did  not create it—he does not cher-
ish it—nay! he abhors it; but it clings to him like the poison
of other forms of disease.
  "  Consumption is a terrible disease; and you see a young
man lingering feebly  along the avenues  of life, wasting
strength and energy, not by any physical indulgence, but
because there is an insidious, invisible poison  in  his blood ;
you  ask about his parentage, and he tells you, ' My mother
died of consumption,' or his father, or  one or all of their
parents; and you say, ' Poor fellow ! he is doomed; he has
inherited that narrow chest, those feeble lungs, that impover-
ished blood, and he will soon bid farewell to all visible things.'
  " You see a drunkard reeling through  the streets.  He is
jolly and playful with  the boys, or he is boisterous and in-
sulting to you as  you pass.  A  policeman arrests him, ar-
raigns  him before a  magistrate, and he is  committed to the
lockup.  Why ?   Because  he is drunk.  Why is he drunk ?
In many cases because his father was so before he was born,
or his mother, or both.   If they were not, they might have
been good  citizens and  exemplary Christians; and yet, ten
to one, when this drunkard, whom  yon have just committed
by law to a jail, was  a babe, his mother dosed him with some
' infant cordial,' ' soothing syrup,' ' teething drops,' or other
nostrum, the base of which was  alcohol, and  thus created a
taste against which nature revolted, but  to establish which
that kind and generous  mother persisted by  the continued
use of such needless stimulants.  This is one of the habits
that is  dooming thousands of people to lives of drunken-
ness—a very bad habit, growing out of the purest affection,
but yet the fruit of sorrowful carelessness or ignorance." 
13
   Dr. Dugas, Professor of Surgery in  the Medical College
 of Georgia, observes:  "What is true with regard to the in-
 fluence  of  intemperance  upon the offspring  of the  first
 drunken parent becomes most painfully so if the son himself
 follow the example of his father, and becomes also a drunken
 parent.   The issue  of this second  generation of drunkards
 will, in  all probability, be few in number and their stamina
 be so much impaired that it will be with the utmost difficulty
 that  any of them can reach  maturity.   Let us follow this
 third generation and see.  If it also take to the bottle, it will
 be the last of the family.  For I do not hesitate to proclaim it
 as a  law of almost universal application that three successive
 generations of drunkards will leave no  issue!  The third
 generation may have children, but not one of these will be
 reared."

   Morel, a French authority, records the following sequence

 as the result of his observation:

   " First generation: Immorality,  depravity, excess in the
 use of alcoholic liquors, moral debasement.
   " Second generation : Hereditary drunkenness, paroxysms
 of mania, general paralysis.
   " Third  generation:  Sobriety, hypochondria, melancholy,
 systematic ideas of being persecuted, homicidal tendencies.
   " Fourth generation: Intelligence slightly developed, first
 accession of mania at sixteen  years of age, stupidity, subse-
 quent idiocy, and probable extinction of the family."

   The apparent differences of sequence which appear on the
 surface as existing between the two last-quoted authorities
 do not involve a contradiction, especially in reference to the
 number of  succeeding generations ere extinction ensues, but
 are reconcilable from the fact  that their  observations were
respectively gathered  in  widely separated countries and
differing climates, and more especially because of the essen-
tial difference  in the  character and quality of the liquors 
u
consumed, the one  being distilled  from unmalted corn and
rye and the other from malted grain or the fruit of the vine.
  Dr.  Forbes Winslow states that " a large  percentage of
frightful mental and brain disturbances can be traced to the
drunkenness of parents, confirming the  great  physiological
law, that ' like begets like.' "
  Dr.  Wood, of London, in his work on insanity, speaking
on the subject of hereditary inebriety, says : " Instances are
sufficiently familiar, and  several have  occurred  within my
own personal knowledge, where  the  father  having died at
an early age from the effects of intemperance, lias left a son
to be brought up by those who have  severely suffered from
his excesses, and have therefore the strongest motives to  pre-
vent, if possible, a  repetition of such  misery ; every pains
has been taken to enforce sobriety,  and  yet, notwithstanding
all  precaution, the habits of the father have become those of
the son, who, never having seen him from infancy, could not
have adopted them  from imitation.   Everything was done
to encourage habits  of temperance, but all to no purpose;
the seeds of the  disease had  begun  to germinate;  a blind
impulse led the  doomed individual by successive and rapid
stages  along the same course which was fatal to the father,
and which ere long terminated in his own destruction."
  Dr.  Howe, in  his  report  on idiocy to the  Legislature of
Massachusetts, states that three-fourths of all idiots are born
of intemperate parents.
   Dr.  Carpenter, of England, says:  " It is scarcely neces-
sary to accumulate further proof in support of the assertion
that of all the single causes of insanity habitual intemperance
is the most potent.     *    *     * '   We should expect to
find that the offspring  of habitual drunkards would share
with those of lunatics in the predisposition to insanity."

   In numerous cases where the loss of reason has not over-
taken the children  of drunken  parents, the impaired intel-
lect and the various propensities which have been induced by 
                            15
 intemperance are transmitted from parents to their offspring.
   Dr. W. A. S.  Brown says: "They  reproduce their per-
 verted moral nature, as well as frames similar to those which
 have been enervated and ruined by indulgence.   The genea-
 logical tree of some families presents  successive generations
 of drunkards."
   Dr. George  Burr, of Binghamton,  observes  that "the
 evidence in favor of the hereditary transmission of inebriety
 is no less strong  than that upon which  the fact that mental
 disease is inherited  is  admitted.   In one  case intellectual
 mania or dementia is developed; in another dipsomania."
               The Downward Sliding: Scale.
   The above-mentioned conditions represent a downward slid-
 ing scale, commencing at excessive indulgence in intoxicating
 liquors,  and descending, step by step, unto the fourth gen-
 eration, until the dark, impenetrable gulf of extinction merci-
 fully blots out of existence  forever this race of hereditary
 drunkards.  During the interval recurring from the first to the
 last generation the successive inheritors of this disease continue
 to live on and are divided up between the lunatic and inebriate
 asylums, the prisons, and  the outside world.  Some  have
 passed over the line of demarcation, and the power of will
 having lapsed, they are no longer regarded  as amenable  to
 law;  others  are, justly or unjustly, suffering the penalties
 due to  crime.  Comparatively a  few,  impressed with the
 conviction that  they have lost  the  power of self-restraint,
 have  sought refuge in inebriate institutions, but  the vast'ina-
jority of this class are continuing to struggle on against all
 odds  in this world of probation.  Here is  a man who must
 either stop drinking or else he will shortly be stricken with
 paralysis.  There is another  man  fast drifting into a con- 
                           16
dition of chronic melancholy, and that because he is the de
scendant of one or  more  generations  of drunkards.  He
must rouse himself and awake from this sleep—arise from
this living  death, or he will shortly become  a lunatic or a
suicide, or  both.  Yonder  stands a woman  whose  father
was a  drunkard, and  already  the  incipient  symptoms  of
mania  are  slowly but surely developing.  She must be
divested of care  and  surrounded  by  circumstances  of
cheer,  or else her loving friends will find it imperatively
necessary  to  place  her  under  restraint.   Behold  that
nervous, excitable  creature;   watch the  motions  of  his
ever-restless, wandering eye, sometimes sparkling with a de-
gree of intelligence, but turning aside the moment that you
exchange glances.  He talks like a rational being,  and some-
how makes his way in the busy world, but he has a hang-dog
countenance and a twitching motion in  his limbs.   He is
alternately kind and cruel, devout and profane.  He loves or
he hates as the barometer rises  or  falls, or  as  the moon
changes.  Strong drink maddens his brain and he becomes
a raving maniac for the time  being.  What are his antece-
dents ?   His father and his father's father were  confirmed
drunkards, and the taint flows through his blood, unstrings
his nerves,  and alternately stupefies  or intensifies the func-
tions of his brain.  Nobody regards him as a fit subject for
a lunatic asylum, but  when intoxicated  the homicidal ten-
dency dangerously predominates,  and unless he can be kept
sober he will probably  ere  long  become a subject for the
gallows.  Then again, there is that dreamy, drivelling idiot,
who wanders harmlessly through the streets, the sport of the 
17
boys and the butt of ridicule for the fools of the village.
His ancestors were a generation of drunkards, and he is the
last relic of his degenerate stock.
  These are the generations of hereditary drinkers, and yet
they live and move and have their  being in our midst and
are held to  be  amenable  to  law and responsible for their
actions;  and, moreover, many even  of this class give proof
of their responsibility by their good behavior.
  By a wise arrangement of  the physiological laws, as they
relate to the human structure, there are to be found in most
constitutions counterbalancing powers, both  physical and
mental, which  enable  men successfully to struggle against
the inroads of the diseases of both body and mind.   There
are a host of living men and women to be found who never
drank, and who dare not drink, intoxicating liquors or beve-
rages, because one or both of their parents were inebriates
before they were born into the world; and, besides, a number
of these have brothers or sisters  who, having given way to
the inherited appetite, are now passing downward on this
descending sliding scale.   The greater portion of them have
already passed over the bounds of self-control, and the  varied
preliminary symptoms, of melancholy, mania, paralysis, ideas
of persecution, etc., etc., are developing.  As to the question
of responsibility, each  case is either more  or  less  doubtful
and can only be tested on its separate merits.  There is,
however, abundant evidence to prove that this predisposition
to inebriety, even after long  indulgence, can, by a skillful
process of medication, accompanied by either  voluntary or
compulsory restraint, be subdued;  and the counterbalancing
physical and mental powers  can at the  same  time be so
strengthened and invigorated  as in the future to enable the
person to resist  the temptations by which he may be sur-
rounded.  Yea, though the  powers  of reason  may for the
time being  be  dethroned,  and lunacy be  developed,  these 
18
cases, in  most instances, will  yield  to medical  treatment
where the surrounding  conditions of restraint and careful
nursing are supplemental.
  We have observed that in many instances the fact of the
patient being convinced that he is an hereditary inebriate
has produced beneficial results.  Summoning to his aid al
the latent counterbalancing energies which he has at com-
mand, and clothing himself with this  armor, he goes forth
to war; throws up the fortifications of physical and mental
restraint; repairs the breaches and inroads of diseased appe-
tite ; regains control  of the citadel of the brain, and then,
with shouts of triumph, he unfurls  the  banner  of " VIC-
TORY."
  There is another class of drinkers, who may be designated
                 Inebriates from Choice.
  Some weak-minded men regard it impolite to refuse an
invitation to  drink with a friend or in company when in-
vited to do so.  The great bulk of this silly class of people
drift into habits of intoxication.
  Some men drink for stimulation.  This is frequently the
case in literary circles.  This class work and sweat the brain
until drowsiness ensues, but the work being partially unac-
complished, the fountains  of  thought  must  be stimulated
with alcohol.  As the  dram  must necessarily be increased
from time to time, intoxication ensues, and the mighty men
are brought low.
  Some men drink in order to  drown sorrow.   These are
the veriest cowards on the face of the earth.   Even the sui-
cide is brave when compared with them, for he does venture
to take a leap in the dark.   In trying to drown  sorrow this
class  of men very soon succeed in drowning the little brain
power once possessed.
  Some men drink for the purpose of forwarding business. 
19
 They cannot buy or sell without ratifying the bargain with
 a debauch.
   Notorious  criminals drink  for  the purpose  of nerving
 themselves  for  the perpetration of  premeditated  crime.
 They  first  charge  the revolver with  powder and  bullet
 and then  fire the  brain  and stimulate  the nerves with
 alcohol, so that they may be prepared  for the perpetration
 of any deed which  may be  found necessary for  the accom-
 plishment of their object.
   In this last class of  cases which we have presented  all the
 parties concerned  are  obviously responsible  for their con-
 duct, and they ought not to be allowed  to plead intoxication
 as an excuse for  the crimes which they may commit while
 under  the influence of liquor.
   Thus far we have treated of responsibility to human law,
 but we cannot close this paper without  referring  to the obe-
 dience we owe to
                     The Law of God.
   Temporal laws  are  not  always  based  upon justice and
 equity.  On the  contrary, they are frequently at variance
 with the fundamental principles of righteousness and conflict
 with those  of civil and  religious liberty.   Hence it has not
 unfrequently happened that the commission  of certain acts
 may constitute crime against the laws of the state, but may
 at the  same time be right in the sight of God.
  According to the laws of most civilized  nations drunken-
 ness is constituted a crime;  but there are States where it is
 not so  regarded.
  The divine law is full and  explicit  in  its  denunciations
against this sin, and, moreover, the penalty is exclusion from
the " Kingdom of Heaven."
  Both in the Old and New Testament drunkards are ranked
with the  abominable  of the  earth.   The Bible does not
throw any garb of respectability over them, neither does it 
20
offer any apology for their sin.   In Holy Writ they are held
to be responsible for their inebriety Justin the same manner
as other sinners are for their offences when committed with
the  concurrence of the will but in  opposition to the dictates
of the understanding and judgment of the offenders.
  Neither will it avail  the drunkard to plead that he has ac-
quired a diseased appetite which he cannot control.  That
may be, and doubtless is, a  good ground why the physician
ought to  aid him  and  why  inebriate institutions  should be
established for the purpose  of restraining his class until the
disease is removed.
  It forms  no part  of  the duty of the physician to upbraid
his patient  because he has acquired this disease; but, finding
him to be sick, it therefore becomes his business to exercise
his healing skill in behalf of this afflicted man.
  But the sin against  God  antedated the disease and  was
continually indulged in at a period when the inebriate could
have arrested the progress of the  growing evil by the exer-
cise of his  own  will and without the aid of the physician.
Hence he stands  convicted  by  the divine law.
  Does the inebriate inquire, " Is the physician more merci-
ful than God?"   The  answer is,  "No, in no wise," for  He
explicitly declares,  " When the  wicked  man turneth away
from his wickedness that he hath  committed and doeth that
which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive.  *   *
*     *     *     *    For I have  no  pleasure in the death
of him that dieth, saith the  Lord God, wherefore turn your-
selves and  live ye."
  "Yes," the inebriate  replies,  "that is all very well for
those who  can turn awa}' from  their  wickedness, but as for
me,  the generation  of  my fathers  were drunkards,  and they
transmitted this  diseased appetite; I inherit it  from them
and have no Dower  to control it."   If that be indeed so, God 
21
will not hold you accountable for their sins,—for He further
declares that " the son shall not bear the iniquity  of the
father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son."
  The sin was your father's, the  affliction is yours; but, at
the same time, you  need to be very careful how you urge
this plea, for, though you may have no power to resist the
temptation so long as you roam abroad, you can place your-
self under restraint, and thus forcibly separate  yourself from
this accursed thing.
  It may, indeed,  be like  cutting  off the  right  hand  or
plucking out the right  eye, but if it prove to be the only
door into the Kingdom of Heaven, then we say, trusting in
God's mercy through Christ, enter in thereat and be saved.