There is some exaggeration, in my
opinion, about this disease-theory of intemperance. The deductions
of one-idea men are not always to be trusted. They are apt to draw
large conclusions from small facts. Man is born a free agent, and
all men have power, if they will, to hold their appetites in check.
This truth should be strongly impressed upon every one. Your
disease-theory takes away moral responsibility. It assumes that a
man is no more accountable for getting drunk than for getting the
consumption. His diathesis excuses him as much in one case as in the
other. Now, I don't believe a word of this. I do not class
appetites, however inordinate, with physical diseases over which the
will has no control. A man must control his appetite. Reason and
conscience require this, and God gives to every one the mastery of
himself if he will but use his high prerogative."
Mr. Elliott spoke a little loftily, and in a voice that expressed a
settlement of the argument. But one at least of his listeners was
feeling too strongly on the subject to let the argument close.
"What," he asked, "if a young man who did not, because he could not,
know that he had dypso-mania in his blood were enticed to drink
often at parties where wine is freely dispensed? Would he not be
taken, so to speak, unawares? Would he be any more responsible for
acts that quickened into life an over-mastering appetite than the
young girl who, not knowing that she had in her lungs the seeds of a
fatal disease, should expose herself to atmospheric changes that
were regarded by her companions as harmless, but which, to her were
fraught with peril?"
"In both cases," replied Mr.
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