I suppose that there will be some wigs on the green in connection with
the recent manifesto signed by a string of very eminent doctors on the
subject of what is called “alcohol.” “Alcohol” is, to judge by the
sound of it, an Arabic word, like “algebra” and “Alhambra,” those two
other unpleasant things. The Alhambra in Spain I have never seen; I am
told that it is a low and rambling building; I allude to the far more
dignified erection in Leicester Square. If it is true, as I surmise,
that “alcohol” is a word of the Arabs, it is interesting to realise
that our general word for the essence of wine and beer and such things
comes from a people which has made particular war upon them. I suppose
that some aged Moslem chieftain sat one day at the opening of his tent
and, brooding with black brows and cursing in his black beard over wine
as the symbol of Christianity, racked his brains for some word ugly
enough to express his racial and religious antipathy, and suddenly spat
out the horrible word “alcohol.” The fact that the doctors had to use
this word for the sake of scientific clearness was really a great
disadvantage to them in fairly discussing the matter. For the word
really involves one of those beggings of the question which make these
moral matters so difficult. It is quite a mistake to suppose that, when
a man desires an alcoholic drink, he necessarily desires alcohol.
Let a man walk ten miles steadily on a hot summer’s day along a dusty
English road, and he will soon discover why beer was invented. The fact
that beer has a very slight stimulating quality will be quite among the
smallest reasons that induce him to ask for it. In short, he will not
be in the least desiring alcohol; he will be desiring beer. But, of
course, the question cannot be settled in such a simple way. The real
difficulty which confronts everybody, and which especially confronts
doctors, is that the extraordinary position of man in the physical
universe makes it practically impossible to treat him in either one
direction or the other in a purely physical way. Man is an exception,
whatever else he is. If he is not the image of God, then he is a
disease of the dust. If it is not true that a divine being fell, then
we can only say that one of the animals went entirely off its head. In
neither case can we really argue very much from the body of man simply
considered as the body of an innocent and healthy animal. His body has
got too much mixed up with his soul, as we see in the supreme instance
of sex. It may be worth while uttering the warning to wealthy
philanthropists and idealists that this argument from the animal should
not be thoughtlessly used, even against the atrocious evils of excess;
it is an argument that proves too little or too much.
Doubtless, it is unnatural to be drunk. But then in a real sense it is
unnatural to be human. Doubtless, the intemperate workman wastes his
tissues in drinking; but no one knows how much the sober workman wastes
his tissues by working. No one knows how much the wealthy
philanthropist wastes his tissues by talking; or, in much rarer
conditions, by thinking. All the human things are more dangerous than
anything that affects the beasts—sex, poetry, property, religion. The
real case against drunkenness is not that it calls up the beast, but
that it calls up the Devil. It does not call up the beast, and if it
did it would not matter much, as a rule; the beast is a harmless and
rather amiable creature, as anybody can see by watching cattle. There
is nothing bestial about intoxication; and certainly there is nothing
intoxicating or even particularly lively about beasts. Man is always
something worse or something better than an animal; and a mere argument
from animal perfection never touches him at all. Thus, in sex no animal
is either chivalrous or obscene. And thus no animal ever invented
anything so bad as drunkenness—or so good as drink.
The pronouncement of these particular doctors is very clear and
uncompromising; in the modern atmosphere, indeed, it even deserves some
credit for moral courage. The majority of modern people, of course,
will probably agree with it in so far as it declares that alcoholic
drinks are often of supreme value in emergencies of illness; but many
people, I fear, will open their eyes at the emphatic terms in which
they describe such drink as considered as a beverage; but they are not
content with declaring that the drink is in moderation harmless: they
distinctly declare that it is in moderation beneficial. But I fancy
that, in saying this, the doctors had in mind a truth that runs
somewhat counter to the common opinion. I fancy that it is the
experience of most doctors that giving any alcohol for illness (though
often necessary) is about the most morally dangerous way of giving it.
Instead of giving it to a healthy person who has many other forms of
life, you are giving it to a desperate person, to whom it is the only
form of life. The invalid can hardly be blamed if by some accident of
his erratic and overwrought condition he comes to remember the thing as
the very water of vitality and to use it as such. For in so far as
drinking is really a sin it is not because drinking is wild, but
because drinking is tame; not in so far as it is anarchy, but in so far
as it is slavery. Probably the worst way to drink is to drink
medicinally. Certainly the safest way to drink is to drink carelessly;
that is, without caring much for anything, and especially not caring
for the drink.
The doctor, of course, ought to be able to do a great deal in the way
of restraining those individual cases where there is plainly an evil
thirst; and beyond that the only hope would seem to be in some
increase, or, rather, some concentration of ordinary public opinion on
the subject. I have always held consistently my own modest theory on
the subject. I believe that if by some method the local public-house
could be as definite and isolated a place as the local post-office or
the local railway station, if all types of people passed through it for
all types of refreshment, you would have the same safeguard against a
man behaving in a disgusting way in a tavern that you have at present
against his behaving in a disgusting way in a post-office: simply the
presence of his ordinary sensible neighbours. In such a place the kind
of lunatic who wants to drink an unlimited number of whiskies would be
treated with the same severity with which the post office authorities
would treat an amiable lunatic who had an appetite for licking an
unlimited number of stamps. It is a small matter whether in either case
a technical refusal would be officially employed. It is an essential
matter that in both cases the authorities could rapidly communicate
with the friends and family of the mentally afflicted person. At least,
the postmistress would not dangle a strip of tempting sixpenny stamps
before the enthusiast’s eyes as he was being dragged away with his
tongue out. If we made drinking open and official we might be taking
one step towards making it careless. In such things to be careless is
to be sane: for neither drunkards nor Moslems can be careless about
drink.