always a poison, will be soon ended. The statement of the proposition would seem to exhibit its fallacy, for it is arguing from abuse to use, and it is denying that difference in quantity can produce difference in quality.

The assertion is that, because alcohol taken into the system in certain quantities acts as a poison, it is therefore in all quantities and dilutions a poison. Let us examine it in the light of familiar illustrations. Omitting for the moment facts in evidence pertaining to alcohol itself, we have analogy perfect and to the point, in atmospheric air.

Atmospheric air is composed of, by weight, 23.01 of oxygen, and 76.99 of nitrogen. Each of the constituents of the air is essential to the present order of things. Oxygen is pre-eminently its active element. Duly to restrain this activity the oxygen is diluted and weakened by three times its bulk of the negative element-nitrogen. Their properties are thus perfectly adjusted to the requirements of the living world. Were the atmosphere wholly composed of nitrogen, life could never have been possible; were it to consist wholly of oxygen, other conditions remaining as they are, the world would run through its career with fearful rapidity; combustion, once excited, would proceed with

ungovernable violence; animals would live with hundred-fold intensity, and perish in a few hours.

To infer from the effects of a large quantity to those of a less, is thus contrary to sound observation. Oxygen, pure, is a poison,—that is, we should die in it. Dilute it with three-fourths of nitrogen, and it becomes the air we breathe and by which all life is supported.

Saltpetre kills a man in doses of one ounce or upward. Eight ounces dissolved in a pint of water killed a horse. Two or three drachms only, will kill a dog. Nay, this very nitre or saltpetre may easily be a remediless poison.

"In acute rheumatism it is sometimes administered in doses repeated at intervals to the extent of two ounces in twenty-four hours; though one-half ounce in concentrated solution causes heat and pain in the stomach which may be followed with convulsions and death. When taken in poisonous quantities there is no antidote known.”*

Yet, saltpetre is used without fear of evil consequences in the curing of hams and other meats. Shall we say that a sandwich is poisonous and should be prohibited by law?

*New American Cyclopædia, Vol. xii., p. 377. Art. Nitre.

With one more quotation from the able pen of Mr. Lewes, I dismiss this fallacy from further argument:

"When people say 'Oh, this is only a question of degree,' they forget how frequently questions of degree involve questions of kind. Ice and steam differ only in the degree of heat; the cold of the Arctics and the heat of the Tropics are but differences of degree.

"Iron in a mass exposed to the air, burns, but burns so slowly that we call it rust; the same iron in a state of extreme subdivision ignites when exposed to the air. Here we have only differences of degree, yet if an inflammable substance be near the ignited powder, it will also ignite, whereas the same substance might remain forever close by the rusting iron and never be affected. If this be true in cases so simple, how much more should we expect to find it in cases so complex as those of organic processes where minute variations ramify into vast and unforeseen results!

"The argument from excess is worthless. It only meets cases of excess. Oxygen is as terrible a poison as strychnine, if in excess. Heat, so indispensable to the organism, is obliged to be reduced to moderate quantities before the organism can endure it. Light, which is the necessary stimulus to the eye, produces blindness, in excess; mutton-chops have, when taken in moderation, a nutritive value which no Briton is bold enough to question, *** yet mutton-chops taken in excess kill with the certainty of arsenic, for overnutrition is fatal."

And now, in concluding my remarks upon what I have termed the scientific view of the question, I repeat, in the words of Mr. Lewes:

"Let no advocate of temperance misconstrue the present [argument.] We rescue a scientific question, we do not oppose the moral principles of the movement. That drunkenness is one of the most terrible sources of demoralization, and that temperance, both physically and morally, is one of the cardinal virtues most needing inculcation, no reasonable being doubts. Equally indisputable is it that any movement which can effect a reform in the tendency to drunkenness, deserves the heartiest support. Nor are we surprised at the exaggerations and errors which such a movement employs as instruments to effect its purpose. * Our

purpose, then, be it understood, is not to cast a stone of obstruction in the path of the temperance movement, but to argue a scientific question."

That the

This much, at all events, is clear, viz.: Legislature of Massachusetts has no knowledge, and has no means of knowing, that the classification, (so commonly and so authoritatively made,) by which alcohol, as found in certain drinks, is included in the category of foods, is not correct. If that classification is correct, then there is an end of the

controversy. For then it cannot be held that the government ought to prohibit the citizen from making up his own bill of fare for himself; though he can be held accountable for his evil conduct affecting others, proceeding from his abusing this liberty. But those who insist on the existing statute of prohibition, in spite of the fact that those drinks are foods, or that they may be such, and that most masters of chemistry and physiology have so taught, and that the successive generations of men have so believed, and that the most venerable exemplars of all human history have confirmed that belief by their own examples, and that a great portion of the people of Massachusetts think so now, and at least demand the right of deciding the question for themselves,those who thus insist, dare to propose to drive rough-shod over all respect for the convictions of their neighbors, and, assuming a theory entirely modern, (and at the best, uncertain and controverted,) to continue and to enforce the pains and the disgraces of the criminal law in its support. If the proposition, on which alone prohibition by the government can possibly stand, is true, let it be proved. I, certainly, for one, having meditated upon it, and observed upon it for years, have not