Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1888 Excerpt: ...of idiocy. If, on the one hand, artificial luxury has drawn us away from nature in habits and sympathies, on the other, science and humanity have brought us, like penitent children, back to her forgiving bosom. When intemperance had become a social evil of such magnitude as to vitiate the integrity of national life, it was natural that it should be assailed by proscription and prohibition to the full extent of legal possibility, that the clergy should bring against it the solemn protest of religion, that legislators should st rain their authority to impede its progress, and that every moral influence, from the sumptuary laws of communities to the sacred pledge of individuals, should be enlisted against the fatal scourge. The result has been all that such means alone could reasonably be expected to achieve. A marked reform in the habits of society has been effected; the temptation to indulge in alcoholic stimulants is greatly diminished; fashion has established amore healthful regime; the national conscience is fairly awakened to the nature and extent of intemperance; its facilities are abridged; law and letters, personal example and public opinion, eloquence, song, art, the press and the pulpit, have waged an effectual and memorable crusade against it, the fruits of which this generation enjoys and posterity will honor. To a certain extent the evil has been thus reduced to its normal condition. Its ravages continue; its hecatombs of victims still perish; but many of t he customs and circumstances that fostered the vice in this country ha veceased to exist, and although portentous and prevalent, it is so far limited and defined as to have reached the state which renders it amenable to scientific treatment. It is, therefore, as it seems to us, altogether with...
