ALCOHOLOGY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 206, 9 December 1910, Page 6

ALCOHOLOGY.

DRINK AND GENIUS,

(Published by Arrangement)

Because some men of .great brilliancy in the world of letters and of art have - been addicted to excessive drinking, it has been assumed that the drink stimulated their genius into, action, if it were not their .real inspiration. Now this is altogether a mistake. Alcohol, it must be repeated, does not stimulate; it only paralyses, deadens or in the end destroys, power in body or mind, muscle or brain. It deadens and paralyses the higher and controlling parts first; and hence if the control be removed t>he part% ordinarily un ler control fly off like a steam engine when the governor is held down. In man .it really is a partial paralysis of his [ higher and better nature to the control . it ought to have over his lower and mere ■ animal nature. That is how it acts on, ; ?ar, the drunken sailor. When free of : drink he is quiet and friendly, because . his coarseness and animalism are held in check by 'his better judgment, his true 'manliness; the drink paralyses, deadens, that better judgment, and the lower nature rules his conduct. Alcohol works the same way -in men of genius when they take dt. Hear what a few say: Byroni, a, drinker, says, "It. does not exhilarate; it makes me savage, suspicious and quarrelsome." Bismarck says, "Drink stupefies and besots." Schiller says, "Wine never invents anything." Helmiholtz says that the smallest quantity of alcohol seemed to scare away his highest scientific thoughts. And of wine the renowned Homer wrote that it "unnerves the limbs and dulls the noble mind." Professor G. Bunge says, "Intoxicating drinks never make a man brilliant. The prevailing notion that they do is based on self-delusion, is only a symptom of incipient paralysis; in proportion as selfcriticism is diminished, self-approbation rises." Brumton, a well-known authority among doctors, says: "A celebrated author once told 1 me that if ihe wrote under the influence of a small quantity of alcohol he seemed to himself to write very well, but when he came to examine what he had written, next day, after the effects of, the liquor had passed off, ihe found that it w»uid not stand criticism." He imaginative faculties are brought largely into iplay in men of genius, and these imaginations have to be tested and then ruled by the sound judgment. This judgment is, however, the very first to be perverted by strong drink and so it comes about, as the author above mentioned found l , that what is written under alcoholic influence .will not bear criticism in sober moments. We see this in everyday life among ordinary drinkers—sober he is quiet and even dull; with liquor in him he is talkative and lively, but when it is all over he is often ashamed , of his alcoholic brilliancy. It is found that, though under drink influence the : imagination may be more active, the i quality of the ideas becomes lower and i lower even to vulgarity and nonsense. . This has been, and often is, seen in the • case of public speakers, politicians. They • take liquor to give them a start and • often land where they would not be and i where their friends are ashamed of them. THINKING IS NOT HELPED

by alcohol. This is the highest of the intellectual faculties and is first injured by it; it is dependent upon a healthy, normally active brain, and the brain, the centre of the nervous system, is the first part of the 'human body to be injuriously affected by alcohol. "One thing is perfectly clear—namely, that the highest possible perfection of the nervous system is only possible with strict total abstinence."

It is equally clear, says H. P. Stearns, that high, virile thinking, and keen, unfaltering judgment cannot be the product of a mind which is dependent on an alcoholised brain.