RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Total Abstinence
provides the only known adequate remedy. This argument is sound, and is by itself sufficient. It appeals to common experience. Its i. Argu- facts are facts which all intelligent perment from sons know. But many advocates of the Evils of temperance are not satisfied with this Drunken- commonsense presentation. They are ness. fascinated with the idea of making the argument scientific, and so they reinforce it with statistics, and with theories of social science. This is admirable provided they use sound theories and correct statistics; but when men advocate temperance on the basis of crude social theories and fake statistics, intelligent persons hear and disbelieve and become apathetic.
The experience of some generations of total abstainers proves that alcohol is not necessary as food. Total abstainers live longer than moderate drinkers. It is an established fact that intoxicants injure one who uses them habitually, even if 2. From the he never gets drunk. This is in itself Evils of a valid and sufficient argument for Moderate total abstinence; but the temperance Use. advocate misuses it if, in his laudable ambition to be scientific, he deals in facts which he only half understands, and which he fails to state correctly. If one makes his fight against the chemical agent called alcohol rather than against intoxicants as such; if instead of using incontrovertible facts he insists mainly on propositions that are in dispute, for example, the proposition that alcohol has no food value, or the proposition that the character of alcohol as a poison is unaffected by dilution, he injures the cause which he is advocating. Such false reasonings are none the less weak for the fact that persons are sometimes convinced by them; when persons so convinced discover their error they become either lukewarm or hostile. Another misuse of this argument consists in putting it into the principal place. To do this is to treat the drink problem as if it were on the same footing as the question of a pork diet, or of ill-cooked food; and this involves a disastrous belittling of the moral and social issues.
The ethical principle in the case is that a person has no right to degrade himself, to injure others or the community, or to run undue risks of injuring himself or others. And there is always 3. The a double reply to the person who thinks Ethical that he is so strong that there are for Argument, him no risks in moderate drinking. First, no one knows oeforehand what risks the drink-habit may have for him; second, even if he knew, he might still be under the obligation which rests upon the strong to deny themselves for the sake of the weak. Probably all advocates of total abstinence agree as to the existence of these obligations, and regard them as sufficient to cover the whole case. They should never be left in the background while weak though specious substitutes are pushed to the front.
From the beginning the total-abstinence movement has been deeply religious. This is true notwithstanding the fact that some of its advocates have been irreligious, and have even used temperance doctrines for venting their dislike to the Bible
and the churches. Such instances attract attention mainly because they are exceptional. The
movement being religious, both its ad-
4. Argu- vocates and its opposers appeal to the
ments from Scriptures. In relatively few passages
the the Scriptures speak of wine and
Scriptures, strong drink as being good, and of
their strength as being a good quality in them. They commend them for medicinal and for sacrificial uses. Very likely the writers of Scripture thought of them as being, in forms too diluted to be intoxicating, the natural drink of all who could afford them. Different from this is the question of the moderate drinking of liquids of intoxicating strength; whether the Scriptures for their own times approve this is a matter of uncertain inference, and is an academic question. In interpreting these utterances of the Scriptures the facts adduced in the earlier part of this article are important. One who approved the use of the light fermented beverages in the ancient world might now disapprove them, substituting such drinks as tea or coffee. Before intoxicants were made cheap by the art of distillation the evils and risks from them were immensely less than now. Most of the hundreds of passages in which the Scriptures mention or imply wine or strong drink are unsparing condemnations of the social drinking usages which then prevailed (e.g., Matt. xxiv. 49; Rom. xiii. 13; Gal. v. 21; I Cor. vi. 10; Isa. v. 11, 12, 22, xxviii. 7; Amos. iv. 1; Prov. xx. 1, xxiii. 30, 31). As a remedy they sometimes prescribe total abstinence, but never moderation in drinking. In their avoidance of any explicit approval of moderate drinking they are in significant contrast with such ancient literature as Ecclesiasticus or the writings of Philo. One should read these passages and observe that they contemplate habitual drunkenness as exclusively the vice of the rich and the aristocratic. They especially scathe the men and women who are the natural leaders of the people, and who through drink are ineffective in their public duties. In contrast with this the drunkenness of the twentieth century is especially prevalent among the poor. It is not now a question of relatively a few aristocrats drinking themselves to death, but of a drink curse affecting the millions of the common people, and bringing with it starvation and squalor and crime and wholesale race deterioration. The modern problem differs from the ancient. Supposably the teaching of the prophets and apostles may be that total abstinence is a duty for our time and environment, even though it could be proved not to be a universal duty for all times and environments. It can not be proved that Jesus drank beverages that would intoxicate, nor that the apostles and prophets approved even the limited common drinking of such beverages; but if this could be proved for the conditions then existent, the proof would not apply in the different conditions that now exist. The Scriptures either prescribe or commend total abstinence from intoxicants as a practise that should be followed in a good many cases (e.g., Num. vi.; Lev. x. 9; Jer. xxxv.; Dan. i.; Prov. xxiii. 31; Luke i. 15; I Tim. v. 23). They thus by implication prescribe total abstinence in all cases that are parallel to these. Are there now
Total Abstinence Toussain