The condensed argument for the legislative prohibition of the liquor traffic / by F.R. Lees.

  • Lees, Frederic Richard, 1815-1897
Date:
1864
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The condensed argument for the legislative prohibition of the liquor traffic / by F.R. Lees. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    by preserving the gains of the past, reach to still grander conquests of civilization m the future. 1 . “ We should never attempt to transfer purely theoretical principles into reality, until reality, in its whole scope and tendency, offers no further obstacles to the manifestation of those consequences to which ■without any admixture of other influences, the abstract principles would lead. 1 While, on the one hand, the whole history of the world does not furnish a single example of a nation that has tolerated the Traffic in stiong dimk, rising to such a reality of moral and social life as to permit of the safe adoption of those abstract theories, so, on the other hand, all the Facts of History and Experience go to show, that, with such an influence operating in a nation, the Model Government that is desiderated must be indefinitely postponed. § ,r^- ^The objection that by removing the temptation we destroy virtue,” is based upon an ignorance of the real nature and needs of man. In fact, however, we only propose the removal of one special temptation; all natural, and a thousand social, temptations will still remain— temptations so varied and numerous, that it will be work enough for the longest life, and. the strongest will, to subdue them. Besides, there is a peculiarity in this temptation, which places it in a category by itself. The will cannot resist the action of Alcohol, which, by physical potency, tends to undermine the moral powers: increasing appetite while decreasing moral restraint. But temptation in general far more frequently promotes vice than virtue: and it never ends in good, save under certain conditions of balance and counterpoise—the existence of which the Traffic renders all but nugatory. Even writers against the Maine Law can perceive this, when the prejudice-of-the- whim is not operating. Take, for example, the following sentence, occurring in a review of the ‘Newcomes, ’ in the Spectator for 1855. “ Ig it not to some lucky accident many of us owe the final predominance of the good? For our part, when we are taught to pray, ‘Lead us not into Temptation’—we recognize in that prayer the weakness of our nature, and are only too glad if, by lucky accidents and strong resolutions combined, those in whom we are interested can escape the perils that beset youth and age, and finally attain the blessedness of a life in which the affections find their proper objects, and the best energies room to breathe.” There is no tendency in the Drink Traffic to educe the best faculties; on the contrary, the Tavern andBeershop' corrupt our moral feelings. An occasional visit of inspection, indeed, to a Brothel, or a Beerhouse, might, on an innocent or pure mind, produce no worse effect than disgust or abhorrence; hut perpetual visitation would soon blunt our emotions, and eventually contaminate our nature. Such an effect, in truth, is appointed by liivine justice. As the man who will gaze perpetually upon burning mirrors, induces blindness, a film gathers upon the organ of vision, and the vitality, so to speak, retreats behind the veil; so the deliberate injury inflicted by the Trafficker for the sake of gain, and the associations of foil)7 and blasphemy with which the Visitor surrounds himself, bring on a moral blindness, which thickens its film with the habit of every day. “Moral evil,” says a thoughtful writer, “is the only thing m the