Chapter II.

DRUNKENNESS.

DRUNKENNESS is either actual or habitual; just as it is one thing to be drunk, and another to be a drunkard. What we shall deliver What we shall deliver upon the subject, must principally be understood of a habit of intemperance; although part of the guilt and danger described may be applicable to cafual exceffes; and all of it, in a certain degree, forafmuch as every habit is only a repetition of fingle inftances.

The mischief of drunkenness, from which we are to compute the guilt of it, consists in the following bad effects:

1. It betrays moft conftitutions either into extrav agancies of anger, or fins of lewdness.

2. It difqualifies men for the duties of their ftation, both by the temporary diforder of their faculties, and at length by a conftant incapacity and ftupefaction. 3. It is attended with expenfes, which can often be ill fpared.

4. It is fure to occafion uneafiness to the family of the drunkard.

5. It fhortens life.

To these confequences of drunkenness must be added the peculiar danger and mifchief of the example. Drunkenness is a focial feftive vice; apt, beyond any vice that can be mentioned, to draw in others by the example. The drinker collects his circle; the circle naturally spreads; of thofe who are drawn within it, many become the corrupters and centres of fets and circles of their own; every one countenancing, and, perhaps, emulating the reft, till a whole neighbourhood be infected from the contagion of a fingle example. This account is confirmed by what we often obferve of drunkenness, that it is a local vice; found to prevail in certain countries, in certain diftricts of a country, or in particular towns, without any reafon

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to be given for the fashion, but that it had been introduced by fome popular examples. With this obfervation upon the spreading quality of drunkennefs, let us connect a remark which belongs to the several evil effects above recited. The confequences of a vice, like the fymptoms of a disease, though they be all enumerated in the defcription, feldom all meet in the fame fubject, In the inftance under confideration, the age and temperature of one drunkard may have little to fear from inflammations of luft or anger; the fortune of a fecond may not be injured by the expense; a third may have no family to be difquieted by his irregu. larities; and a fourth may poffefs a constitution fortified against the poison of ftrong liquors. But if, as we always ought to do, we comprehend within the confequences of our conduct the mischief and tendency of the example, the above circumstances, however fortunate for the individual, will be found to vary the guilt of his intemperance, lefs, probably, than he fuppofes. The moralift may expoftulate with him thus: Although the wafte of time and money be of fmall importance to you, it may be of the utmost to fome one or other whom your fociety corrupts. Repeated, or long continued exceffes, which hurt not your health, may be fatal to your companion. Although you have neither wife, nor child, nor parent, to lament your abfence from home, or expect your return to it with terror; other families, in which husbands and fathers have been invited to share in your ebriety, or encouraged to imitate it, may justly lay their misery or ruin at your door. This will hold good, whether the perfon feduced, be feduced immediately by you, or the vice be propagated from you to him, through feveral intermediate examples. All these confiderations it is neceffa ry to affemble, to judge truly of a vice, which usually meets with milder names, and more indulgence

than it deferves.

I omit those outrages upon one another, and upon the peace and safety of the neighbourhood, in which

drunken revels often end; and also thofe deleterious and maniacal effects, which ftrong liquors produce upon particular conftitutions; because, in general propofitions concerning drunkenness, no confequences should be included, but what are conftant enough to be generally expected.

Drunkenness is repeatedly forbidden by St. Paul: "Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess." "Let us walk honestly as in the day, not in rioting and drunkennefs." "Be not deceived: neither fornicators-nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God," Eph. v. 18. Rom. xiii. 13. 1 Cor. vi. 9, 10. The fame Apoftle likewise condemns drunkennefs, as peculiarly inconfiftent with the Chriftian profeffion: "They that be drunken, are drunken in the night; but let us, who are of the day, be fober." 1 Thef. v. 7, 8. We are not concerned with the argument; the words amount to a prohibition of drunkenness; and the authority is conclufive.

It is a queftion of fome importance, how far drunkennefs is an excufe for the crimes which the drunken perfon commits.

In the folution of this queftion, we will firft fuppofe the drunken perfon to be altogether deprived of moral agency, that is to fay, of all reflection and forefight. In this condition, it is evident, that he is no more capable of guilt than a madman; although, like him, he may be extremely mifchievous. The only guilt, with which he is chargeable, was incurred at the time when he voluntarily brought himself into this fituation. And as every man is refponfible for the confequences which he forefaw, or might have foreseen, and for no other, this guilt will be in proportion to the probability of fuch confequences enfuing. From which principle refults the following rule, viz. that the guilt of any action in a drunken man bears the fame proportion to the guilt of the like action in a fober man, that the probability of its being the confequence of drunkennefs bears to ab

folute certainty. By virtue of this rule, thofe vices, which are the known effect of drunkenness, either in general, or upon particular conftitutions, are, in all, or in men of fuch conftitutions, nearly as criminal, as if committed with all their faculties and fenfes about them.

If the privation of reafon be only partial, the guilt will be of a mixt nature. For fo much of his felfgovernment as the drunkard retains, he is as refponfible then, as at any other time. He is entitled to no abatement, beyond the ftrict proportion in which his moral faculties are impaired. Now I call the guilt of the crime, if a sober man had committed it, the whole guilt. A perfon in the condition we defcribe, incurs part of this at the inftant of perpetration; and by bringing himself into fuch a condition, incurred that fraction of the remaining part, which the danger of this confequence was of an integral certainty. For the fake of illuftration, we are at liberty to fuppofe, that a man lofes half his moral faculties by drunkennefs: this leaving him but half his refponsibility, he incurs, when he commits the action, half of the whole guilt. We will alfo fuppofe that it was known beforehand, that it was an even chance, or half a certainty, that this crime would follow his getting drunk. This makes him chargeable with half of the remainder; fo that altogether, he is responsible in three fourths of the guilt, which a fober man would have incurred by the fame action.

I do not mean that any real cafe can be reduced to numbers, or the calculation be ever made with arithmetical precision: but these are the principles, and this the rule, by which our general admeasurement of the guilt of fuch offences thould be regulated.

The appetite for intoxicating liquors appears to me to be almost always acquired. One proof of which is, that it is apt to return only at particular times and places; as after dinner, in the evening, on the market day, at the market town, in fuch a company, at

fuch a tavern. And this may be the reason, that if a habit of drunkenness be ever overcome, it is upon fome change of place, fituation, company, or profeffion. A man funk deep in a habit of drunkenness, will upon fuch occafions as thefe, when he finds himfelf loofened from the affociations which held him faft, fometimes make a plunge, and get out. In a matter of fo great importance, it is well worth while, where it is in any degree practicable, to change our habitation and fociety, for the fake of the experiment.

Habits of drunkenness commonly take their rise either from a fondnefs for and connexion with fome company, or fome companion, already addicted to this practice; which affords an almoft irresistible invitation to take a fhare in the indulgences, which those about us are enjoying with fo much apparent relifh and delight: or from want of regular employment, which is fure to let in many fuperfluous crav ings and customs, and often this amongst the reft; or, laftly, from grief or fatigue, both which ftrongly fo licit that relief which inebriating liquors adminifter, and alfo furnish a fpecious excufe for complying with the inclination. But the habit, when once fet in, is continued by different motives from those to which it owes its origin. Perfons addicted to exceffive drinking fuffer, in the intervals of fobriety, and near the return of their accuftomed indulgence, a faintnefs and oppreffion circa præcordia, which it exceeds the ordinary patience of human nature to en'dure. This is ufually relieved for a short time, by a repetition of the fame excefs: and to this relief, as to the removal of every long continued pain, they who have once experienced it, are urged almoft beyond the power of refiftance. This is not all: as the liquor lofes its ftimulus, the dofe must be increased, to reach the fame pitch of elevation, or eafe; which increafe proportionably accelerates the progrefs of all the maladies that drunkenness brings on. Whoever re flects upon the violence of the craving in the advanc. ed ftages of the habit, and the fatal termination to