12 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
that the normal process of life is dependent upon certain forms of stimuli for its furthering, in the failure to find which men are drawn to a false form of stimulus a stimulant. Now, the gain- ing of an outlet for activity is internally necessitated, and is a result always in so far valuable. The question remains: Does the stimulant furnish the necessary outlet ? There is abundant evi- dence upon this point. Specialists and laymen agree that the stimulant removes the dead weight of sameness and apathy which hitherto obtained ; that it sets free the tension of the cells. The stimulant enters the blood, is distributed to all parts of the body, and for a time relieves the tension, wherever found. That wine at dinner aids digestion is well known. Everywhere it causes an increased emission of nerve energy. In the place of the sense of weakness it gives a temporary feeling of power. The man who knows himself to be of little consequence under its influence seems to himself to be of great importance to the world. "The hesitating man becomes fluent, the dull man bright, the slow man quick, the serious man sees a joke with an unwonted readiness of appreciation." The heart beats more rap- idly ; there is an exultation of the mind, a freeing of emotional life, pleasurable ideas, rapid thought, unusual merriment. In the absence of the demanding power of thought-consuming or crea- tive work ; in conditions where the demanding power of fellow- individuals is either wanting or unrecognized, where activity is stored and stimulus almost impossible, the saloon offers a stimulant which, for a brief period, helps on the process of con- sciousness and makes a crude thinker of a brain unused to thought. The process is valuable ; in the conditions which now obtain it is necessary ; but it is also baneful.
This view is not new ; it is old ; but of late it has passed unnoticed. In the clamor for social reform the individual has been overlooked. The sage Heraclitus declares : " It is a pleas- ure to souls to become moist." Esdras had it in mind when he wrote of wine that "it maketh the mind of the king and of the fatherless child to be all one, of the bondman and of the free- man, of the poor and of the rich. It turneth every thought into jollity and mirth, so that a man remembereth neither sorrow nor
