We pass now to a second point,
of a wholly different character, which particularly well illustrates
certain of the general principles with which we began. The supreme
importance of alcohol or of anything else for human happiness is
attained only through its influence on the selves of men and women. It
is upon these that our happiness depends--upon the nature and the
nurture, from hour to hour, of our selves and the selves with which we
have to deal. Above all, do women as individuals depend for their
happiness upon the selves of men, as we have suggested.
Now if there be anything certain about the action of alcohol upon the
brain, it is that it degrades the quality of the self. Much of the
cruder pathology of alcohol is open to doubt. A great many of the
supposed degenerative changes in nerve-cells, which were attributed to
it and thought to be irrevocable, are now interpreted otherwise. Chronic
alcoholism is looked upon by such foremost students as Dr. F. W. Mott,
less as a disease due to organic changes produced in the brain than as a
chronic functional derangement due to the continued action of a poison.
This newer interpretation of chronic alcoholism has the very important
practical corollary of encouraging us to the belief, which is frequently
justifiable, that if the chronic intoxication ceases, the individual may
completely or all but completely recover, as would not be the case if
the fine structure of his brain had been actually destroyed.
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