CHA P. II.

DRUNKENNES S.

DR

RUNKENNESS is either actual or habitual; just as it is one thing to be drunk, and another to be a drunkard. What we fhall deliver upon the fubject, muft 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 inftan

ces.

The mischief of drunkenness, from which we are to compute the guilt of it, confifts in the following

bad effects:

1. It betrays moft conftitutions either into extravagancies 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 expences, which can often be ill spared.

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

5. It fhortens life.

To thefe confequences of drunkennefs must be added the peculiar danger and mischief of the example. Drunkennefs 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 those who

are drawn within it, many become the corrupters and centers 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 to be given for the fashion, but that it had been introduced by fome popular examples. With this obfervation upon the fpreading quality of drunkennefs, let us connect a remark which belongs to the feveral evil effects above recited. The confequences of a vice, like the fymptoms of a disease, though they be all enumerated in the description, 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 expence; a third may have no family to be difquieted by his irregularities; and a fourth may poffefs a conftitution fortified against the poifon 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 supposes. The moralift may expoftulate with him thus: Although the waste of time and money be of fmall importance to you, it may be of the utmost to some 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 ebri

ety,

ety, or encouraged to imitate it, may juftly 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 neceffary to affemble, to judge truly of a vice, which ufually meets with milder names, and more indulgence than it deferves.

I omit those outrages upon one another, and upon the peace and fafety of the neighbourhood, in which drunken revels often end; and alfo thofe deleterious and maniacal effects, which ftrong liquors produce upon particular conftitutions, becaufe, in general propofitions concerning drunkennefs, no confequences fhould 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 honeftly as in the day, not in rioting "and drunkennefs." "Be not deceived: neither "fornicators--nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor "extortioners, fhall inherit the kingdom of God." Eph. v. 11. Rom. xiii. 13 Rom. xiii. 13 I Cor. vi. 9, 10. The fame Apostle likewife condemns drunkenness, 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." The. v. 7, 8. We are not concerned with the argument; the words amount to a prohibition of drunkennefs; and the authority is conclufive.

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

In the folution of this question, we will firft fuppose the drunken person 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 mischievous. 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 abfolute certainty. By virtue of this rule, thofe vices, which are the known effects 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 felf-government 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 describe, incurs part of this at the instant of perpetration; and by bringing himself into fuch a condition, he 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 drunkenness: this leaving him but half his refponfibility, he incurs, when he commits the action, half of the whole guilt. We will alfo fuppofe that it was known before-hand, 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

so that altogether, he is responsible in three fourths of the guilt, which a sober 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 precifion: but these are the principles, and this the rule, by which our general admeasurement of the guilt of fuch offences, fhould be regulated.

The appetite for intoxicating liquors appears to me to be almoft 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 drunkennefs, will upon fuch occafions as these, when he finds himself 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 tolerably convenient, to change our habitation and fociety, for the fake of the experiment.

Habits of drunkennefs commonly take their rife either from a fondness for and connection with fome company, or fome companion, already addicted to this practice; which affords an almoft irrefiftible invitation to take a fhare in the indulgencies, which thofe about us are enjoying with fo much apparent relish and delight: or from want of

regular