well-balanced mind. What, if from any cause this beautiful equipoise
should be disturbed and the mind lose its power to think clearly, or to
hold the lower passions in due control? Shall we exceed the truth if we
say that the man in whom this takes place is insane just in the degree
that he has lost his rational self-control; and that he is restored
when he regains that control?

In this view, the question as to the hurtfulness of alcoholic drinks
assumes a new and graver aspect. Do they disturb the brain when they
come in contact with its substance; and deteriorate it if the contact be
long continued? Fact, observation, experience and scientific
investigation all emphatically say yes; and we know that if the brain be
disordered the mind, will be disordered, likewise; and a disordered mind
is an insane mind. Clearly, then, in the degree that a man impairs or
hurts his brain--temporarily or continuously--in that degree his mind is
unbalanced; in that degree he is not a truly rational and sane man.

We are holding the reader's thought just here that he may have time to
think, and to look at the question in the light of reason and common
sense. So far as he does this, will he be able to feel the force of such
evidence as we shall educe in what follows, and to comprehend its true
meaning.


NO SUBSTANCE AFFECTS THE BRAIN LIKE ALCOHOL.

Other substances besides alcohol act injuriously on the brain; but there
is none that compares with this in the extent, variety and diabolical
aspect of the mental aberrations which follow its use. We are not
speaking thoughtlessly or wildly; but simply uttering a truth well-known