On Total Abstinence

Everybody knows, I hope, the philosophy of that maritime character, celebrated by Mr. Masefield, who had the honour to be the mate of Henry Morgan. Probably the most familiar phrase in it is that excellent one, "But I'm for toleration and for drinking at an inn." The pirate was probably not aware that he was recording the tragic separation of Liberalism and Liberty. It is the tragic irony of the progressive position today that those who talk most about Toleration are exactly those who cannot tolerate the idea of anybody drinking at an inn.

Being myself a Liberal who has wandered away from the other Liberals without ever getting any nearer to the Conservatives or the Socialists, it is probable enough that I shall be left lonely in that lonely innj or possibly in the sole company of the old, bold mate of Henry Morgan. Certainly if I have to choose between plutocracy and piracy, I prefer the pirates 5 for that sort of crime necessitated some sort of virtue. The pirate who grew rich on the high seas at least could not be a coward j the pirate who grows rich on the high prices may be that as well as everything else that is unworthy. Besides, the old pirate was continually pursued by the lawj the new pirate is not 5 he is as likely as not to be in Parliament making the law. But there is one thing that I will not pardon in him, if I pardon everything else as the way of the world or the fashion of the time. If I am to tolerate him, I will not tolerate his intolerance. I will not pardon him if he sits in Parliament and makes laws against men drinking at an inn, while he himself continues to sit drinking in a dining-room. There are a good many prosperous and progressive persons of whom this is literally true. Their hypocritical practice is worse even than their inconsequent theory. Even by their own account, they are for toleration, but against anybody drinking wine. But actually, in their own practice, they are for drinking wine and against toleration of it, in anybody except themselves. Compared with that sort of politician, z pirate like Captain Flint, who died roaring for rum in Savannah, is certainly a very honest and reputable figure. And if a pirate may be the object of relative respect to a true Liberal, a smuggler ought surely to commend himself to the most earnest sympathies of the great Liberal Party, with its dislike of tariffs and import duties. The old smugglers were actually called Free Traders 3 and there are still a good many Free Traders who would be morally much improved by becoming smugglers.

But anyhow, if, as many seem to suppose, there is a prospect of one of the more progressive groups going to form the next Government, I think it will be well for all people, of all political opinions, to prepare themselves to resist some sort of social oppression. And the way to resist these things is not to wait for the last moment and then shout the latest catchword, but to go back to the first principle and be ready for the first attack on it. If there is one thing I believe in with a solid certainty, it is in discussing the abstract question before what is called the practical question. In other words, it is clearing up the matter while it is moral and before it becomes merely political. What are the real principles governing all these problems of Prohibtion and True Temperance and model public-houses and the rest? Most even of those who know what they think do not know why they think it. Most even of those who are right hardly know that they are right and are easily bullied into being wrong.

Of course there are two totally difiFerent questions: whether we think fermented liquor good or harmless and whether we ought to forbid it to those who do think it good or harmless. The former is an opinion j the latter is an oppression j or, to put it more impartially, a persecution. A teetotaller may quite consistently think he is right, without thinking he has a right to take away other people's rights. Many teetotallers do take this truly Liberal viewj and they are better Liberals even than the mate of

Henry Morgan and myself. For they are granting a liberty they cannot even enjoy. Still, in preparing for the Prohibition controversy, it will be better, I think, to go yet further back and begin by thoroughly understanding the tradition of fermented liquor itself. Why is this thing so wide and general an institution of human history? only swept away suddenly from time to time in special places, by the Moslems in the desert and the Middle Westers on the plains; and even into those plains and deserts almost always trickling back again; a tradition even when it is a secret. Has the whole thing any real relation to the ultimate realities — to religion and the rights of man and all the roots of our being?

The total abstainer really has a philosophy, conscious or unconscious; it is much the same philosophy that is now leading some Teutonic philosophers to run about naked in the woods. It might roughly be stated thus: something is obviously wrong with mankind; but we believe that the true outline of man may be reached by simplification. A tree is a total abstainer; a fish disports himself in the sea without a bathing-suit; and these things are praised by all the poets as admittedly beautiful and healthy and complete. Man will now be made complete by shedding, not only the old slaveries of misgovernment, but the old slaveries of habit; the artificial customs that have formed like an accretion upon him in the superstitious past 3 and the superstitions of special festivity will pass with the superstitions of special mortification. Such a philosopher cannot but feel that wine is a sort of quack medicine with which the medicine-man has drugged the tribe in a dark age. Such a philosopher also cannot but feel, when he is consistent, that trousers are artificial appendages like wooden legs, or that wearing a hat on the head is a confession of weakness like wearing a green shade over one eye.

Such a philosophy is quite coherent and complete 5 there is nothing the matter with it except that it is all nonsense. It is nonsense because it is not natural, but unnatural: unnatural to man as he is, was, and always will be. We can say, if we like, that it is natural to man to be artificial. And the proof of it is that, while he is both better and worse than the beasts, when he tries these tricks he comes out worse and not better. In a race of running naked in the woods, the hairy animals will always outstrip and survive him. If he tries to be a vegetarian, the hippopotamus will always be a vegetarian on a far vaster scale than he. The cow will always go on eating vegetables with a patience and serene continuity which would bore a man to the point of suicide j for the cow scarcely stops to sleep and never stops to think. If he simplifies his life by being a water-drinker, there will always be much simpler animals who can drink a great deal more watery and what is even more important, other animals who can drink a great deal less. The camel is not only on the water-wagon 5 we may say that he is the water-wagon. Man, to whom alone is revealed the divine humility, has everywhere founded his superiorities on his inferiorities. Being an outcast without protection against the cold, he has made himself an artificial skin 3 and while he was about it, he has made the purple robes of Tyre and the golden copes of Milan. Being unable to sleep under the stars like the stronger creatures, he has huddled ignominiously under a roof 5 and, incidentally, made the roof a thing like Glastonbury or the Taj Mahal. And having, for some strange reason, broken down in the rhythm by which all the other unconscious creatures live, he has made a rhythm of his own, with special crises and high moments of festival 3 because the deep mystery of his nature demands variety and the concentration of contentment into conviviality. There he is no more ashamed that ale is artificial than that clothes or cookery are artificial 5 knowing that without that artificiality would perish all the arts.