PHI LOS 0 P H Y . - Classic Works of Apologetics Online

Drull1lenness.
to be given for the fashion, but that it had been intra ...
duced by some popular examples. With this observation
upon tile spreading quality of drunkenness, let us
wnnect a remark which belongs to the several evil ef.
fects above recited. The consequences of a vice, like
the symptoms of a disease, though they be all enume·
rated in the discription, seldom all meet in the same
subject. In the instance under consideration, the age
and temperature of one drunkarJ may have little to
iear from-inflammations of lust or anger; the fortune
of 2 second may not be injured by the expense; a third
may have no family to be disquieted by his irregularities;
and a fourth may possess a constitution for ...
tified against i~~ poison of strong liquors. But if,
as we always Qught to do, we comprehend within
the consequ~ces of onr cond:lct ihe mischief and
tendency of !he example, the above circll:lI1stances,
howe.-~r fc.lrtunate for the individual, wiil be found
to vary tht: ~uilt of his intemperance, less, probably,
than he sup~pS. The moralist may expostulate
with him thus: A!!hough the waste of time and
money be of small imponci,ce to you, it may be of theutmost
to some one or other wh~m your society corrdpts.
Repeated, or long continued excesses, which
hurt not ,!JUr health, may be fatal to your C lmpamon .
...tlrhough you have neither \vife, nor child, nor parent,
to lament your ab5ence frolll home, or expect
• •
your return to it ~;th terrur; other fd.milies, in
which husbands and fathers have been irl11:ted to
share in your f'briety, or encoural!ed to imitate it~
may ju.~tly lay their misery or ruin at your door.
TIlb will hold good, whether the person seduced,
be sed:Jced immediately by you, or the vice be propagated
from you to him, through sf:yeral intermediate
exalJlples. All these consiJerations it is necessa,..
~y to assemble, to judge truly of a vice, which usually
meets with milder names, and more indulgence
!11an it deserves.
I onlit tho~e outrages UPC}]l OJl..! another, and upon
~hc peace and safety (.If th" neighbourhood, in whicb