urally in the grain, and apples, and sugar-cane, just as flour, and
cider, and molasses do. And hence they have inferred, first, that God
intended the spirits for the use of man, as much as the flour, the
apples, or the molasses; and that it is just as proper to separate the
spirits by distillation, as it is to obtain the flour by grinding and
bolting. Secondly, that there can be nothing injurious or poisonous in
the spirits, any more than in the apples, the grain, or the molasses;
the only injury, in either case, resulting from using too much. Thirdly,
that spirits must be nourishing to the body, constituting, as they seem
to do, the very essence of the fruit, grain, and molasses, which are
confessedly nutritious.

Now, these inferences are all rendered null and void by the fact that
ardent spirits, or alcohol, which is their essence, do not exist
naturally in apples, grain, or sugar-cane. No one ever perceived the
odor or the taste of alcohol in apples, or the cider obtained from them,
while it was new and sweet; but after it had fermented for a time, by a
due degree of warmth, the sweetness in a measure disappeared, and
alcohol was found to be present. And just so in obtaining spirits from
rye, or any other substance; a sweet liquor is at first obtained, which,
by fermentation, is found to be partly converted into alcohol. This
sweetness results from the sugar which the substances naturally contain,
or which is formed by the process. This sugar is next destroyed, or
decomposed, by the fermentation, and its parts go to make up a new
substance, then first brought into existence, called alcohol. If the
fermentation be carried on still farther, another new substance is
produced, viz., vinegar. Carried still farther, putrid, unhealthy
exhalations are the result, such as we find rising from swamps and other
places where vegetable matter is decaying. If, then, we may conclude,
because alcohol is obtained from grain and other nutritious substances,
that therefore God intended it for the use of man, the same reason will
show that he intended man should breathe these poisonous exhalations. If
alcohol cannot be poisonous or injurious, because derived from harmless
and salutary substances, neither can these exhalations be so; nor,
indeed, those more putrid and deadly ones arising from the putrefaction
of sweet animal food. And if alcohol must be nutritious, because apples,
grain, and molasses are so, it follows that these exhalat