ands the drinking of spirituous liquors. Were I
about to storm an enemy's battery, with no alternative before me but
victory or death, I might, principle aside, infuriate my men with the
maddening influence of ardent spirit, and let them loose upon the
charge, as I would a wounded elephant, or an enraged tiger. But in
attaining an object to which the combined energies of mind and body were
requisite, I should never think of the appropriateness of spirituous
liquor to aid the effort.

But an objector says, "I certainly _feel stronger_ upon drinking a glass
of spirit and water, and can do more work than I can without it. I can
swing a scythe with more nerve, or pitch a load of hay in less time; and
feel a general invigoration of my body during the heat of a summer's
day, after having drank a quantity of grog. How is this?" We reply,
doubtless you _feel_ for the moment all that you describe; but your
_feeling strength_ thus suddenly excited, is far from being proof that
you are _really_ any stronger. The opposite is the fact; which we infer
from the inadequacy of any substance, be it ever so nutritious, to
impart strength so suddenly, as it would _seem_ ardent spirit did when
drank; for there has not been sufficient time for digestion, through
which process only can any substantial nourishment be derived to the
body. The _apparent_ strength which an individual feels upon drinking
ardent spirit, is the same in kind, though not in degree, with that
which a man feels who has lain sick with a fever fifteen or twenty days,
during which time he has taken little food, and been subjected to the
weakening influence of medicines; but who on a sudden manifests great
strength, striving to rise from his bed, etc., and in his delirious
efforts must be restrained perhaps by force. Now no man in his senses
will call this any _real_ increase of strength in the sick man, who has
been starving thus long; but only a rallying of the powers of life under
the stimulus of disease, which is always followed by extreme languor and
debility, if not by death. So it is with the individual under the
influence of ardent spirit: he _feels_ the powers of his body excited
from the stimulus of the spirit; yet, as we think must be clear to the
apprehension of any one, without any addition of _actual_ strength.

Again, alcohol is not only innutritious, but is _poisonous_. Taken into
the stomach in an undiluted and _concentrated_ state, in quantities of
two or