mpulse easily succeeded when the
syllables to be learned had been repeated only a few times, while
after a very frequent repetition the memory connection offered a
resistance which the simple will-intention could not break. The
syllable which followed in the series rushed to the mind before the
intention to seek a rhyming syllable could be realized. The number of
repetitions thus became a measure for the power of the will. After
carrying out these experiments at first under normal conditions, they
were repeated while the subjects were under the influence of exactly
graded doses of alcohol.[46] From such simple tasks the experiment was
turned to more and more complex ones of similar structure. All
together they showed clearly that the alcohol did not influence the
ability to make the will effective and that the actual decrease of
achievement results from a decrease in the ability to grasp the
material. As long as the alcohol doses are small, this feeling of
decreased ability stirs up a reinforcement in the tension of the
will-impulse. This may go to such an extent that the increased
will-effort not only compensates for the reduced understanding, but
even over-compensates for it, producing an improvement in the mental
work. But as soon as the alcohol doses amount to about 100 cubic
centimeters, the increased tension of the will is no longer sufficient
to balance the paralyzing effect in the understanding. Yet it must not
be overlooked that in all these experiments only isolated will acts
were in question which were separated from one another by pauses of
rest. Evidently, however, the technical laborer is more often in a
situation in which not isolated impulses, but a continuous tension of
the will is demanded. How far such an uninterrupted will-function is
affected by alcohol has not as yet been studied with the exact means
of the experiment.

To be sure an obvious suggestion would be that the whole problem, as
far as economics, and especially industry, are concerned, might be
solved in a simpler way than by the performance of special
psychological experiments, namely, by the complete elimination of
alcohol itself from the life of the wage-earner. The laboratory
experiment which seems to demonstrate a reduction of objective
achievement in the case of every important mental function merely
supplements in exact language the appalling results indicated by
criminal statistics, disease statistics, and inheritance statistics.