[p.1] Drunkenness is not, like some other vices, peculiar to modern times. . . . [p.2] Drunkenness has varied greatly at different times and among different nations. There can be no doubt that it prevails more in a rude than in a civilized state of society. This is so much the case, that as men get more refined, the vice will gradually be found to soften down, and assume a less revolting character. . . . [p.11] The variety of agents capable of exciting drunkenness is indeed surprising, and in proportion to their number seems the prevalence of that fatal vice to which an improper use of them gives rise. . . . [p.13] Some become drunkards from excess of indulgence in youth. There are parents who have a common custom of treating their children to wine, punch, and other intoxicating liquors. This, in reality, is regularly bringing them up in an apprenticeship to drunkenness. Others are taught the vice by frequenting drinking clubs and ma sonic lodges. . . . [p.15] Certain occupations have a tendency to induce drunkenness. Innkeepers, recruiting-sergeants, pugilists, &c. are all exposed in a great degree to temptation in this respect; and intemperance is a vice which may be very often justly charged against them. . . . [pp.210-11] Let those, therefore, who will not abandon liquors, use them in moderation, and not habitually, or day by day, unless the health should require it, for cases of this kind we sometimes do meet with, though by no means so often as many would believe. Abstractly considered, liquors are not injurious. It is their abuse that makes them so, in the same manner as the most wholesome food be comes pernicious when taken to an improper excess.