The science temperance text-book : in relation to morals, chemistry, physiology, criticism, and history / [Frederic Richard Lees].

  • Frederic Richard Lees
Date:
1884-
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The science temperance text-book : in relation to morals, chemistry, physiology, criticism, and history / [Frederic Richard Lees]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    § 4. Aristoteles, perhaps the most scientific mind of antiquity, says (b.c. 350):— “ Temperance is a mean state on the subject of pleasures,—bodily pleasures,—and not all even of these. . . In the natural desires few err, and only on one side,—that of excess, the object of our natural desire being the satisfaction of our wants. But in the case of peculiar [or artificial] pleasures, many people err, and frequently ; for people who are called ‘ lovers ’ of such pleasures are so called, either from being pleased with improper objects, or in an improper degree or manner, or at an improper time. A man is called intemperate for feeling more pain than he ought, at not obtaining pleasant things [as wine] ; but the temperate man is called so from not feeling pain at the absence of, or the abstaining from, pleasure. Now the intemperate man desires all things pleasant, and is led by his mere desire to choose these things. But the temperate man is in the mean on these matters, for he is not pleased, but rather annoyed, at the principal pleasures of the intemperate man ; nor is he pleased with any improper objects, or pained at their absence ; nor does he feel desire when he ought not, or in any case improperly. But he feels moderate and proper desire for all those pleasant things which conduce to health.” * § 5. Cicero (b.c. 50) has been cited by the Rev. Dr Howard Crosby, of New York, as holding a view adverse to the contention that ‘ Abstinence ’ is a part of the compre¬ hension of ‘ Temperance.’ He quotes from ‘De Finibus ’ two passages, on which he makes a singularly blundering comment :— “ Temperance is that moderating of desires which consists in obeying reason. . . It is Temperance which warns us to follow reason, in the seeking or avoiding of things.” (De Fin.) What a fearful prostitution and base use of a noble word is seen in the popular use of the word ‘ temperance ’ to-day ! What baseness can there be in ‘ obeying reason ’ and ‘avoiding’ injurious things? When appetite and fashion say ‘drink/ and reason and science say ‘abstain,’to call the gratification of the appetite by the sacred name of ‘Temperance/ is the real ‘prostitution’ of the word. Had * Nicomachean Ethics, lib. i. See article ‘ Golden Mean/ in Reply to Clerical World, p. 112.