It seems as if the time had come when scientists could not with a good
conscience suggest any other remedy than the merciless suppression of
alcohol. Indeed, there can be no doubt that alcohol is one of the
worst enemies of civilized life, and it is therefore almost with
regret that the scientist must acknowledge that all the psychological
investigations, which have so often been misused in the partisan
writings of prohibitionists, are not a sufficient basis to justify the
demand for complete abstinence.

First, newer experiments make it very clear that many of the so-called
effects of alcohol which the experiment has demonstrated are produced
or at least heightened by influences of suggestion. Experiments which
have been carried on in England for the study of that point show
clearly that certain psychical disturbances which seem to result from
small doses of alcohol fail to appear as soon as the subject does not
know that he has taken alcohol. For that purpose it was necessary to
eliminate the odor, and this was accomplished by introducing the
beverages into the organism by a stomach pump. When by this method
sometimes water and sometimes diluted alcohol was given without the
knowledge of the subject, the usual effects of small doses of alcohol
did not arise. But another point is far more important. We may take it
for granted that alcohol reduces the ability for achievement as soon
as such very small doses are exceeded. But from the standpoint of
economic life we have no right to consider a reduction of the
psychical ability to produce work as identical with a decrease in the
economic value of the personality. Such a view would be right if the
influence necessarily set in at the beginning of the working period.
But if, for instance, a moderate quantity of beer is introduced into
the organism after the closing of the working day, it would certainly
produce an artificial reduction of the psychical ability, and yet this
decrease of psychophysical activity might be advantageous to the total
economic achievement of the workingman in the course of the week or
the year. To be sure the glass of beer in the evening paralyzes
certain inhibitory centres of the brain and therefore puts the mind
out of gear, but such a way of expressing it may easily be misleading,
as it suggests too much that a real injury is done. From the point of
view of scientific psychology, we must acknowledge that such a
paralyzing effect in certain parts