Something reproduces these scars as the system throws off and changes its particles. That something must have been affected by the scarring. There is a strange connection between scars and the immaterial portion of us. It is a mysterious fact, right before us daily, and absolutely incontrovertible, that something in that part of us which does not change reproduces these scars. Newton, when the apple fell on his head—according to the fable, for I suppose that story is not history—found in it the law of the universe; and so in the simple fact that scars will not wash out or grow out, although the particles of the flesh are all changed, we find two colossal propositions; the one is that there is somewhat in us that does not change, and is not matter; the other is, that this somewhat is connected mysteriously with the inerasability of scars, which, therefore, may be said to exist in some sense in the spiritual as well as in the material substance of which we are made.
2. It is as true of scars on the brain and nervous system as of those on any less important parts of the body, that they will not wash out, nor grow out.
3. Scars on the brain or nervous system may be made by physical or mental habits, and are the basis of the self-propagative power of habits.
4. When the scars or grooves in which a habit runs are made deep, the habit becomes automatic or self-acting and perhaps involuntary.
5. The grooves worn or scars made by good and bad habits may be inherited.
Physical identity of parent and offspring, spiritual identity of parent and offspring—these mysteries we have discussed here; and this two-fold identity is concerned in the transmission of the thirst for drink. When the drunkard who has had an inflamed stomach, is the father of a child that brings into the world with it an inflamed stomach, you have a case of the transmission of alcoholic scars.
6. While self-control lasts, a bad habit is a vice; when self-control is lost, a bad habit is a disease.
7. When a bad habit becomes a disease, the treatment of it belongs to physicians; while it is a vice, the treatment of it belongs to the Church.
8. In probably nine cases out of ten, among the physical difficulties produced by the use of alcohol, and not inherited, the trouble is a vice and not a disease.
9. Alcohol, by its affinity for water, hardens all the albuminous or glue-like substances in the body.