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 of the psychophysical system sets in with every act of attention and reaches its climax in sleep, which surely does no harm to the mind.  It may be thoroughly advantageous for the total work of the normal, healthy, average workingman if the after effects of the motor excitement of the day are eliminated by a mild, short alcoholic poisoning in the evening.  It may produce that narrowing and dulling of consciousness which extinguishes the cares and sorrows of the day and secures the night’s sleep, and through it increased efficiency the next morning.  Systematic experiments with exact relation to the various technical demands must slowly bring real insight into this complex situation.  The usual hasty generalization from a few experiments with alcohol for partisan interests is surely not justified in the present unsatisfactory state of knowledge.[47]