T.H. Huxley indicates in the passage quoted his willingness--indeed, his eagerness--to have someone take over the choices of life for him, to take away the onerous task of having to make his own decisions and choose correctly among the options faced each day. He would be perfectly happy, he says, to be treated as a clock that could be wound up every morning so long as the result is that he be mad always to think what is true and do what is right. Achieving this state--thinking what is true and doing what is right--is a good to which we all are expected to direct our energies. Huxley would be willing to let someone else do this for him, some power that could obviate the human struggle to achieve truth and righteousness. In essence, he is asking for a deterministic universe directed by a higher power that would not force human beings to do the work necessary to achieve this goal. Huxley is clearly pushing against the tide of human thought extending over several thousand years as Western civilization has struggled to escape from the deterministic universe and to promote individual choice, even if that means that the wrong choices are made.
Yet, it is evident that there is something appealing about giving up responsibility such as Huxley says he would enjoy. Indeed, ne technologies and developments in medical science have made it possible for millions of people to do just that, at least in some degree. Much of the impetus toward drug abuse--and alcohol abuse as well--derives from the desire to escape from care and to remove any sense of responsibility. Users might prefer having someone to watch over them while they are in their drug-induced stupor to see to it that they do no wrong, but many people do turn to drugs in order to have an external control over their actions and behaviors and to tame responsibility from their own shoulders.
There are two types of drug abuse--the abuse of illegal drugs, an abuse that is proscribed ...