A few years later Lincoln was called upon to address the Washingtonian Temperance Society, which was an organization of reformed drink addicts. This speech is strikingly independent in approach, and as such is prophetic of the manner he was to adopt in wrestling with the great problems of union and slavery. Instead of following the usual line of the temperance advocate, with its tone of superiority and condemnation, he attacked all such approaches as not suited to the nature of man. He impressed upon his hearers the fact that their problem was the problem of human nature, “which is God’s decree and can never be reversed.” He then went on to say that people with a weakness for drink are not inferior specimens of the race but have heads and hearts that “will bear advantageous comparison with those of any other class.” The appeal to drink addicts was to be addressed to men, and it could not take the form of denunciation “because it is not much in the nature of man to be driven to anything; still less to be driven about that which is exclusively his own business.” When one seeks to change the conduct of a being of this nature, “persuasion, kind, unassuming persuasion should ever be adopted.” He then summed up his point: “Such is man and so must he be understood by those who would lead him, even to his own best interests.”[81] One further instance of this argument may be cited. About 1850 Lincoln compiled notes for an address to young men on the subject of the profession of law. Here again we find a refreshingly candid approach, looking without pretense at the creature man. One piece of advice which Lincoln urged upon young lawyers was that they never take their whole fee in advance. To do so would place too great a strain upon human nature, which would then lack the needful spur to industry. “When fully paid beforehand, you are more than a common mortal if you can feel the same interest in the case, as if something was still in prospect for you, as well as for your client.”[82] As in the case of the subtreasury bill, Lincoln saw the yoking of duty and self-interest as a necessity of our nature. These and other passages which could be produced indicate that he viewed human nature as a constant, by which one could determine policy without much fear of surprise. Everything peripheral Lincoln referred to this center. His arguments consequently were the most fundamental seen since a group of realists framed the American government with such visible regard for human passion and weakness. Lincoln’s theory of human nature was completely unsentimental; it was the creation of one who had taken many buffetings and who, from early bitterness and later indifference, never affiliated with any religious denomination. But it furnished the means of wisdom and prophecy.