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 268 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

find their sanction, like all other causes, in their effects. Finally they dictate the credo of the future religion, if it is true, as seems to be the result of historical experience, that the religious form is indispensable to constitute the unity of the human race. Such are the principal features of this conception long held and reflected upon by the author." We must have recourse to colloquial wisdom for a fair estimate of this reasoning : "If anybody likes that sort of thing, it is just the sort of thing he likes." A. W. S.

The State and Charity. By Thomas Mackay. New York : The Macmillan Co., 1898. Pp. 200.

The author is strongly " individualistic." He regards poor relief as a means of prolonging the economic dependence of a class, a way of hiring people to incapacitate themselves for labor. Public relief obstructs the progressive forces of society and hinders the mobility of labor. All would be employed if the mechanism of exchange were perfect, and poor relief injures this mechanism. The better instincts of the modern mind are against all forms of dependence. A Jewish prayer is quoted as a sign of this feeling : " O release us speedily from all our anxieties, and suffer us not, O Lord our God, to stand in need of the gifts of mankind nor of their loans ; but let our dependence be solely on Thy hand, which is full, open, and ample, so that we may not be put to shame, nor ever be confounded."

True charity is free, and is not to be identified with poor law which is compulsory.

An interesting sketch of English charitable endowments and sys- tems of public relief is given ; the investigations of commissions ; the vacillating and contradictory forms of public opinion. While the author is strongly opposed to outdoor relief, he admits that some form of public care is still necessary, and he gives as an objective test that of the workhouse. "An applicant for relief is destitute when he is willing to surrender the maintenance which he derives from his own resources in exchange for an adequate but carefully regulated maintenance within the walls of some poor-law institution. No body of men is able to tell a destitute person at sight, and if the relief of destitution is the prov- ince of the guardians, the destitute must be marked out by an auto- matic test. An adoption of this rule would, of course, put an end to three-fourths of the pauperism of this country."

The Charity Organization Society was founded to represent this view, that individual, domestic relief should be left to private benevo-