Page:Little Essays of Love and Virtue (1922).djvu/142

 all their aptitudes we cannot easily find anything to disapprove in the merciful disposal of the poorest specimens before they have even attained conscious possession of their senses. But in any case, and whatever we may ourselves be pleased to think or not to think, it is certain that some of the most highly developed peoples of the world have practised infanticide. It is equally certain that the practise has not proved destructive to the emotions of humanity and affection. Even some of the lowest human races,—as we Commonly estimate them,—while finding it necessary to put aside a certain proportion of their newborn infants, expend a degree of love and even indulgence on the children they bring up which is rarely found among so-called civilised nations.

There is no need, however, to consider whether or not infanticide is humane. We are all agreed that it is altogether unnecessary, and that it is seldom that even that incipient form of infanticide called abortion, still so popular among us, need be resorted to. Our aim now—so far at all events as mere ideals go—is not to destroy life but to preserve it; we seek to improve the conditions of life and to render unnecessary the premature death of any human creature that has once drawn breath.

It is indeed just here that we find a certain clash between the modern view of life and the view of earlier civilisations. The ancients were