Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 25.djvu/498

484 incapable, in the suffering of the imprudent, and in the early death of the intemperate and unhealthy, there is a far-sighted benevolence. He declares that, in order to escape the objections of moralists, and to solve the question of public relief, Malthus had "recourse to Nature, which knows neither pity nor justice; he should have appealed to the reason and freedom of man." While the accusation is not an eminently just one, yet it showed a profound misapprehension of the real nature and purpose of our modern philanthropy. The conscious aim of scientific Philanthropy is, in the first place, to deal with the struggle of man with Nature—is to help men to help themselves; secondly, its aim is to regulate the struggle of man with man—is to help men to understand and adapt themselves to the conditions of existence. It is commonly noticed that the individual who succeeds in his struggle with Nature is apt to be successful in the good-natured struggle with his fellow-men. As Darwin proves, the intemperate suffer from a high rate of mortality, and the extremely profligate leave few offspring. There is economy in this process of elimination, whereby the transmission of the industrial vices is restricted, and, in the competition of life, the degraded members of society, unable to adapt themselves to the conditions imposed by physical and social environment, succumb before the rest of the population. The scientific idea of benevolence involves, first, the preparation of man to receive intelligently Nature's stern discipline—that is, to help him avoid all the evils coming from disobedience of physical agencies, and also to aid him in grasping those great rewards, which, as Huxley says. Nature scatters with as lavish a hand as her penalties. The philanthropist will show us that the hereditary vices which the parent establishes for his children and his children's children meet in the long run with certain punishment. If we could believe in the certainty of punishment, says Sir J. Lubbock, temptation, which is at the root of crime, would be cut away and mankind would become more innocent. The penalties attached to the consumptive, scrofulous, or syphylitic, in contracting marriage, are sharp and sure—ofttimes swift and merciless. Men sin from a mistaken idea of what constitutes to-day's pleasure and to-morrow's pain; and it is not pleasant to be reminded that a great deal of our suffering is due more to ancestral errors than to our own.

There is no possibility of a right understanding of the nature and purpose of Philanthropy without considering the three forces which, by their intricate interaction, combine to make the individual man what he is, natural selection, environment, and heredity. The process of elimination is nothing more nor less than the slow but steady selection of those who give evidence of their better adaptation to those external conditions into which they are born. No matter whether individuals survive, either for their mental or for their physical vigor, these qualities, for which they are selected, once gained and afterward enhanced by increased selection and heredity, become the