Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 30.djvu/788

764 from the artificial method of dealing with a social question. A persistent struggle for continuous and successful life, with intervening accidents or catastrophes, always possible, forms the ever-present condition of physical as well as of social living. Much of our daily energy is necessarily expended in repairing continual bodily waste that the process of life entails, in fighting off disease or avoiding accidents. Life can truly be defined as a struggle for existence. With reference to life in society, Carlyle, in his terse, strong style, puts it thus: "No man lives without jostling and being jostled; in all ways he has to elbow himself through the world, giving and receiving offense. His life is a battle, in so far as it is an entity at all." Sociology must try and determine why many fight such a losing battle, by seeking closer counsel with the laws and teachings of physiology.

The lazy, inefficient, and even the criminal classes, are an inevitable by-product of our complex modern civilization. They are not accidents, but accretions. They are developed by laws that it is the duty of social science to discover and obviate, instead of indulging in idle moralizing. These laws must be evolved by a slow and patient study of social phenomena interpreted by biological methods. When these laws are understood, it will be seen that a sound education is the measure of relief. I use this word in no narrow or conventional sense, but meaning the development of the whole being in the line of the highest strength and efficiency of the various parts. Every effort of the philanthropist, the social reformer, and the Government must be invoked to prevent degradation and degeneration in the poorer classes, and raise them to a better status. The laws of healthy development must be taught, and the consequences of their neglect in the habits of life be shown.

A young man who will marry early and raise a large family in a closely populated center will inevitably involve himself in poverty and his family in misery. Such apparent facts must be laid before the young in time to prevent mistakes that can not be rectified. One of the unfortunate factors in the social question is that the poorest and often the physically unfittest classes are usually the most prolific, for which they sometimes receive needless and undeserved praise. It is the business and duty of Government to do all in its power to prevent or mitigate any environment that all experience shows will produce not only physical and mental inefficiency, but sufficient degradation of the moral sense to make criminals. To this extent can Government profitably interfere in a social question. It may be contended that Government is not a philanthropic institution, and hence it is without its scope to consider means to elevate the shiftless and unfortunate. It may also be argued that Government can not consistently interfere even with the degradation of people without assuming a right to regulate all their affairs. But, outside of all theoretical objections, no one