598 THE DIMINUTION OF SUFFERING. 



The well-known proverb against looking a gift horse in 

 the mouth does not apply to the gifts of nature ; they will 

 bear the closest inspection, and the more we examine, the 

 more we shall find to admire. Nor are these new sources of 

 happiness accompanied by any new liability to suffering ; on 

 the contrary, while our pleasures are increased, our pains are 

 lessened ; in a thousand ways we can avoid or diminish evils 

 which to our ancestors were great and inevitable. How much 

 misery, for instance, has been spared to the human race by 

 the single discovery of chloroform ? The capacity for pain, 

 so far as it can serve as a warning, remains in full force, but 

 the necessity for endurance has been greatly diminished. 

 With increased knowledge of, and attention to, the laws of 

 health, disease will become less and less frequent. Those 

 tendencies thereto which we have derived from our ancestors 

 will gradually die out ; and if fresh seeds are not sown, our 

 race may one day enjoy the inestimable advantages of health. 



Thus, then, with the increasing influence of science, we 

 may confidently look to a great improvement in the condition 

 of man. But it may be said that our present sufferings and 

 sorrows arise principally from sin, and that any moral im- 

 provement must be due to religion, not to science. This 

 separation of the two mighty agents of improvement is the 

 great misfortune of humanity, and has done more than any- 

 thing else to retard the progress of civilization. But even if 

 for the moment we admit that science will not render us 

 more virtuous, it must certainly make us more innocent. 

 Out of 164,000 persons committed to prison in England and 

 Wales, only 4000 could read and write well. In fact, 

 our criminal population are mere savages, and most of their 

 crimes are but injudicious and desperate attempts to live 

 as a savage in the midst, and at the expense, of a civilized 

 community. 



Men do not sin for the sake of sinning ; they yield to 



