3 o2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the duty of the state toward those who are born and its duty in re- 

 spect to those who may hereafter be born. There is at this moment 

 upon the earth enough, and more than is needed, to support the men 

 who are now living ; but the time may come when there will not be 

 enough to support all those who may have been called to life, and it 

 is only at that time that the Malthusian law of population will become 

 incontestable. The moralist should, then, place himself in succession 

 at both these points of view points between which neither the Mal- 

 thusians nor the Darwinians have sufficiently distinguished. 



To get a better comprehension of the question, let us begin by ex- 

 amining the simplest cases, after which we will consider the more com- 

 plex reality. To revive an ancient and classical example, from which 

 we may draw new consequences, let us suppose a man settled by him- 

 self on an island, on which there is not only all that he needs, but a 

 superfluity, and that a shipwrecked man is afterward cast upon the 

 island. Undoubtedly the first occupant is not obliged to give up that 

 which is indispensable for his own life, but he owes the new-comer a 

 part of his superfluity. If the island affords sufficient to support two 

 men, the first one has no right to monopolize the whole of it. He 

 ought, then, to surrender to the companion, whom chance has sent him, 

 a part of the soil. By doing this he will perform not only one of the 

 acts of benevolence discredited by the Malthusians and Darwinians, 

 but the act will be one of strict justice. Now, let other men come 

 upon the island ; let the soil be wholly occupied, appropriated, covered 

 with houses, and inclosed in fences ; and then suppose a new ship- 

 wrecked man lands upon it. The island either can or can not support 

 and maintain another man. In the first case, the inhabitants, unless 

 they desire to regard the new-comer as in a state of natural war as to 

 them and their property, must allot him a portion of ground ; or, if 

 the ground is already entirely appropriated and divided out among 

 the inhabitants, they owe him such employment as will furnish him 

 the means of subsistence. The obligation is incumbent not upon a 

 particular individual among the inhabitants of the island, but upon all 

 the individuals collectively, and it is the duty of each one to contribute 

 according to his resources to the common obligation. Assistance is 

 thus a guarantee and defense of property, a treaty of peace succeeding 

 the state of war. It ceases to be an act of justice, and begins to be 

 an act of pure charity only when the portion of the new-comers can no 

 longer be afforded them except by depriving the first occupants of 

 something they need. In this case it becomes necessary, in effect, to 

 sacrifice one man to save another. 



Suppose now that, instead of being brought to the island by the 

 casualty of a storm, the new-comers have been introduced upon it by 

 the voluntary action of particular persons ; the right of these new- 

 comers to assistance will subsist for the present, but it is clear that 

 the mass of the inhabitants will have a right to watch over such intro- 



