3 H THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



overlooking indirect mischiefs does not produce a greater total of 

 misery than extreme selfishness ? 



Such are the objections of Mr. Spencer and Mr. Darwin in all their 

 force. In our opinion, they still bear against the blind and irrational 

 exercise of philanthropy, rather than against philanthropy itself. 

 Pushed too far, the theorem relative to the moral and intellectual de- 

 basement of societies would have consequences still more inadmissible 

 than that relative to their physical debasement. In fact, the law of 

 mental and moral heredity, which is their principle, is much more 

 vague and loose than the law of physical heredity. What is the mean- 

 ing of the unprecise expression, " a society lowered by the artificial 

 preservation of the individuals least capable of taking care of them- 

 selves " ? Does Mr. Spencer mean that parents in the habit, for ex- 

 ample, of soliciting at the charitable institutions will beget children 

 endowed with the innate disposition to go to the same institutions ? 

 England certainly offers a spectacle of this kind of poor, who are as- 

 sisted from father to son by the parishes ; they are, we might say, the 

 lords of beggardom ; in them hereditary indigence is raised to the 

 dignity of an institution. Poor mothers surround themselves with 

 their numerous children as so many titles to assistance they are Cor- 

 nelias of a new race. But whose fault is it ? Is it not that of the 

 distributors of the poor-taxes, which are, moreover, increasing every 

 day under this system ? Is it not, furthermore, the fault of the bad 

 education received by the children, rather than of heredity of temper- 

 ament ? If these children were brought up with the children of a 

 lord, would they exhibit an innate propensity to beg or to be assisted 

 by others ? We believe, generally, that Messrs. Spencer and Darwin, 

 as well as Messrs. Jacoby and Ribot, attribute too great a part to 

 heredity, too little a one to education and circumstances. 



The part played by the social and political organization in England 

 must, moreover, not be forgotten. In France, by the operation of the 

 rule of equality, there are between four and five million proprietors, 

 and the increase of population is so slow as to give uneasiness to those 

 jWho regard the material and military power of a nation before every- 

 thing else. In England, the soil is owned by thirty thousand persons, 

 and half of it is in the hands of a hundred and fifty large proprietors. 

 In consequence of this feudal monopoly and this rule of inequality 

 (for which many of our contemporary writers utter Platonic regrets), 

 neither the workmen nor the villagers can live without the aid of the 

 poor-taxes. The lords having arrogated to themselves the monopoly 

 of wealth, a part of the nation would be reduced to the most extreme 

 wretchedness if they did not deign to compensate for their injustice 

 with their charity. We must admit that they come within a certain 

 distance of reaching this point, for the number of assisted has dimin- 

 ished one half during the last thirty years. In the greater part of 

 England the wages of the agricultural laborer vary between six and 



