5 28 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



direction of an energetic nutrition toward a particular function results 

 in the exaltation of that function and the depreciation of all the 

 others ; it might even create a kind of physiological monstrosity. 



It is, then, the excessive and abnormal application of the brain 

 that diminishes by compensation the generative vigor ; and, still more, 

 the bad hygienic conditions under which thinkers live, and, perhaps, 

 the pressure of necessity, causing them to overwork themselves. 

 Among the people who lead the march of civilization, the minorities 

 who work excessively for the advancement of that civilization quickly 

 exhaust themselves, and have to be replaced by new generations. This 

 is the cause of the relative sterility of cities as compared w T ith the 

 fecundity of country places. The centers of intellectual life, the great 

 cities, are, to M. Jacoby, the Minotaurs of civilization ; but this is 

 not only, as M. Jacoby seems to believe, because they think too 

 much in the great cities, but because they think badly and live con- 

 trary to all the rules of hygiene. The biological law accepted by Mr. 

 Spencer is true only in its most general principles, not in the extreme 

 consequences which he has drawn from them, while special circum- 

 stances may intrude many a perturbation among the effects of the 

 law. 



In every case a time must come when equilibrium will at last be 

 established. The nervous system will finally become capable of meet- 

 ing, without being overcome, the difficulties of existence, and of sup- 

 plying all usual demands. It will then cease to develop at the expense 

 of the organism. By this very fact, fecundity will be normal, neither 

 too great nor too little ; and there will be harmony between the popu- 

 lation and the conditions of existence. There is, then, truth in this 

 final conclusion at which Mr. Spencer arrives : that the excess of fe- 

 cundity has rendered the march of civilization inevitable (let us add 

 the march of philanthropy), and the march of civilization should inevi- 

 tably restore fecundity to its normal conditions. In this manner, per- 

 haps, will be resolved the problem which troubled Malthus so much. 

 In this way, also, we see that scientific philanthropy, by diffusing in- 

 struction along with well-being, and by raising the intellectual level of 

 the needy classes, tends to establish among them the equilibrium of 

 fecundity and of the intellectual functions, and consequently to dimin- 

 ish that blind and sometimes excessive proliferation which gives econ- 

 omists anxiety concerning the future, if not about the present. At 

 this point, again, the advantages of philanthropy compensate, and 

 more, for evils which involve nothing essential. 



If it is important to establish in principle, as we have tried to do, 

 the legitimacy and utility of philanthropy, it is not less necessary to 

 fix the rules and limits of its application. An enlightened philanthropy 

 should not bestow its benevolence at hazard and without conditions ; 

 it should be reparative and preventive justice together, instead of re- 

 maining that ancient " Christian charity " which, like love, too often 



