53 o TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the child abandoned by its parents finds itself in one of those situa- 

 tions of major force and fatal servitude in which a member of society- 

 is incapable, unless he is assisted, of participating in the social life. 

 In lifting up the orphan, society does not perform a work of mere 

 charity, as those believe who speak of children brought up by charity ; 

 it simply performs a work of justice, not reparative only, but con- 

 tractual justice. Shall we maintain that society has a right to let the 

 foundling die, under the pretext that the support of children is the 

 duty of the parents, and the parents are unknown ? The most that 

 can be said of such a conception is that it would be worthy of China 

 and Japan. A society in the midst of which abandoned children may 

 still be found is engaged toward such children by what the legists 

 call a " quasi-contract " ; it owes them food, with general and pro- 

 fessional instruction, and in giving these to them it does nothing more 

 than pay a general debt of reparative justice.* The same observation 

 is applicable to the case of infirm old men, and, in general, of all per- 

 sons who, being reduced to an absolute incapacity to work, have no 

 parents who can support them ; they also find themselves in a con- 

 dition of minority and servitude which renders them incapable of 

 taking care of themselves. A real moral right to assistance exists in 

 these cases ; in default of relatives, the duty of assistance falls upon 

 the city ; in default of the city, it falls upon the state ; here is a point 

 which legists, economists, and naturalists misconceive who see in 

 public measures of relief an attempt on the liberty of individuals 

 committed under the pretext of a charity that should be left free. 

 Absolute liberty of charity is a religious and moral prejudice born of 

 a defective analysis of rights. 



Does society owe assistance only to those who are incapable of 

 working, or does it owe it also to those who are capable but are ex- 

 ceptionally out of work, and thereby reduced to a condition of extreme 

 misery to a kind of temporary servitude and minority ? The ques- 

 tion is big with difficulties ; it is one which has engendered too strong 

 prepossessions to receive a scientific solution at the first view ; and, 

 between the contradictory exaggerations of the socialists and econo- 

 mists and the Darwinians, it still remains theoretically pending. "We 

 remark, in the beginning, that all countries, England, Germany, Sweden, 

 etc., have recognized, whether right or wrong, a public duty to assist 

 working-men. But they have not always taken the pains to limit the 

 duty and give it a rational interpretation. The existence of the pub- 

 lic duty of assistance can not confer upon the individual the right to 

 demand work, either by force or by legal process. The state can not 



* As raueh may be said of children " morally abandoned " and reduced to vagabond- 

 age. The public relief of the Seine, instead of shutting them up in a house of correction, 

 from which they will come out corrupted, has, since 1881, placed them as apprentices in 

 the departments. This measure needs to be completed by the passage of the bill for the 

 protection of infancy, which was presented to the Senate on December 8, 1881. 



