534 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



man without work die of hunger, for I contend that we can support 

 him without giving him either wages equal to those of prosperous 

 times, or wages that will allow him to become a mischief-maker or a 

 soldier of the civil war." 



The state concerns itself with the general interests of agriculture 

 and commerce ; with public works, the fine arts, posts, telegraphs, etc. ; 

 different ministries have been constituted for these ends ; we believe 

 there ought also to be a ministry of philanthropic institutions, charged 

 with the duty of taking the initiative and creating foundations of this 

 kind, with encouraging and aiding those that already exist, and with 

 centralizing the efforts, gifts, and loans of individuals for philanthropic 

 establishments. New organs should be provided, in the great body of 

 the state, to answer to new needs. We now witness in this matter, 

 especially in France, an absolute dispersion of forces, an anarchy, and 

 faults in initiative and organization that impede all reform ; if a special 

 ministry existed for such questions, which seem not less important than 

 those of the posts, commerce, and agriculture, the impulse would be 

 quickly given. Loans, gifts, and legacies would permit the state to 

 institute experiments under scientific methods or to aid those which 

 might be made. Individuals do not, as a rule, care to bequeath their 

 property to the state in general, for a general and neutral use; but how 

 many persons would be glad to make gifts or legacies to philanthropic 

 institutions ! Religious congregations have a wonderful art of find- 

 ing money for their works of benevolence ; the state ought not to fold 

 its arms and be indifferent as if it had no precise obligation in the mat- 

 ter. Foresight, public benevolence, and " fraternity," in our modern 

 societies regulated by laws of increasing complexity, ought not to 

 remain a kind of moral luxury wholly abandoned to the chances of 

 individual inspiration. Charity is a general duty of justice, a work of 

 science and not of mere sentiment, in which social economy and nat- 

 ural history ought to co-operate. In reality, the idea inspired by the 

 labors of the Darwinian school on heredity and selection is, upon a 

 final analysis, that of solidarity ; and that is the very foundation of 

 moral fraternity. Solidarity, doubtless, causes the miseries of one to 

 fall upon the other members of the society, but it also extends the 

 good fortune of each one to all and that of the mass to each one. By 

 this very fact, it obliges society to find a remedy for every evil that 

 afflicts the individual, because every such evil tends to become social. 

 Solidarity limits our modern societies to the alternative of progress or 

 dissolution. In the perfected machines which modern industry uses to 

 weave linen, cotton, or wool, when a single thread breaks, the loom 

 stops of itself, as if the whole had been informed of the accident that 

 had befallen one of its parts, and could not continue its work till the 

 breach is repaired. This is a type of the solidarity which is destined 

 to reign more and more extensively in human society. In that social 

 web in which all individual destinies intercross, it must come to pass 



