EDITOR'S TABLE. 



73 



score of centuries. With her spirit the 

 modern woman should say of her home, 

 " This is my diploma " ; and of her chil- 

 dren, "These are my degrees." 



SCI Eire E AND CIVILIZATION. 



That civilizations have perished in 

 the past is a commonplace of historical 

 reflection. That all is not well in the 

 latest of civilizations is a truth which 

 earnest men are feeling more deeply 

 from day to day. Undoubtedly there 

 are influences at work that tend to an- 

 tagonize the true evolution of society. 

 There probably never was a time when 

 so many people felt themselves unsuited 

 to their environment, when there was 

 so much of unsatisfied' ambition or so 

 much unsettlement of purpose. "We 

 have disengaged forces that sometimes 

 threaten to be too strong for us. We 

 have created in thousands of minds ex- 

 pectations which even the improved 

 conditions of modern life are unable 

 to satisfy. Men have been taught that 

 two giants of unexampled strength are 

 ready to do their bidding, one called 

 Science and the other Legislation : with 

 these the world is to be renovated. 

 That there can be little renovation apart 

 from renovation of individual character 

 is a truth which, whether believed in 

 or not, has been kept in the back- 

 ground. The discussion that has taken 

 place regarding " General " Booth's 

 scheme for the extinction of pauper- 

 ism and degradation in London has 

 made it clear that certain guiding prin- 

 ciples of social reformation are seriously 

 needed, and that, unless these are found 

 and acted upon, our whole social system 

 may suffer grievous injury. 



The key-note, the watch-word of so- 

 cial reform, some say, is to be found in 

 charity that is to say, in the benevo- 

 lent interest of man in his fellow-man. 

 These would organize moral salvage 

 corps, would visit the poor and degrad- 

 ed and try to heal and restore them by 

 kind words, good advice, and pecuniary 



or other equivalent assistance. That, 

 under favorable circumstances, some- 

 thing can be accomplished in this way 

 we should be extremely sorry to deny. 

 Many a man doubtless needs no more 

 than some slight, kindly intervention to 

 enable him to recover a wavering bal- 

 ance and betake himself with fresh 

 courage to the battle of life; but wheth- 

 er wide-spread social diseases are to be 

 successfully coped with by charity in 

 any of its forms is still a question. 

 Charity is the word of Religion, and a 

 beautiful word it is, expressing funda- 

 mentally a beautiful idea ; but it is not 

 the word of Science : the word of Sci- 

 ence is Justice. Are, then, charity and 

 justice incompatible? Far from it; there 

 is a charity that is just that is no more 

 and no less than justice and there is a 

 justice that is charitable in the highest 

 sense. We shall attack our social prob- 

 lems successfully only when, leaving all 

 sentiment and all unproved assumptions 

 aside, we seriously ask ourselves as a 

 community what we ought to do, what 

 justice requires us to do. If justice de- 

 mands what might be called charity, let 

 us not call it charity or disguise it un- 

 der any other specious name, but let 

 us call it justice and nothing else. If 

 it is pleasant to get good in the form 

 and name of charity, far sweeter and 

 far more strengthening and every way 

 beneficial is it to get it in the form and 

 name of justice. It is a misfortune that 

 the word justice has been so often asso- 

 ciated with the penal administration of 

 the law, and that in this way it wears 

 a severer aspect than properly belongs 

 to it. The law should be a terror to 

 evildoers and to none else; and we 

 should accustom ourselves to think of 

 justice as the most beneficent of divini- 

 ties and the very palladium of our civ- 

 ilization. This it is, whether we so rec- 

 ognize it or not ; only as we are in the 

 main a nation of just men is our civiliza- 

 tion secure. 



To follow out in detail the applica- 

 tions of the principle of justice to our 



I 



