6o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



discrimination need be made. The exhortations to charity and 

 benevolence never specify the objects minutely, while, in fact, this 

 should be the all-important feature. In seeming prohibition to any 

 suggestion of discrimination we are told that benevolence should 

 be universal, because the Creator " maketh his sun to rise upon 

 the evil and upon the good, and sendeth rain upon the just and 

 upon the unjust."' Now, in the case of sunshine and rain it would 

 be physically impossible to discriminate. It should also be re- 

 membered that the same Creator for the same reason sendeth the 

 lightning and the earthquake to destroy both the just and the 

 unjust. But, what is more to the present purpose, he starves to 

 death those who in summer fail to lay by a supply of food for the 

 winter ; he smites with disease those who are too lazy to cultivate 

 cleanliness ; and he visits the iniquities of fathers upon thought- 

 less children to the third and fourth generation. Here is a lesson 

 in discrimination of cause and effect not to be overshadowed by a 

 few platitudes about rain. 



But we must turn to consider the economic effects of altruism 

 by means of which we are to distinguish justifiable altruism from 

 unjustifiable altruism. So much of description has been neces- 

 sitated by the newness of the subject, and even now it is to be 

 feared that those who have never discriminated as to doing good 

 to others, except as regards the purity of motive in the doer, will 

 feel more concerned about the integrity of the precepts that have 

 been dissected than about the analysis of truth. Be that as it 

 may — and it would be a matter of regret to offend the ancient 

 prejudices of any — it is to be hoped that the economic remarks to 

 follow will but substantiate and illustrate the principles already 

 laid down. 



Now that we have reached the study of social, political, and 

 economic science, we are called upon to analyze the subject, to 

 define our terms carefully, to be sure that we build our sciences 

 on facts, and to state our conclusions clearly. And our conclu- 

 sions are most hopeful. They are, that in doing real and not seem- 

 ing good to ourselves we also benefit the race ; that in doing good 

 to others it is not necessary or wise that we inflict sore depriva- 

 tion or indignity upon ourselves ; that thrift and wisdom consist 

 in taking a reasonable thought for the morrow ; and that in noth- 

 ing so much should we take anxious thought for the morrow as 

 when appealed to for alms or to assist the needy. 



Better that they suffer hunger to-day and be made self-respect- 

 ing and self-supporting to-morrow, than that they be fed to-day 

 and then be forgotten to-morrow. We best help others by secur- 

 ing them full justice, and by refraining from injuring them either 

 through malice or through giving them that for which they return 

 no equivalent. 



