A REJOINDER 143 



the natural environment of any particular social 

 class in Society." I hold this opinion, it is true. 

 But the strongest objection to modern sentiment, is 

 not so much that it is striving to alter the 

 natural environment under which we have evolved, 

 as that it is making an effort to substitute for it a 

 wrong and dangerous artificial one. This new en- 

 vironment, I think every one will admit who has 

 considered the question at all, is operating to 

 destroy or to harass the better and self-supporting 

 citizens in order to save an increasing number of 

 altogether unworthy, helpless, and hopeless civic 

 cripples, and is encouraging others who are capable of 

 self-support, to throw themselves upon the charity 

 of their country. What is most dangerous in 

 the practical effects of this modern sentiment is that 

 it is turning human society upside down, and is by 

 artificial processes rendering the naturally fit arti- 

 ficially unfit, and the naturally unfit artificially fit. 

 In other words, it is destroying a Shakespeare to save 

 an itinerant preacher, and it is harassing out of 

 existence a Reynolds in order to preserve a pavement 

 colourist. It is conceivable that even Miss Wodehouse 

 will not contend, in the light of modern knowledge, 

 even with the aid of metaphysics, that however 

 " careful the treatment and judicious the training," 

 it is possible to convert the people who have mistaken 

 aspiration for inspiration into Shakespeares or into 

 Reynolds'. If she does so contend the question 

 may be asked : How is it that in the period when 

 Shakespeare and George Stephenson were living, 



K 



