A REJOINDER IBl 



spending for them their money, and generally directing 

 their lives from early morn to night, and from the cradle 

 to the grave. That is the inevitable goal of every 

 artificial line of evolution determined by the " We." 

 Having dealt with the " We," let us turn next 

 to another aspect of the question raised by Miss 

 Wodehouse. If I have not misunderstood her, 

 she implies that the conditions of human society are 

 not ideal, and " that in fact we often condemn an 

 environment because by strict natural law it gives the 

 advantage to qualities which we condemn." Now 

 in this matter Miss Wodehouse is dealing with the 

 environment of human society. By implication she 

 says the environment of the slums is rearing a slum 

 race and one adapted to those conditions. Mr. 

 Bernard Bosanquet, in his " Philosophy of the 

 State " maintains the same attitude, if I have 

 rightly understood him. I will not for the 

 moment follow the logical extension of such a con- 

 tention, but it suffices to point out again a funda- 

 mental fallacy involved in it. I have already in 

 my article on "Virile Sentiment " alluded to it (pages 

 49 and 55). The fallacy consists in believing that 

 it was the slum environment which made the slum 

 people. The very converse, as I endeavoured to show, 

 is true. It is the people of " slum " instincts 

 who have created the slums. If they did not, we 

 are bound to ask who did ? Will Miss Wodehouse 

 point out to me any Act of Parliament which ordained 

 the creation of slums ? Have the sentimentalists 

 and social reformers for the past eighty years been 



