V IN HUMAN SOCIETY 215 



and drunkenness ; in which the pains accumulate 

 at compound interest, in the shape of starvation, 

 disease, stunted development, and moral degrada 

 tion; in which the prospect of even steady and 

 honest industry is a life of unsuccessful battling 

 with hunger, rounded by a pauper's grave. 



That a certain proportion of the members of 

 every great aggregation of mankind should con 

 stantly tend to establish and populate such a 

 Slough of Despond as this is inevitable, so long 

 as some people are by nature idle and vicious, 

 while others are disabled by sickness or accident, 

 or thrown upon the world by the death of their 

 bread-winners. So long as that proportion is 

 restricted within tolerable limits, it can be dealt 

 with; and, so .far as it arises only from such 

 causes, its existence may and must be patiently 

 borne. But, when the organization of society, 

 instead of mitigating this tendency, tends to 

 continue and intensify it ; when a given social 

 order plainly makes for evil and not for good, men 

 naturally enough begin to think it high time to 

 try a fresh experiment. The animal man, finding 

 that the ethical man has landed him in such a 

 slough, resumes his ancient sovereignty, and 

 preaches anarchy ; which is, substantially, a 

 proposal to reduce the social cosmos to chaos, and 

 begin the brute struggle for existence once again. 



Any one who is acquainted with the state of 

 the population of all great industrial centres, 



