482 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



moment, though so greatly "misconceived" by Mr. Darwin and his 

 partisans. Long before Darwin, Mr. Spencer, in his "Social Statics," 

 inquired : " For what faculty is it, whose work a poor-law so officiously 

 undertakes ? Sympathy." Darwin labored under the same misconcep- 

 tion, for in the " Descent of Man " he says that the aid we feel im- 

 pelled to give to the helpless and incompetent is mainly the result of 

 sympathy, originally acquired as part of the social instincts, and subse- 

 quently rendered more widely diffused. Thus, the necessary datum 

 of ethics lies in the principle, that each man must recognize and 

 respect the rights and claims of another, equally with his own. It 

 follows, then, that benevolence and justice spring from the same 

 moral sentiment which is the foundation of every form of philan- 

 thropy. If the question was one of pure ethics, it would be legitimate 

 to inquire, Ought philanthropy to preserve those who, from a mental 

 and physical point of view, are not fit to be preserved ? Is it right 

 that the scanty means of subsistence should be at the command of 

 individuals who, by their own conduct, have no claim for relief ? In 

 reply, it may be confessed a delicate task to draw the line of demarka- 

 tion sharply. The warfare waged in ethics has been at last transferred 

 into the domain of sociology. The two widely different systems of 

 social science — the one treating the topic by utilitarian methods, the 

 other by the way of altruism — is the logical outcome of the rival claims 

 of utility and intuition to be considered the rightful premises in all 

 moral differences. To the one it is objected that self-interest is de- 

 veloped entirely at the expense of natural sympathy ; against the lat- 

 ter it is urged that the feelings of sentiment are allowed to control in 

 shaping the policy of public relief, instead of using the slower and 

 more cautious methods of reason. The principle upon which the senti- 

 mental school is founded is co-operation, whereby the weak in body or 

 in mind, without struggle, share alike with the more vigorous and pru- 

 dent. The scientific sociologist starts with the competitive theory of 

 life, whereby in an advancing society, with the agglomeration of popu- 

 lation in great centers, it is everywhere seen that industrial virtues 

 are more and more the high rewards of mental and physical vigor, 

 while poverty and pain are the attendant penalties attached to weak- 

 ness, idleness, and imprudence. 



Scientific Philanthropy is based on the intimate scientific connec- 

 tion between biology and sociology, first enunciated by M. Comte ; is 

 an attempt on the part of science to control the struggle, not only of 

 man with Nature, but of man with man. Its conscious aim is, there- 

 fore, to overcome the harsh and rigorous effects of certain known 

 biological laws. With successive differentiations of individual func- 

 tions and pursuits there comes an increasing specialization of each 

 differentiated member of society, and hence industrial virtues or vices 

 which the parent fixes for the child by heredity leads to the existence 

 of two very different classes in the community — the rich and the poor, 



