SCIENTIFIC PHILANTHROPY. 483 



the strong and the weak, the rulers and the ruled. As population 

 becomes denser and denser, the contrast between the classes becomes 

 still more marked, and we find in the cities poverty, hardship, and 

 suffering, face to face with wealth, luxury, and ease. This is, in truth, 

 the social problem. The sympathetic party, who regard this state of 

 things in society as unjust and wrong, because unequal, invoke the 

 assistance of Government, in State education, in public institutions, 

 and in State Boards of Charities. The question may be stated thus : 

 Does scientific philanthropy render the vital competition between man 

 and man more unequal? Or, as a question for the legist, it becomes : 

 What public duty of relief does the State owe to its citizens? It 

 seems to us that these questions constitute the problem of philan- 

 thropy in its widest significance, and no apology is needed for treating 

 them in detail. 



M. Fouillee has fallen into the common error of supposing Mal- 

 thus a determined enemy of all charity, quite overlooking the fact that 

 he has devoted a most appreciative chapter to " the direction " of our 

 benevolence (Bk. IV, chapter ix). As currently reported, the Malthu- 

 sian theory would exclude all notion of public relief. Pushed to the 

 extreme, it asserts that when the improvident bring into the world 

 human beings for whom there is no subsistence, then we should leave 

 to Nature, and not to man, the duty of dealing with the surplus of 

 individuals. The Government should not step in and provide for the 

 foolish improvidence of the father. To do so would only act as an 

 encouragement to the lower classes to multiply at a faster rate than 

 the better members of society. Moreover, it is quite irreligious to 

 suppose a good Creator would in this way increase the miseries and 

 privations of life. It is His justice to cut off those who have not 

 " the slightest right to any share in the existing store of the neces- 

 saries of life." 



Malthus aptly illustrates that all men are Nature's guests ; but 

 some are entitled to partake of the viands, while others stand unin- 

 vited, no covers being laid for them " at the great banquet of Na- 

 ture." Here Philanthropy interposes and asks what right have the 

 first guests at a/ree banquet, after they are filled, to keep others from 

 coming for their share ? In the struggle for seats at Nature's ban- 

 quet, shall the strong and vigorous turn back the chairs, and refuse to 

 let the weak partake ? Philanthropy insists that there is plenty of 

 room at Nature's table, and that all men shall participate in a feast 

 where priority gives no one any exclusive right. Vita sedat, lUi con- 

 viva satur. 



These arguments seem at first glance unpitying, especially to ten- 

 der-hearted people, who deplore the harsh manner in which Nature 

 punishes ignorance and incompetency as rigorously as froward diso- 

 bedience. M. Fouillee is indignant over the effort of Malthus to show 

 us the justice of Nature's discipline, whereby in the poverty of the 



