68 Teachings of Thomas Huxley 



actual problems to enter the field of the ideal. 

 On them has devolved the obligation of knowing 

 the teachings of experience. 



To know the right and to uphold it is the 

 prerogative of the educated man as it is the 

 duty of the uneducated. Obedience to a com- 

 mon principle depends upon the individual. As 

 Huxley well said, "The higher the state of civili- 

 zation the more completely do the actions of 

 one member of the social body influence all 

 the rest, and the less possible is it for any one 

 man to do a wrong thing without interfering 

 more or less with the freedom of his fellow 

 citizens." 



EXCESSIVE PROCREATION AND THE STRUGGLE 



FOR EXISTENCE. 



The Malthusian doctrine that as population 

 multiplies the means of subsistence grow less is 

 a perfectly obvious fact. Malthus , belief, how- 

 ever, that a time must come when population 

 would so far exceed subsistence that great 

 numbers of the poorer classes would starve to 

 death has scarcely been realized. For present 

 purposes one may consider, in this country at 

 least, that the supply of things needful for the 

 maintenance of human life is well-nigh inex- 

 haustible; and that, when people starve, evi- 

 dence is given not of a fault in quantity of 

 food, but a fault in the distribution of food. 



