298 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 



or slavery there must always be a just mean. To find 

 and maintain this just mean from generation to genera- 

 tion is the function of social reform. The reform of the 

 day has been always in the direction of greater personal 

 freedom. " As a snow bank grows where there is a lull 

 in the wind," says Thoreau, " so where there is a lull 

 in the truth, institutions spring up ; by and by the truth 

 blows over them and takes them away." All forms of 

 tyranny have their beginning in kindness. Paternalism 

 in time hardens into oppression and checks the growth 

 of the individual man, who should become responsible 

 to himself and for himself. The intelligence and free- 

 dom of one's neighbours, not the force of statute nor the 

 power of arms, are the guarantee of social security. 



Causes of pauperism may be found in other forms of 

 giving as well as in those recognised as charity. Men- 

 tal pauperism is produced when men are given truth 

 instead of being trained to search for it. There are 

 schools which tend to make intellectual paupers instead 

 of training men to think for themselves. There is a 

 moral pauperism induced by the giving of precepts. 

 Right conduct must be individual if it is to have stabil- 

 ity. The doing of an honest piece of work honestly 

 may have more force in moral training than a hundred 

 sermons. In like manner spiritual pauperism may be 

 produced by religious instruction. Each man must make 

 his own religion. He must form his own ideals. In the 

 degree that he is religious he must in time become his 

 own high priest, as in the degree that he is effective he 

 must be his own king. 



