1 82 HEREDITY AND SOCIETY 



They are impatient to see the reign of justice begun 

 rather than the work of purification continued. The 

 cry to make things fair is heard on all sides. 



If each one of us were asked whether on behalf of 

 ourselves we wished all power of feeling pain, physical 

 or moral, to cease, there is little doubt that a universal 

 negative would greet the proposal. As a teacher, a 

 purifier, a stimulus, a danger signal, we know too well 

 its value to acquiesce in its withdrawal from ourselves, 

 though it would frequently relieve our feelings to see 

 the possibility of the sensation of pain removed from 

 those who are near and dear to us. There indeed we 

 too often watch the suffering without being permitted 

 to apprehend the consequent gain. 



Here are two old conceptions which may possibly 

 help us to see some light in the darkness. The one is 

 the fact that we are necessarily blind to the movements 

 of our neighbours' inward life and cannot judge fairly 

 of the value of the discipline. Our own feelings may 

 be too deeply involved to give a just verdict. The case 

 must be removed to another jurisdiction and judged 

 on general principles. The other is the idea involved 

 in the statement that the value we attach to suffering 

 is derived from its beneficial effect on ourselves. But 

 what of its value to an organism that has not capacity 

 to learn, cannot undergo purification by such means, 

 makes no answer to the stimulus, is incapable of appre- 

 hending the danger signal ? Here we have suffering 

 as a blind, insensate, stupefying, paralysing force. Its 

 reason for existence ceases. It cannot be the means of 

 attaining to a higher sphere ; it is degrading, brutalizing. 

 Then, by all means, let us deal with the problem of 



