IN HUMAN SOCIETY 



217 



dweller in the slough of want, dwarfed in body 

 and soul, demoralized, hopeless, can reasonably be 

 expected to possess these qualities ? 



Any full and permanent development of the 

 productive powers of an industrial population, 

 then, must be compatible with and, indeed, based 

 upon a social organization which will secure a fair 

 amount of physical and moral welfare to that popu- 

 lation ; which will make for good and not for evil. 

 Natural science and religious enthusiasm rarely 

 go hand in hand, but on this matter their concord 

 is complete; and the least sympathetic of natural- 

 ists can but admire the insight and the devotion 

 of such social reformers as the late Lord 

 Shaftesbury, whose recently published " Life and 

 Letters " gives a vivid picture of the condition of 

 the working classes fifty years ago, and of the pit 

 which our industry, ignoring these plain truths, 

 was then digging under its own feet. 



There is, perhaps, no more hopeful sign of 

 progress among us, in the last half-century, than 

 the steadily increasing devotion which has been 

 and is directed to measures for promoting physical 

 and moral welfare among the poorer classes. 

 Sanitary reformers, like most other reformers 

 whom I have had the advantage of knowing, seem 

 to need a good dose of fanaticism, as a sort of 

 moral coca, to keep them up to the mark, and, 

 [doubtless, they have made many mistakes ; but 

 [that the endeavour to improve the condition under 



