TO THE POOR. 



given, the former could in the mass be predicted from 

 them. In the total amount they could be scientifically 

 predicted from the constancy of the causes, if our yearly 

 statistics did not save us the trouble, and there is hence 

 unhappily but little hope afforded of any great or speedy 

 reduction in the gross total. Yet this doctrine of scientific 

 prediction does not carry with it any fatalistic conclusion 

 as regards the efforts of individuals ; for though statistics 

 show a uniformity in the number of capital crimes, no 

 individual is bound to commit a murder to make up the 

 list that Science anticipates, and no one is compelled 

 to contribute his quota to the expected quantity of 

 pauperism in a given year. The reverse is, we know, 

 the truth; men are morally bound not to swell these 

 evil lists ; and the doctrine of predictable scientific 

 averages neither frees any from their individual respon- 

 sibility, nor forbids statesmen and others in influential 

 positions from trying, by all rational means, even though 

 they can effect little, to minimize social ills. 



But in particular, with respect to poverty and its 

 causes, each one has the matter, as it affects himself, 

 largely in his own hands, and upon this Mill, no less than 

 Herbert Spencer, insists. We know, from the teaching 

 of political economy, without any doubt, that the main if 

 not sole cause of it in any modern nation in which there 

 is a general disposition to labour, is the excessive numbers 

 of the labourers, necessarily diminishing the rewards of 

 each ; this, joined to vices for which they are responsible, 

 and to disease or weakness for which they are not, is the 

 cause of poverty, and we know the only possible reme- 

 dies which Nature has left us either limitation of the 

 numbers, increase in the resources of production including 

 the character of the producer, or emigration. What is, 

 however, most to be desired, and what must be insisted 



