THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE 97 



will, and all the physical and moral faculties that go to 

 the making of manhood, and unless they are stimulated 

 by hope of such reward as men may fairly look to? And 

 what dweller in the slough of want, dwarfed in body 

 and soul, demoralized, hopeless, can reasonably be ex- 

 pected to possess these qualities? 



Any full and permanent development of the produc- 

 tive powers of an industrial population, then, must be 

 compatible with and, indeed, based upon a social or- 

 ganization which will secure a fair amount of physical 

 and moral welfare to that population; 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 naturalists can but admire the insight and the devo- 

 tion of such social reformers as the late Lord Shaftes- 

 bury, 19 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 indus- 

 try, 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 which our 

 industrial population live, to amend the drainage of 



19 Anthony Ashley Cooper, seventh Lord Shaftesbury (1801- 

 1885), was a philanthropist who was active in improving the 

 conditions of the working classes. 



