H2 THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE 



all those who are absorbed in the actual business of in- 

 dustrial life as it is to some of the lookers on. 



Perhaps it is necessary for me to add that technical 

 education is not here proposed as a panacea for social 

 diseases, but simply as a medicament which will help the 

 patient to pass through an imminent crisis. 



An ophthalmic surgeon may recommend an operation 

 for cataract in a man who is going blind, without being 

 supposed to undertake that it will cure him of gout. 

 And I may pursue the metaphor so far as to remark that 

 the surgeon is justified in pointing out that a diet of 

 pork-chops and burgundy will probably kill his patient, 

 though he may be quite unable to suggest a mode of living 

 which will free him from his constitutional disorder. 



Mr. Booth 28 asks me, Why do you not propose some 

 plan of your own? Really, that is no answer to my argu- 

 ment that his treatment will make the patient very much 

 worse. [Note added in Social Diseases and Worse Reme- 

 dies, January, 1891.] 



28 "General" William Booth was the leader of the Salvation 

 Army. His absolute power and the irresponsible administration 

 of the society's funds were the chief reasons for Huxley's criti- 

 cism of the work of the Salvation Army in the Letters to the 

 "Times" on the "Darkest England Scheme," Collected Essays, 

 IX: 237 ff. 



