an? God forbid.
The weakly, the diseased, whether infant or adult, is here on earth; a
British citizen; no more responsible for his own weakness than for his
own existence. Society, that is, in plain English, we and our ancestors,
are responsible for both; and we must fulfil the duty, and keep him in
life; and, if we can, heal, strengthen, develop him to the utmost; and
make the best of that which "fate and our own deservings" have given us
to deal with. I do not speak of higher motives still; motives which to
every minister of religion must be paramount and awful. I speak merely
of physical and social motives, such as appeal to the conscience of every
man--the instinct which bids every human-hearted man or woman to save
life, alleviate pain, like Him who causes His sun to shine on the evil
and on the good, and His rain to fall on the just and on the unjust.

But it is palpable, that in so doing we must, year by year, preserve a
large percentage of weakly persons, who, marrying freely in their own
class, must produce weaklier children, and they weaklier children still.
Must, did I say? There are those who are of opinion--and I, after
watching and comparing the histories of many families, indeed, of every
one with whom I have come in contact for now five-and-thirty years, in
town and country, can only fear that their opinion is but too well
founded on fact--that in the great majority of cases, in all classes
whatsoever, the children are not equal to their parents, nor they, again,
to their grandparents of the beginning of the century; and that this
degrading process goes on most surely, and most rapidly, in our large
towns, and in proportion to the antiquity of those towns, and therefore
in proportion to the number of generations during which the degrading
influences have been at work.

This and cognate dangers have been felt more and more deeply, as the
years have rolled on, by students of human society. To ward them off,
theory after theory has been put on paper, especially in France, which
deserve high praise for their ingenuity, less for their morality, and, I
fear, still less for their common-sense. For the theorist in his closet
is certain to ignore, as inconvenient to the construction of his Utopia,
certain of those broad facts of human nature which every active parish
priest, medical man, or poor-law guardian has to face every day of his
life.

Society and British human nature are what they have become b