in our institutions be cleared up, and
that liberty be more fully realized.

It behooves any economist or social philosopher, whatever be the grade
of his orthodoxy, who proposes to enlarge the sphere of the "State," or
to take any steps whatever having in view the welfare of any class
whatever, to pursue the analysis of the social effects of his
proposition until he finds that other group whose interests must be
curtailed or whose energies must be placed under contribution by the
course of action which he proposes; and he cannot maintain his
proposition until he has demonstrated that it will be more
advantageous, _both quantitatively and qualitatively_, to those who
must bear the weight of it than complete non-interference by the State
with the relations of the parties in question.

XI.

_WHEREFORE WE SHOULD LOVE ONE ANOTHER._

Suppose that a man, going through a wood, should be struck by a falling
tree and pinned down beneath it. Suppose that another man, coming that
way and finding him there, should, instead of hastening to give or to
bring aid, begin to lecture on the law of gravitation, taking the tree
as an illustration.

Suppose, again, that a person lecturing on the law of gravitation
should state the law of falling bodies, and suppose that an objector
should say: You state your law as a cold, mathematical fact and you
declare that all bodies will fall conformably to it. How heartless! You
do not reflect that it may be a beautiful little child falling from a
window.

These two suppositions may be of some use to us as illustrations.

Let us take the second first. It is the objection of the
sentimentalist; and, ridiculous as the mode of discussion appears when
applied to the laws of natural philosophy, the sociologist is
constantly met by objections of just that character. Especially when
the subject under discussion is charity in any of its public forms, the
attempt to bring method and clearness into the discussion is sure to be
crossed by suggestions which are as far from the point and as foreign
to any really intelligent point of view as the supposed speech in the
illustration. In the first place, a child would fall just as a stone
would fall. Nature's forces know no pity. Just so in sociology. The
forces know no pity. In the second place, if a natural philosopher
should discuss all the bodies which may fall, he would go entirely
astray, and would certainly do no good. The same is true of the