"I should not fail to mention," resumed the doctor, "that for those
too deficient in mental or bodily strength to be fairly graded with
the main body of workers, we have a separate grade, unconnected with
the others,--a sort of invalid corps, the members of which are
provided with a light class of tasks fitted to their strength. All our
sick in mind and body, all our deaf and dumb, and lame and blind and
crippled, and even our insane, belong to this invalid corps, and bear
its insignia. The strongest often do nearly a man's work, the
feeblest, of course, nothing; but none who can do anything are willing
quite to give up. In their lucid intervals, even our insane are eager
to do what they can."

"That is a pretty idea of the invalid corps," I said. "Even a
barbarian from the nineteenth century can appreciate that. It is a
very graceful way of disguising charity, and must be grateful to the
feelings of its recipients."

"Charity!" repeated Dr. Leete. "Did you suppose that we consider the
incapable class we are talking of objects of charity?"

"Why, naturally," I said, "inasmuch as they are incapable of
self-support."

But here the doctor took me up quickly.

"Who is capable of self-support?" he demanded. "There is no such thing
in a civilized society as self-support. In a state of society so
barbarous as not even to know family cooperation, each individual may
possibly support himself, though even then for a part of his life
only; but from the moment that men begin to live together, and
constitute even the rudest sort of society, self-support becomes
impossible. As men grow more civilized, and the subdivision of
occupations and services is carried out, a complex mutual dependence
becomes the universal rule. Every man, however solitary may seem his
occupation, is a member of a vast industrial partnership, as large as
the nation, as large as humanity. The necessity of mutual dependence
should imply the duty and guarantee of mutual support; and that it did
not in your day constituted the essential cruelty and unreason of your
system."

"That may all be so," I replied, "but it does not touch the case of
those who are unable to contribute anything to the product of
industry."

"Surely I told you this morning, at least I thought I did," replied
Dr. Leete, "that the right of a man to maintenance at the nation's
table depends on the fact that he is a man, and not on the amount of
health and strength he may have, so lo