uct 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 long as he does his best."

"You said so," I answered, "but I supposed the rule applied only to the
workers of different ability. Does it also hold of those who can do
nothing at all?"

"Are they not also men?"

"I am to understand, then, that the lame, the blind, the sick, and the
impotent, are as well off as the most efficient and have the same
income?"

"Certainly," was the reply.

"The idea of charity on such a scale," I answered, "would have made our
most enthusiastic philanthropists gasp."

"If you had a sick brother at home," replied Dr. Leete, "unable to
work, would you feed him on less dainty food, and lodge and clothe him
more poorly, than yourself? More likely far, you would give him the
preference; nor would you think of calling it charity. Would not the
word, in that connection, fill you with indignation?"

"Of course," I replied; "but the cases are not parallel. There is a
sense, no doubt, in which all men are brothers; but this general sort
of brotherhood is not to be compared, except for rhetorical purposes,
to the brotherhood of blood, either as to its sentiment or its
obligations."

"There speaks the nineteenth century!" exclaimed Dr. Leete. "Ah, Mr.
West, there is no doubt as to the length of time that you slept. If I
were to give you, in one sentence, a key to what may seem the mysteries
of our civilization as compared with that of your age, I should say
that it is the fact that the solidarity of the race and the brotherhood
of man, which to you were but fine phrases, are, to our thinking and
feeling, ties as real and as vital as physical fraternity.

"But even setting that consideration aside, I do not see why it so
surprises you that those who cannot work are conceded the full right to
live on the produce of those who can. Even in your day, the duty of
military service for the protection of the nation, to which our
industrial service corresponds, while obligatory on those able to
discharge it, did not operate to deprive of the privileges of
citizenship those who were unable. They stayed at home, and were
protected by those who fought, and nobody questioned their right to be,
or thought less of them. So, now, the requirement of indu