offspring as well as itself to maintain. In a state of nature, that is
in a state unaffected by man's rational interference, defective
offspring and weaker brethren were the victims of the inexorable law of
natural selection. When Christ gave _his_ reply to the question, "Am I
my brother's keeper?" the defective and the weakling became the special
care of their stronger brother. They constituted thenceforth The Fit
Man's Burden. The work a man has to do during life, in order to support
himself, is the unit of measurement of the burden he has to bear. Many
factors in modern times have helped to reduce that work to a minimum.
The invention of machinery has multiplied his eyes, his hands, his feet;
and one man can now produce, for his own maintenance and comfort, what
it took perhaps a score of men to produce even a century ago. Man's
disabilities from incidental and epidemic disease have been immeasurably
reduced by modern sanitation, and the teaching and practice of
preventive medicine. Agricultural chemistry has made the soil more
productive, and manufacturing arts have aided distribution as well as
production.

All the departments of human knowledge have been placed under
contribution to man's necessity, and longer life, better health, and
more food and clothing for less work, are the blessings on his head
to-day.

While the burden has been lessened by the industrial and scientific
progress of the last half century, it has been augmented by the
fertility of the unfit; and the maintenance in idleness and comfort of
the great and increasing army of defectives constitutes the fit man's
burden. The unfit in the State include all those mental and moral and
physical defectives who are unable or unwilling to support themselves
according to the recognised laws of human society. They include the