to live; every sanatory reform, prevention of pestilence, medical
discovery, amelioration of climate, drainage of soil, improvement in
dwelling-houses, workhouses, gaols; every reformatory school, every
hospital, every cure of drunkenness, every influence, in short, which
has--so I am told--increased the average length of life in these islands,
by nearly one-third, since the first establishment of life insurances,
one hundred and fifty years ago; every influence of this kind, I say,
saves persons alive who would otherwise have died; and the great majority
of these will be, even in surgical and zymotic cases, those of least
resisting power; who are thus preserved to produce in time a still less
powerful progeny.

Do I say that we ought not to save these people, if we can? 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