performance of one's duties in life, or those who are malicious and
vicious, do the more mischief, is a question not easy to answer.

Under the names of the poor and the weak, the negligent, shiftless,
inefficient, silly, and imprudent are fastened upon the industrious and
prudent as a responsibility and a duty. On the one side, the terms are
extended to cover the idle, intemperate, and vicious, who, by the
combination, gain credit which they do not deserve, and which they
could not get if they stood alone. On the other hand, the terms are
extended to include wage-receivers of the humblest rank, who are
degraded by the combination. The reader who desires to guard himself
against fallacies should always scrutinize the terms "poor" and "weak"
as used, so as to see which or how many of these classes they are made
to cover.

The humanitarians, philanthropists, and reformers, looking at the facts
of life as they present themselves, find enough which is sad and
unpromising in the condition of many members of society. They see
wealth and poverty side by side. They note great inequality of social
position and social chances. They eagerly set about the attempt to
account for what they see, and to devise schemes for remedying what
they do not like. In their eagerness to recommend the less fortunate
classes to pity and consideration they forget all about the rights of
other classes; they gloss over all the faults of the classes in
question, and they exaggerate their misfortunes and their virtues. They
invent new theories of property, distorting rights and perpetuating
injustice, as anyone is sure to do who sets about the readjustment of
social relations with the interests of one group distinctly before his
mind, and the interests of all other groups thrown into the background.
When I have read certain of these discussions I have thought that it