ng for the advancement and betterment of society regarded as a
whole and with regard for its units. We cannot realise self if engaged
in competition man against man in order to satisfy private ambition. Our
object should be to unite and our hostility be provoked, not against one
another, weak or strong, but against the powers which attack us
individually and collectively.

Necessity then lays the obligation upon us to give our first attention
to the rescue of the weak. It was the recognition of this obligation
which sent the Christian-Maidens into the suburbs of Rome seeking the
exposed offspring of unnatural parents. To say that they would have been
better dead, is to speak with that facility which requires neither
mental nor moral perception.

It is the recognition, in part, of this obligation which accounts for
hospitals, asylums and other charitable institutions. Hence also we
endeavour to shelter those born deficient in mental or moral power. Dr
Chapple seems to think that the result of all this is that we have made
a pretty mess of society. He says, of these weaklings, that Nature has
decreed that they should die. A most unscientific statement. Are these
charitable efforts to be regarded as profane interference with the
sacred decrees of Nature? Nature's decrees are inviolate and none can
disturb them. Because these weak, if left unaided, would perish, is that
to say that Nature has decreed that they should die? If so, we must say
of a man, stricken with typhoid fever, that Nature has decreed that he
should die, and that any effort to save him would be but a profane
interference on our part with Nature.

What does Nature say of these that
they do not live,
they cannot live, or
they must not live?

History has shown that in the past they do not live.

But in order to discover the decree of Nature we must make a full and
exhaustive enquiry into the possibilities which exist under the laws of
Nature. So far as this enquiry has advanced it has been made quite clear
that the charitable effort of man will recover many that would otherwise
perish. The whole science of therapeutics is based upon this discovery.

Dr Chapple says of defectives that they do live but that they must not.
Two arguments he brings forward. The first is that Nature has decreed
that they should not. This must be a secret communication, for it is not
universal knowledge, and the operation of Nature's laws