He had one of his flashes of intuition. “The baby, you mean?”
Lydia evaded the directness of this. “Oh, in general, aren’t folks better off if they like to fight for themselves? Don’t they have to?”
He considered the question in one of his frowning silences, so long that Lydia started when he spoke again. “They don’t need to fight with claws for their food, as they used to do. Things are arranged now so that the physically strong, who like such a life, are the ones who choose it. They get food for the others. Why shouldn’t the morally strong fight for the weaker ones and make it possible for everyone to have a chance at developing the best of himself without having to battle with others to do it?”
“That’s pretty vague,” said Lydia.
“Why, look here,” said the doctor. “You don’t plow the field to plant the wheat that makes your bread. That’s a man of a coarser physical fiber than yours, who is strengthened by the effort, and not exhausted as you would be. Why shouldn’t the world be so organized that somebody of coarser moral texture than yours should do battle with the forces of materialism and tragic triviality that—”
“But Ariadne’s growing up! She will need all that so soon— and the world won’t be organized then, you know it won’t—and she’s no fighter by instinct, any more than—” She was silent. The doctor filled in her incomplete sentence mentally, and found no answer to make.
CHAPTER XXIV
“THROUGH PITY AND TERROR EFFECTING A PURIFICATION OF THE HEART”