That is probably what the priest and the Levite of the parable said to themselves.
A still more emphatic example is in the Digest of Criminal Law, by Justice Sir James Stephen, 1887, p. 154. Reg. v. Smith, 2 C. and P., 449:
A sees B drowning and is able to help him by holding out his hand. A abstains from doing so in order that B may be drowned, and B is drowned. A has committed no offence.
It appears, from a footnote, that this case has been discussed in a striking manner by Lord Macaulay in his notes on the Indian Penal Code, which I have not yet been able to consult.
Enough has been written elsewhere by myself and others to show that whenever public opinion is strongly roused it will lead to action, however contradictory it may be to previous custom and sentiment. Considering that public opinion is guided by the sense of what best serves the interests of society as a whole, it is reasonable to expect that it will be strongly exerted in favour of Eugenics when a sufficiency of evidence shall have been collected to make the truths on which it rests plain to all. That moment has not yet arrived. Enough is already known to those who have studied the question to leave no doubt in their minds about the general results, but not enough is quantitatively known to justify legislation or other action except in extreme cases. Continued studies will be required for some time to come, and the pace must not be hurried. When the desired fulness of information shall have been acquired then, and not till then, will be the fit moment to proclaim a ‘Jehad,’ or Holy War against customs and prejudices that impair the physical and moral qualities of our race.
LOCAL ASSOCIATIONS FOR PROMOTING EUGENICS[[8]]
I propose to take the present opportunity of submitting some views of my own relating to that large province of eugenics which is concerned with favouring the families of those who are exceptionally fit for citizenship. Consequently, little or nothing will be said relating to what has been well termed by Dr. Saleeby “negative” eugenics, namely, the hindrance of the marriages and the production of offspring by the exceptionally unfit. The latter is unquestionably the more pressing subject of the two, but it will soon be forced on the attention of the legislature by the recent report of the Royal Commission on the Feeble-minded. We may be content to await for awhile the discussions to which it will give rise, and which I am sure the members of this society will follow with keen interest, and with readiness to intervene when what may be advanced seems likely to result in actions of an anti-eugenic character.
The remarks I am about to make were suggested by hearing of a desire to further eugenics by means of local associations more or less affiliated to our own, combined with much doubt as to the most appropriate methods of establishing and conducting them. It is upon this very important branch of our wide subject that I propose to offer a few remarks.
It is difficult, while explaining what I have in view, to steer a course that shall keep clear of the mud flats of platitude on the one hand, and not come to grief against the rocks of over-precision on the other. There is no clear issue out of mere platitudes, while there is great danger in entering into details. A good scheme may be entirely compromised merely on account of public opinion not being ripe to receive it in the proposed form, or through a discovered flaw in some non-essential part of it. Experience shows that the safest course in a new undertaking is to proceed warily and tentatively towards the desired end, rather than freely and rashly along a predetermined route, however carefully it may have been elaborated on paper.
Again, whatever scheme of action is proposed for adoption must be neither Utopian nor extravagant, but accordant throughout with British sentiment and practice.