(a). Who can tell whether the weak are absolutely a misery to themselves. Pain is a mystery which cannot be solved, although to the suffering its benefits are well known. If they would be better out of the way might they not be left to decide that matter for themselves? They, knowing best, cry to us for help. If we were merely gregarious creatures like wolves or sharks we would tear or destroy them in their misery; but as social beings we are bound to answer their cry. To cry for help is instinctive with them, and to respond to the cry is instinctive with us. Surely this is the voice of Nature and this is the decree of Nature.
(b). If this argument be admitted then we are bound to declare that the one aim of both society and individual is to amass wealth. The idea is too sordid for further consideration.
(c). So far from hindering the social progress they most powerfully assist it. The mere bearing of one another's burdens has the most refining and deepening influence upon character. It is most active in creating and establishing our relations one with another. Compassion for the suffering creates a tie between them and us. The intention to help requires our co-operation with others, and so the bond extends uniting first individuals then groups and then the whole of society. Nor must we forget the immense advance in surgery and medicine which is due entirely to the consideration of the lot of the apparently hopeless. Had these even been allowed to perish we should still have needed our surgeons and physicians in a well equipped society, if only to teach us how to prevent seizure by dangerous complaints.
A short time ago many died from ailments which surgery can to-day cure with but very little suffering on the part of the patient. Is not this a substantial gain which the bearing of the burden of the weak has brought to man? To mention other triumphs is but to enlarge. If therefore Nature has spoken there can be no doubt that it was to give a promise that she would reward diligent research by revealing the cure of all the ills our flesh inherits. Thus assured, scientific men are most zealously studying the most deadly and most obstinate diseases. Against plague, smallpox, and consumption they can at least give us an effective protection, and almost hourly we expect to hear the shout of triumph accompanying the announcement that the victory over cancer has been gained. When stricken with these diseases we immediately fall into the ranks of the unfit; but we will thank society for having borne its burden when the healing art is brought to such an excellence that, when so stricken, we may soon be restored to the ranks of the fit. The benefit which the past confers upon us declares imperatively our obligation to the future.
(d). Do they threaten to overwhelm? The power of disease is being overcome, and therefore the number of the diseased is being lessened. By being cured, instead of dying, these increase the proportion of the strong to the weak. The obstinacy of certain hereditary diseases but asserts the necessity of prosecuting study more enthusiastically.
But if the strong limit their increase they cannot demand that exterminating methods should be applied to the weak in order to restore the proportion which they, the strong, have thus by their selfishness disturbed. Nature gives adequate protection so far as numerical increase is concerned, and no scientific man will dare to state that this protection may be disregarded and another demanded.
The Government of India has been charged with pursuing a suicidal policy in safeguarding the natives against plague and smallpox and in preventing human sacrifice. Their numbers will increase, food supplies will give out, or, worst of all, they may become so powerful as to wrest the supremacy from the European. Charity, however, demands that these measures shall be taken, and the terrors of the future are at best hypothetical. This is but another case in which consideration for the unknown future is apt to hinder us in the discharge of our known duties to the present. History assures us that the guarantee of the future lies in the fulfilment of these duties. The height of absurdity is reached when the attempt is made to establish the proportions of the future. Such efforts defy man.
The burden of the weak is the burden of the strong, and in the bearing of it is brought into view the grand and true ideal of society—the good of all.
Man is endowed with natural powers for assisting his weaker brother, and, above all these powers he has, through supplication the means of engaging the Divine Influence, which simply defies all calculation against the possibility of reform or recovery.
Where charitable effort in the past has not succeeded it is because it has not gone far enough. Building institutions is sometimes due to a craze and not charity. Thus evils are sometimes accentuated and not mitigated. Such failures must spur to redoubled effort. Hope was never larger than at present.