life is spared as a revered exception. Says Romanes: “In all species of plants and animals a very much larger number of individuals are born than can possibly survive. Thus, for example, it has been calculated that if the progeny of a single pair of elephants—which are the slowest breeding of animals were all allowed to reach maturity and propagate, in 750 years there would be living 19,000,000 descendants. Again, in the case of vegetables, if a species of annual plant produces only two seeds a year, if these in successive years were all allowed to reproduce their kind, in twenty years there would be 11,000,000 plants from a single ancestor. Yet we know that nearly all animals and plants produce many more young at a time than in either of these two supposed cases. Indeed, as individuals of many kinds of plants, and not a few kinds of animals, produce every year several thousand young, we may make a rough estimate and say that over organic nature as a whole probably not one in a thousand young are allowed to survive to the age of reproduction. How tremendous, therefore, must be the struggle for existence! It is thought a terrible thing in battle when one-half the whole number of combatants perish. But what are we to think of a battle for life where only one in a thousand survives ?”1

If nature, then, our essential guide, thus deal with it, we may feel assured that preservation of life is not the highest good toward which the human

1G. J. Romanes, Darwin and After Darwin, i., 261. Chicago,

mind may aspire. To this effect speaks the past history of our race. The long-stretched story of ceaseless slaughter causes us to shudder, but we know that this measureless destruction of human life has led, as naught else could, toward the perfecting of man's capacity and character. The deeds of noble men have often shown how small a thing a life should seem as weighed against love for the race and duty. And this principle lies at the root of the teaching, the life, and the death of Jesus. Think not,' said Christ, that I am come to send peace on earth: I come not to send peace but a sword.' How shall we interpret this saying otherwise than as meaning that Christ's call to higher living must inevitably bring much sorrow, and destruction of life? Yet he unflinchingly held to his sublime mission. Let us, then, put from us the foolish idea, which we sometimes so sentimentally hold, that human life is a thing always sacred and inviolable. It is but a phase of existence, at the best a temporary possession, and it is mere baseness to hold it despite the broad welfare of humanity. That life should be voluntarily offered for the common weal, and that society should take such life as seems to menace its own existence, have alike an authoritative warrant in the divine method plainly revealed in nature.

1 St. Matt. x., 34.

THE

CHAPTER VI

A CONSIDERATION OF OBJECTIONS

HE remedy now advocated must, I am well aware, meet with much hostile criticism. Of the objections which may be raised, certain ones are readily to be foreseen, and to a consideration of some of these I would now ask the reader's attention.

The first objection which would naturally present itself is that the plan violates the sentiment, now so wide-spread and deeply-rooted in every civilized land, that human life is something sacred,—an entity fashioned after the image of the Creator,-which, except under peculiar circumstances, it is the greatest of all impieties to extinguish. A little honest consideration of this objection will, I think, deprive it of its weight.

The sentiment that human life has a special sanctity is a very youthful one in the history of our morals and, even now, it is rather a form of words upon the lips than a deep well-spring of human action. A glance at the past suffices to show the low esteem once placed upon the individual life. In the barbarous times of cannibalism and slavery, human beings were slain without stint or mercy. a higher stage of civilization, the hunting of men

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and of animals-war and the chase-was an equally legitimate pastime. In Anglo-Saxon times, the value of a human life in England was fixed in terms of money, and homicide was usually punished merely by a fine. As late as 1820, there were over two hundred crimes punishable with death under English law." At common law, stealing property of the value of upwards of twelvepence was grand larceny, the penalty of which, for nearly nine hundred years, was regularly death.'''' In England, men, women, and little children were hanged by thousands for offences that would now be punished by a small fine or short imprisonment. A poor old

woman was actually hanged for the stealing of one cabbage,* and, in 1789, a woman was hanged in Boston for stealing a bonnet. In the early history of every people, infanticide has been extensively practised, and, even in the most highly civilized countries, it has been by no means arrested.

We must bear in mind that the advance in true esteem for human life has not been commensurate with the amelioration of punishment, nor, indeed, with the progress of any other charitable endeavor, for, in all forms of charity, the greater part of effort has for incentive some other motive than pure love for one's neighbor. The belief that charity is an efficient means for the expiation of sin has, through the centuries, induced persons innumerable to labor for the good of others, in the pursuit of blessing for themselves.

1 Edmund P. Dole, Talks About Law, p. 103. Boston, 1887. 2 Ibid., p. 492. 4 Ibid., P. 108. Ibid., p. 103. 5 New York Times, March 1, 1896.

Our present position as to the sacredness of human life is but a recent phase of feeling; and, if recent, our conception of evolution' would lead us to believe that it is a sentiment which is not yet to become fixed or absolute, nor of universal application, but to continue through some goodly period a principle to be used tentatively. We very often use good principles to our hurt because we erroneously suppose that all men are prepared for their reception. Certainly, we have worked much mischief through our ideas of liberty and equality. No man is deserving of freedom whose brutish instincts are his master; and no human life is sacred while its chief function is the malignant injury of society. It is a common experience of individuals and of communities that privileges right in themselves are so abused as to compel withdrawal. During the early centuries of Christianity an extreme value was set upon human life, but this, later, was found to be unpractical, and the rigor of the sentiment passed into complete relaxation. According to Lecky, from an early period there was an opinion diffused through the Church, of which Tertullian and Lactantius were the principal exponents, that a Christian should under no circumstances slay his fellow-men, either by bringing a capital charge, or by acting as a judge, a soldier, or an executioner. When the triumph of Christianity had been attained, it was of course necessary that this rule-which, indeed, had never been generally adopted in its full stringency—should be relaxed as regards laymen, but it still continued 1 1 Appendix 17.