Euthanasia : and other aspects of life and death / by Harry Roberts.

  • Harry Roberts
Date:
[1936]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Euthanasia : and other aspects of life and death / by Harry Roberts. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    265/296 (page 253)
    In my profession we are constantly asked to devote ourselves to what is called preventiveness—to anticipating disease ; that is, to finding out the circumstances and conditions that predispose to physiological disorder. Does not the same principle of expediency apply in the world of social ethics ? It is an urgent question for the pundits of literature. Once we agree that some conduct is socially desirable and that other lines of conduct are socially disruptive, are we not bound, unless we think society ought to be disrupted, to take steps to make difficult the activities which tend to that result ? We are apt to assume that we live in an unconditioned world —that the True, the Good and the Beautiful are sufficient signposts for humanity. In fact, these are mere words, assumed to give fimty to indefinite lumps of psychic chaos. There is no getting away from the fact that twentieth-century civilization, with certain modifications which would be quite easy to effect, suits most of us very well. The granting or exercising of complete personal liberty of action would, it must be admitted, make this or any other civilization impossible. There is, in every human herd, an appreciable minority of indi¬ viduals who have no instinctive bias against murder, rape, kidnapping and banditry, however equalitarian the economic system and however Christian the pre¬ valent convention. This is one side of the question. Is there another side ? Socrates and Jesus Christ uttered doctrines which, not unreasonably, were thought by the responsible heads of their communities to tend towards social disruption. Not unreasonably, these revolutionists were officially