The elements of social science, or, Physical, sexual, and natural religion : an exposition of the true cause and only cure of the three primary social evils: poverty, prostitution and celibacy / by a doctor of medicine.

  • Drysdale, George R., 1825-1904.
Date:
1889
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The elements of social science, or, Physical, sexual, and natural religion : an exposition of the true cause and only cure of the three primary social evils: poverty, prostitution and celibacy / by a doctor of medicine. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    610/634 (page 586)
    £66 SUCIAI. SClr.WOS boasts of the iiro«[ierity of Rii;,'l:i,nil, .-inil vast progress of iht nation, so fre(|iu'iilly put i'ortli by slatistic.il and oomnicrcial writers find by the Times and Econoiiiixi newspapers (botli of whicli are essen- tially arislocriilic, and anti-Maltbusiaii), ali()rii a fair representation of the views of the economists; but nothini^ could be further from the truth. None know so well the really miserable state ol' this eounliy, as those wlio luive carefully studied tlie action of the population prni- ciplo. None are so little apt to be dazzled by a surface glitter, o.r to be carried away by what Mr. Mill terms the umneaninf,' bustle of so-called civilized existence, as those who are well acquainted with the cmixcs of the ])resent evij.% and who are therefore in a position to form a comparison lioiween society as it is, and society as it might be. It may be oliserved moreover, that the earlier economists, althougli liberal in their own generation, were in some respects behind the most enlightened views of the jiresent age. The great doctrines of social eqiiuliti/ and the abolition of artificial distinctions of rank, were in their time but little known, and men had scarcely even begun to conceive the possibility of organic social changes. Better views on these points have been spread abroad chiefly by the Revolutions in France, and in other parts of the continent, and by the noble exertions of democratic and socialist writers. The earlier economists had so much to do in investigating the laws of their science, and have performed this task so admirably, that they may well be excused, if, in their general ideal of society, they fell short of the views of a later age. Hut whatever may be their deficiencies in this respect—and they are mostly deficiencies of omission not of couur.issiou—they havw lietn amply atoned for by the work of Mr. John Stuart Mill, the most eminent living autliority on the subject. The objects kept steadily in view throughout his whole work are first, that poverty should be removed, and wealth more equally distributed; and secondly, that (after making any necessary provision for the infirm, &c.) the income of each member of society should be as nearly as possible in proportion to his exertions. No writer could be more ()])posed to the present iniquitous distribution of wealth. Althougli differing widely (as all who recognize the population principle must do) from the general views of socialist and democratic writers on the cause and cure of poverty, Mr. Mill regards many of their moral conceptions as far in advance of existing social arrangements. If, he says, in drawing a comparison between private property and a community of goods, if till' dioice were to be made between communism with all its chances, and the present state of society with all its sutfbiiugs and injustices ; if ilie institution of private property necessarily carried with it as a Consequence that the produce of labor should be apportioned as we now see it, almost in an inverse proportion to the labor—the largest portions to those who have never worked at all, the next largest tc those whose work is almost nominal, and so in a descending scale, ihe remuneration dwindling as the work grows harder and more dis- agreeable, until the most fatiguing and exhausting bodily labor cannot fiwi with certainty on being able to earn even the necpssn-ios oi