Public morals / [James Marchant, editor].

Date:
[between 1900 and 1910]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Public morals / [James Marchant, editor]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    ad absurdum of the whole matter. There is more disease than all the hospitals, and all the doctors, and all the police, and all the public funds, and all the powers of the State together, can avail to crush out. And why? Because the quantity of disease depends on the quantity of vice, and the quantity of vice is perpetually being renewed. Vice is the root-evil, and every measure that ignores this favours it, and promotes its increase. We in England and America may be thankful that we have no ancient and deep-rooted system to tear up, leaving its cancerous fibres to rot in the flesh of society. Let us beware of hasty legislation, the results of which may be the very opposite of what is intended. Let us beware of being expert-ridden; that is to say, of being put into blinkers, and induced to leave most of the essential considerations out of sight. Science, like the rest of us, has its limitations, its moods, its fashions, and its scares ; the true path of progress lies along other lines than these. Health is the result of the conditions of health, not of the microscopic study of bacteria. Not that the microscope is to be despised; we need a closer, not a mere superficial, study of the intricate working of causes and effects, both material and moral. But we also need to plan out our work in large dimensions and for a long future; and to do this we must set in motion, with a fair field before them, those vital and progressive moral forces whose momentum in- creases, not diminishes, directly as the square of the distance. Note.—Since the above pages were written, the second International Conference has taken place in Brussels. With