The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-04-28

ence Monthly, discourses in a unique way
on the Economic Function of Vice" merci-
lessly applying the general doctrines of eyolu-
ton to the vicious classes. The wastefulness
of nature in generation is in the interest of
types not of individuals, or as Tennyson
puts it, ra ro- tsro,..
$50 careful of the type she seems,
So careless of the single life."
The struggle for existence" is simply the
effort TO get rid of the surplus; the survival
of the fittest' is the success of the minority
in proving the majority are superfuous-the
"Kilkenny-cat episode multiplied by in
fnity." In this super-fecundity of the hui
man race Mr.. McElroy recognizes its most
potent means of improvement. The 700,
900, 900 of human females would soon pro-
duce 'stagnant slough of vicious vitality"
if each, without reference to mental or physi-
cal fitness, had the same chance of life.
But fortunately the surplus ones relieve those
worth living by selecting and exterminating
ones embraces his fate with joy, thinking he
is embracing his happiness:
Then as to methods of destruction, we have
the life of pleasure" dissipation, short
life and merry one" ETC., all favorite plans
of standardization. English statistics show
that intemperance is one of the milder vices,
killing slowly-twenty-one years by beer and
sixteen years by whisky Sexual sins Stay
far more rapidly, and the higher grades of
vice in proportion to their fasrancy.
Bloody and deceitful men" do not live out
half nor even q fourth of their days. Mr.
McElroy tells us that the temperance agtat-
ors wall that the demon Alcohol is yearly
dragging down to dishonorable graves hun
dreds and thousands Of the fairest of our
land' is supreme nonsense" Were not the
alcohol route accessible, those bound to go to
perdition would find some other road
love of scientific truth compels the
statement that while intcmperance does
some harm, it also does an immense amount
of good"
"By far the greater portion of those who
succumb to Adjudication, and to the deadly
thieves, thugs, prostitutes, gamblers sharp
ers, ruffians and other members of the GRIM
inal and quasi-criminal classes, upon whom
whisky accommodating performs the Of
flee of judge and executioner, cutting their
careers off at an average of five years, where,
without this interposition, they would be
extended to possibly twenty or thirty. The
certainty and celebrity with which it ferrets
out and destroys these classes recommends
it strongly over the ordinary processes of
justice"
1t was unfortunate that the leaders of the
James gang were temperate men. Whisky
cut their terrible twenty years to five. TEN
perance and chastity in any kind of rascal
mean an immense amount of mischief to the
community"
The argument is applied to kingly houses,
and it is shown that the Bourbons, whose
worthless carcasses filed nearly every
throne in southern Europe, breeding like
wolves, their fangs at every peoples throat
were destroyed by their vices "Wine and
lechery did what human enemies could not"
and the pack of wolves "rotted away like a
flock of diseased sheep" The unutterably
vile life of Louis XIV. was "termin-
ated by smallpox communicated in the
course of a most disgraceful amour"
His grandson had no vices, and to be rid of
him recourse must needs be had to the gull
lotine.
The objections to the evident beneficence
of this system are first that the Staying of
bad men by their own vices brings misery
to the good men connected with them; and
second, that the practice of vice is not always
suicidal, since many bad men flourish like
the green bay tree. To the first the answer
is that none of natures methods of extinc-
victim. thief or debauche dying with
delirium tremens is as bearable sight as
that of virtuous husband, the support of
the house, wasting away with consumption.
To the second objection it may be said that
the proportion OF the evil who flourish is
to the whole number as small as that of the
exceptions to any other general law of ami
NAL existence. Bad men, then, die sooner
and propagate fewer than good men. Society
improves by the observation-disclosures of
vice. Evil is but the shadow-the
negative of good. 1t is to be overcome in
the end 1t is the negative element by which
the positive, good is known, and the good
must in the long run as certainly prevail as
the seasons come in their appointed time
Nature is benefcent, and if she can bring
about her great ends without producing
misery in the minds Of sentent man, prun-
them to drop off, under the belief that they