^UBRAHYOk 
 ir * i r* ^ ^ 
 
 ^3AINrt]\\v 
 RS/A .vlOSANCElfj^
 
 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED 
 
 LONDON BOMBAY CALCUTTA 
 MELBOURNE 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO 
 ATLANTA SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. 
 
 TORONTO
 
 CHARITY 
 AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 A SHORT STUDY OF RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL 
 
 THOUGHT IN RELATION TO CHARITABLE 
 
 METHODS AND INSTITUTIONS 
 
 BY 
 
 C. S. LOCH 
 
 B.A,, HON. LL.D. ST. ANDREWS; HON. D.C.L. OXFORD 
 
 Les choses ne cbangent gu&re. Seules 
 les iJ^es qu'on a' en fait peuvent changer 
 beaucoup. C'est sur ces id^es-la qu'il faut 
 savoir agir. GUSTAVK LE BON. 
 
 MACM1LLAN AND CO., LIMITED 
 
 ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON 
 
 1910
 
 GLASGOW : PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 BY ROBERT MACLEHOSE AND CO. LTD.
 
 Hv 
 It 
 
 TO 
 
 MY FRIENDS IN CHARITY ORGANIZATION 
 LIVING OR PASSED FROM LIFE
 
 PREFACE 
 
 THIS book does not claim to be more than a 
 study or notes for a study of charity in 
 relation to the thoughts with which it is most 
 closely associated, and some of the methods to 
 which it has given force and vitality. As such 
 it may perhaps be of service to fellow students. 
 
 To many authors I am indebted to some a 
 very great deal. The references show how great 
 is my indebtedness. 
 
 The book is for the most part a reprint of 
 an article on "Charity and Charities" which 
 was first published in 1902 in the supple- 
 mentary volumes of the Encyclopaedia Bri- 
 tannica : and I have to thank the proprietors 
 of the Encyclopaedia for their kind permission 
 to publish the article. 1 have added chapters 
 on charity in relation to the growth of religious 
 thought, and I have added a chapter on some 
 of the questions raised by the recent Royal 
 Commission on the Poor Laws and Relief of 
 Distress.
 
 viii PREFACE 
 
 I have used the word " charity " in the title 
 and frequently in the text. To many it may 
 seem out-worn. It has suffered from constant 
 circulation and hard usage. One would wish 
 that it might be re-minted and re-issued, for 
 there are many supremely noble associations 
 imprinted on it, and it is the verbal abstract 
 of a long history, in which religion, philosophy, 
 social thought, administration, and personal 
 endeavour have their place. It is expressive 
 also of a conjunction of instincts, sentiments, 
 and efforts which is well-nigh indispensable to 
 social progress. For such a word there should 
 still be room in the world of thought. 
 
 I have not tried to write a book on recent 
 charitable schemes and proposals. I have 
 desired rather to follow out the growth of the 
 conception of charity, and its expression in 
 social life, and the principles which these 
 suggest with regard to social service and 
 obligation.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. SOME DEFINITIONS 1 
 
 II. THE OUTLINES OF STUDY - . - - - - 5 
 
 III. PRIMITIVE CHARITY ------ 8 
 
 IV. CHARITY AMONG THE GREEKS - ... 20 
 V. CITY LIFE AND ITS PROBLEMS IN GREECE 35 
 
 VI. PROVISION AMONG THE GREEKS FOR THE STRANGER 
 
 AND THE SICK 49 
 
 VII. THE LEAVEN OF RELIGION 56 
 
 VIII. CHARITY AND SLAVERY 77 
 
 IX. CHARITY IN ROMAN TIMES 80 
 
 X. THE ANNONA CIVICA 88 
 
 XI. THE SPORTULA ; THE COLLEGIA AND THEIR EN- 
 SLAVEMENT ; THE PUERI ALIMENTARII - - 104 
 
 XII. THE LEAVEN OF PHILOSOPHY - - - 110 
 
 XIII. A CENTURY LATER - - - - - - 132 
 
 XIV. PRECHRISTIAN RELIGION 155 
 
 XV. CHANGES OF RELIGIOUS THOUGHT AND ORGANIZA- 
 TION - - - 168
 
 x CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XVI. JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN CHARITY AND THEIR 
 
 FUSION - - 183 
 
 XVII. GREEK THOUGHT ON CHARITY COMPARED 
 
 WITH JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN 197 
 
 XVIII. THE ORGANIZATION OF THE PARISH - 210 
 
 XIX. THE ENDOWED CHARITY - 218 
 
 XX. EARLY MONASTICISM AND CHARITY 230 
 
 XXI. CHANGES IN THE STRUCTURE OF SOCIETY - 236 
 
 XXII. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHARITABLE 
 
 RESPONSIBILITY OF THE PARISH - 244 
 
 XXIII. MEDIAEVAL REVISION OF THE THEORY OF 
 
 CHARITY .... - 252 
 
 XXIV. MEDIAEVAL CHARITY AND SOCIAL CONDI- 
 
 TIONS IN ENGLAND 264 
 
 The Family The Manor The Parish and the 
 Tithe The Monasteries The Hospitals The 
 Mendicant Orders. 
 
 XXV. MEDIAEVAL ENDOWED CHARITIES AND GUILD 
 
 CHARITIES 280 
 
 The Church as Legatee Freedom from Tax- 
 ation and Service Alienation and Mortmain 
 Irresponsible Administration Control Cy- 
 pres The Sources of Income The Mode of 
 Admission The Decline of the Hospitals 
 The Guild Charities. 
 
 XXVI. THE RISE OF STATUTORY AND POOR-LAW 
 
 SERFDOM - - 288 
 
 XXVII. CHARITY AND THE REFORMATION - - 299 
 XXVIII. THE ORGANIZATION OF MUNICIPAL RELIEF- 304
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 XI 
 
 CHAPTER PAOK 
 
 XXIX. THE ORGANIZATION OF STATUTORY POOR 
 
 RELIEF 309 
 
 XXX. THE ORGANIZATION OF ENDOWED CHARITIES 
 Definition The Charity Commissioners The 
 Poor Law and Endowed Charities. 
 
 XXXI. CHARITY IN THE PARISH AFTER 1601 - 
 XXXII. CHARITABLE MOVEMENTS AFTER 1601 - 
 
 XXXIII. PROGRESS OF THOUGHT IN THE EIGHTEENTH 
 
 AND .NINETEENTH CENTURIES - 
 
 XXXIV. THE ECONOMICS OF CHARITY 
 
 XXXV. THE SOCIAL SCIENCES AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 Modern Economics and the General Will 
 Sociology and Social Facts The Standard of 
 the Good Social Life. 
 
 XXXVI. THE ORGANIZATION OF CHARITY - 
 
 The Committee or Conference Inquiry, Aid, 
 and Registration Training Co-operation. 
 
 XXXVII. PARTICULAR QUESTIONS OF CHARITABLE 
 
 ADMINISTRATION 
 
 Charity and the Poor-Law Medical Relief 
 Endowed Charities The Relief of School 
 Children Exceptional Distress Employ- 
 ment Relief. 
 
 XXXVIII. THE REPORT OF THE ROYAL COMMISSION ON 
 
 THE POOR LAWS AND RELIEF OF DISTRESS 
 The Experience of the Past The Pauperism 
 of London Treatment and Maintenance 
 The Critical Periods of Life The Organiza- 
 tion of Medical Assistance Unemployment 
 Prevention Conditions of Friendly Visit- 
 ing in a Large City Insurance The Main 
 Issue. 
 
 318 
 
 332 
 335 
 
 341 
 352 
 370 
 
 396 
 
 406 
 
 430
 
 xii CONTENTS 
 
 APPENDICES 
 
 PAOK 
 
 I. CHARITY AND VOLUNTARY AID - - - 479 
 
 The Recommendations of the Royal Commission on 
 the Poor Laws and Relief of Distress. 
 
 II. THE CHARITABLE EXPENDITURE OF THE METROPOLIS 486 
 INDEX - - - 489
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 SOME DEFINITIONS. 
 
 THE word ' charity,' or love, represents the 
 principle of the good life. It stands for a 
 mood or habit of mind and an endeavour. 
 From it, as a habit of mind, springs the 
 social and personal endeavour which in the 
 widest sense we may call charity. The two 
 correspond. Where the habit of mind has not 
 been gained, the endeavour fluctuates and is 
 relatively purposeless. In so far as it has 
 been gained, the endeavour is founded on an 
 intelligent scrutiny of social conditions and 
 guided by a definite purpose. In the one case 
 it is realized that some social theory must be 
 found by us, if our action is to be right and 
 consistent ; in the other case no need of such 
 a theory is felt. 
 
 The following chapters are based on the 
 assumption that there are principles in charity 
 
 or charitable work, and that these can be 
 
 A
 
 2 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 ascertained by a study of the development of 
 social conditions and their relation to prevalent 
 social aims and religious or philosophic concep- 
 tions. It is assumed also that the charity of 
 the religious life, if rightly understood, cannot 
 be inconsistent with that of the social life. 
 
 Perhaps some closer definition of charity is 
 necessary. The words that signify goodwill 
 towards the community and its members are 
 primarily words expressive of the affections of 
 family life in the relations existing between 
 parents, and between parent and child. As 
 will be seen, the analogies underlying such 
 phrases as ' God the Father,' ' Children of God,' 
 ' brethren,' have played a great part in the 
 development of charitable thought in pre- 
 Christian, as well as in Christian days. The 
 germ, if we may say so, of the words philia, 
 agape, amor, love, and amicitia, friendship, is 
 the sexual or the parental relation. With the 
 realization of the larger life in man the meaning 
 of the word expands. Caritas, or charity, 
 strikes another note high price, and thus 
 dearness. It is charity, indeed, expressed in 
 mercantile metaphor ; and it would seem that 
 it was associated in thought with the word 
 charts, which has also a commercial meaning, 
 but signifies as well favour, gratitude, grace,
 
 SOME DEFINITIONS 3 
 
 kindness. Partly thus, perhaps, it assumed and 
 suggested a nobler conception ; and sometimes, 
 as, for instance, in English ecclesiastical docu- 
 ments, it was spelt charitas. 
 
 Agape, which in the Authorised Version of 
 the Bible is translated charity, was used by 
 St. Paul as a translation of the Hebrew word 
 chesed, which in the Old Testament is in the 
 same version translated 'mercy' as in Hosea 
 vi. 6, " I desired mercy, and not sacrifice." 
 This word represents the charity of kindness 
 and goodness, as distinguished from almsgiving. 
 Almsgiving, zedakah, is translated by the word 
 eleemosyna in the Septuagint, and in the 
 Authorised Version by the word 'righteousness.' 
 It represents the deed or the gift which is 
 due done or made, not spontaneously, but 
 under a sense of religious obligation. In the 
 earlier Christian period the word almsgiving 
 has this meaning, and was in that sense applied 
 to a wide range of actions and contracts, from 
 a gift to a beggar at a church door to a 
 grant and a tenure of land. It also, in the 
 word almoner, represented the fulfilment of the 
 religious obligation with the aid of an agent 
 or delegate. The words charity or love (caritas 
 or agape), on the other hand, without losing 
 the tone with which the thought of parental
 
 4 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 or family love inspires them, assume a higher 
 meaning. In religious thought they imply an 
 ideal life, as represented by such expressions 
 as 'love (agape) of God.' This on the one 
 side ; and on the other an ideal social relation, 
 in such words as ' love of man.' 
 
 Thus in the word ' charity ' religious and 
 social associations meet ; and thus regarded the 
 word means a disciplined and habitual mood 
 in which the mind is considerate of the welfare 
 of others individually and generally, and devises 
 what is for their real good, and in which the 
 intelligence and the will strive to fulfil the 
 mind's purpose. Charity thus has no necessary 
 relation to relief or alms. To give a lecture, 
 or to nurse a sick man who is not in want or 
 ' poor,' may be equally a deed of charity ; though 
 in fact charity concerns itself largely with the 
 classes usually called the ' poor,' and with 
 problems of distress and relief. Relief, however, 
 is not an essential part of charity or charitable 
 work. It is one of many means at its disposal. 
 If the world were so poor that no one could 
 make a gift, or so wealthy that no one needed 
 it, charity the charity of life and of deeds- 
 would remain.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE OUTLINES OF STUDY. 
 
 THE history of charity is a history of many 
 social and religious theories, influences, and 
 endeavours, that have left their mark alike 
 upon the popular and the cultivated thought 
 of the present day. The inconsistencies of 
 charitable effort and argument may thus in 
 part be accounted for. Therefore to understand 
 the problem of charity we have 
 
 1. To consider the stages of charitable 
 thought the primitive, pagan, Greek and 
 Roman, Jewish and Christian elements, that 
 make up the modern consciousness in regard 
 to charity, and also the growth of the habit 
 of ' charity ' as representing a gradually educated 
 social instinct. 
 
 2. We have also to consider in their relation 
 to charity the results of recent investigations 
 of the conditions of social life. 
 
 3. At each stage we have to note the
 
 6 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 corresponding stage of practical administration 
 in public relief and private effort for the 
 division between public or ' poor-law ' relief and 
 charity which now prevails in England is, com- 
 paratively speaking, a novelty. For the most 
 part the work of charity can hardly be 
 appreciated or understood if it be considered 
 without reference to public relief. 
 
 4. As to the present day, we have to 
 consider practical suggestions in regard to such 
 subjects as charity and economic thought, charity 
 organization, friendly visiting and almonership, 
 co-operation with the poor-law, charity and 
 thrift, parochial management, hospitals and 
 medical relief, exceptional distress and the 
 ' unemployed,' the utilization of endowments and 
 their supervision, and their adaptation to new 
 needs and emerge ucies. 
 
 5. We have also throughout to consider 
 charitable help in relation to classes of dependents, 
 who appear early in the history of the question 
 widows and orphans, the sick and the aged, 
 vagrants and wayfarers. 
 
 First in the series come the charities of the 
 family and of hospitality ; then the wider 
 charities of religion, the charities of the com- 
 munity, of individual donors and of mutual 
 help. These gradually assume importance in
 
 THE OUTLINES OF STUDY 7 
 
 communities which consist originally of self- 
 supporting classes, within which widows and 
 orphans, for instance, would be rather provided 
 for, in accordance with recognized class obliga- 
 tions, than relieved. Then come habitual alms- 
 giving, the charitable endowment, and the 
 modern charitable institution and association. 
 But throughout the test of progress or decadence 
 appears to be the condition of the family. The 
 family is the source, the home and the hearth 
 of charity. It has been created but slowly, 
 and there is naturally a constant tendency to 
 break away from its obligations and to ignore 
 and depreciate its utility. Yet the family, as 
 we now have it, is itself the outcome of infinite 
 thought working through social instinct, and 
 has at each stage of its development indicated 
 a general advance. To it, therefore, constant 
 reference must be made.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 PRIMITIVE CHARITY. 
 
 THE study of early communities has brought 
 to light the history of the development of 
 the family. "Marriage in its lowest phases 
 is by no means a matter of affection or com- 
 panionship " ; and only very slowly has the 
 position of both parents been recognized as 
 implying different but correlative responsibilities 
 towards their child. Only very slowly, also, 
 has the morality necessary to the making of 
 the family been won. Charity at earlier stages 
 is hardly recognized as a virtue, nor infanticide 
 as an evil. Hospitality the beginning of a 
 larger social life is non-existent. The self- 
 support of the community is secured by 
 marriage, and when relations fail marriage 
 becomes a provision against poverty. Then by 
 the tribal system is created another safeguard 
 against want. But apart also from these 
 methods of social maintenance, at a very early
 
 PRIMITIVE CHARITY 9 
 
 stage there is charitable relief. The festivals of 
 the solstices and equinoxes, and of the seasons, 
 are the occasions for sacrifice and relief; and, as 
 Christmas customs prove, the instinct to give 
 help or alms at such festival periods still remains. 
 Charity is concerned primarily with certain 
 elemental forces of social life : the relation 
 between these primitive instincts and impulses 
 that still influence charity should not, therefore, 
 be overlooked. The basis of social life is also 
 the basis of charitable thought and action. 
 
 The savage is the civilized man in the 
 rough. " The lowest races have," Lord Avebury 
 writes, " no institution of marriage." Many 
 have no word for 'dear' or 'beloved.' The 
 child belongs to the tribe rather than to the 
 parent. In these circumstances a problem of 
 charity such as the following may arise : " Am 
 I to starve, while my sister has children whom 
 she can sell ? " a question asked of Burton by a 
 negro. From the point of view of the tribe, 
 an able-bodied man would be more valuable than 
 dependent children, and the relationship of the 
 larger family of brothers and sisters would be a 
 truer claim to help than that of mother and 
 child. Subsequently the child is recognized as 
 related, not to the father, but to the mother, 
 and there is " a kind of bond which lasts for life
 
 10 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 between mother and child, although the father 
 is a stranger to it." Slowly only is the relative 
 position of both parents, with different but 
 correlative responsibilities, acknowledged. The 
 first two steps of charity have then been made : 
 the social value of the bond between the mother, 
 and then between the father, and the child has 
 been recognized. Until this point is reached 
 the morality necessary to the making of the 
 family is wanting, and for a long time after- 
 wards it is hardly won. The virtue of chastity 
 the condition precedent to the higher family 
 life is unrecognized. Indeed, the set of such 
 religious thought as there may be is against it. 
 Abstract conceptions, even in the nobler races, 
 are lacking. The religion of life is vaguely 
 struggling with its animality, and that which it 
 at last learns to rule it at first worships. In 
 these circumstances there is little charity for 
 the child and little for the stranger. " There 
 is," Dr. Schweinfurth wrote in his Heart 
 of Africa, " an utter want of wholesome 
 intercourse between race and race. For any 
 member of a tribe that speaks one dialect to 
 cross the borders of a tribe that speaks another 
 is to make a venture at the hazard of his life." 
 The religious obligations that fostered and 
 sanctified family life among the Greeks and
 
 PRIMITIVE CHARITY 11 
 
 Romans and Jews are unknown. Much later in 
 development comes charity for the child, with 
 the abhorrence of infanticide against which the 
 Jewish-Christian charity of 2000 years ago 
 uttered its most vigorous protests. If the child 
 belonged primarily to the tribe or state, its main- 
 tenance or destruction was a common concern. 
 This motive influenced the Greeks, who are 
 historically nearer the earlier forms of social 
 life than ourselves. For the common good they 
 exposed the deformed child ; but also " where 
 there were too many, for in our state population 
 has a limit," as Aristotle says, " the babe or 
 unborn child was destroyed." And so, to 
 lighten their own responsibilities, parents were 
 wont to do in the slow years of the degradation 
 of the Roman Empire, though the interest of the 
 state then required a contrary policy. The 
 transition to our present feeling of responsibility 
 for child-life has been very gradual and uncertain, 
 through the Middle Ages and even till the 
 eighteenth century. Strictly it may be said 
 that all penitentiaries and other similar institu- 
 tions are concrete protests on behalf of a better 
 family life. The movement for the care of 
 children in the eighteenth century naturally 
 and instinctively allied itself with the peni- 
 tentiary movement. The want of regard for
 
 12 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 child-life, when the rearing of children becomes 
 a source of economic pressure, suggests why in 
 earlier stages of civilization all that charitable 
 apparatus which we now think necessary for 
 the assistance of children is wanting, even if the 
 need, so far as it does arise, is not adequately 
 met by the recognized obligations of the clan- 
 family or brotherhood. 
 
 In the case of barbarous races charity and 
 self-support may be considered from some other 
 points of view. Self-support is secured in two 
 ways by marriage and by slavery. " For a 
 man or woman to be unmarried after the age 
 of thirty is unheard of" (T. H. Lewin, Wild 
 Races of South-East India). On the other 
 hand, if any one is without a father, mother, or 
 other relative, and destitute of the necessaries of 
 life, he may sell himself and become a slave. 
 Thus slavery becomes a provision for poverty 
 when relations fail. The clan -family may serve 
 the same purpose. David Livingstone describes 
 the formation of the clan-family among the 
 Bakuena. " Each man, by virtue of paternity, 
 is chief of his own children. They build huts 
 round his. . . . Near the centre of each circle 
 of huts is a spot called a 'kotla,' with a fire- 
 place ; here they work, eat, etc. A poor man 
 attaches himself to the ' kotla ' of a rich one,
 
 PRIMITIVE CHARITY 13 
 
 and is considered a child of the latter." Thus 
 the clan-family is also a poor-relief association. 
 
 Studies in religion indicate a gradual move- 
 ment towards larger conceptions of the religious 
 life, and of charitable obligation. Studies in 
 folk-lore bring to light many relations between 
 the charity of the old world and that of our 
 own day. 
 
 In regard to the charity of the early com- 
 munity, following the main lines of our inquiry, 
 we may take the eighth century B.C. as the 
 point of departure. The vast field of a yet 
 larger inquiry which would include Oriental 
 charity we do not touch. The Odyssey (about 
 800 B.C.) and Hesiod (about 700 B.C.) are 
 roughly parallel with Amos (816-775), and repre- 
 sent two streams of thought that meet in the 
 early Christian period. The period covered by 
 the Odyssey seems to merge into that of Hesiod. 
 We take the former first, dealing with the clan- 
 family and the phratry, which are together the 
 self-maintaining unit of society, with the general 
 relief of the poor, with hospitality, and with 
 vagrancy. In Hesiod we find the customary 
 law of charity in the earlier community defi- 
 nitely stated, and also indications of the normal 
 methods of neighbourly help which were in force 
 in country districts.
 
 14 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 First of the family and brotherhood, or 
 phratry. The family (Od. viii. 582) included 
 alike the wife's father and the daughter's hus- 
 band. It was thus a clan-like family. Out of 
 this was developed the phratry or brotherhood, 
 in which were included alike noble families, 
 peasants, and craftsmen, united by a common 
 worship and responsibilities and a common 
 customary law (themis). Zeus, the god of social 
 life, was worshipped by the phratry. He was 
 the father of the law (themis). He was god of 
 host and guest. Society was thus based on law, 
 the brotherhood, and the family. The irrespon- 
 sible man, the man worthy of no respect or 
 consideration, was one who belonged to no 
 brotherhood, was subject to no customary law, 
 and had no hearth or family. The phratry was, 
 and became afterwards still more, ' a natural 
 guild.' Outside the self-sustaining phratry was 
 the stranger, including the wayfarer and the 
 vagrant ; and partly merged in these classes 
 was the beggar, the recognized recipient of the 
 alms of the community. To change one's abode 
 and to travel was assumed to be a cause of 
 reproach (77. ix. 648). l The ' land-louper ' was 
 
 ir rhe Earliest Homer is now considered to belong to the 
 eleventh century B.C. The Second Homer to the ninth century. 
 (See Bury : History of Greece. 1908.)
 
 PRIMITIVE CHARITY 15 
 
 naturally suspected. On the other hand a 
 stranger's first thought in a new country was 
 whether the inhabitants were wild or social 
 (dikaioi), hospitable and God-fearing (Od. xiii. 
 201). Hospitality thus became the first public 
 charity ; Zeus sent all strangers and beggars, 
 and it was against all law (themis) to slight 
 them. Out of this feeling a kind of glorified 
 almsgiving- -grew up the system of hospitality in 
 Greek states and also in the Roman world. The 
 host greeted the stranger (or the suppliant). 
 An oath of friendship was taken by the stranger, 
 who was then received with the greeting, 
 Welcome (Chaire), and water was provided for 
 ablution, and food and shelter. In the larger 
 house he was a guest at a guests' table. In the 
 hut he shared the peasant's meal. The custom 
 bound alike the rich and the poor. On parting 
 presents were given, usually food for the onward 
 journey, sometimes costly gifts. The obligation 
 was mutual, that the host should give hospi- 
 tality, and that the guest should not abuse it. 
 From early times tallies were exchanged between 
 them as evidence of this formal relationship, 
 which each could claim again of the other by the 
 production of the token. And further, the 
 relationship on either side became hereditary. 
 Thus individuals and families and tribes remained
 
 16 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 linked in friendship and in the interchange of 
 hospitalities. 
 
 Under the same patronage of Zeus and the 
 same laws of hospitality were vagrants and 
 beggars. The vagrant and loafer are sketched 
 in the Odyssey the vagrant who lies glibly 
 that he may get entertainment, and the loafer 
 who prefers begging to work on a farm. These 
 and the winter idlers, whom Hesiod pictures a 
 group known to modern life prefer at that 
 season to spend their time in the warmth of 
 the village smithy, or at a house of common 
 resort (lesche) a common lodging-house, we 
 might say where they would pass the night. 
 Apparently, as in modern times, the vagrants 
 had organized their own system of entertain- 
 ment, and, supported by the public, were a 
 class for whom it was worth while to cater. 
 The local or public beggars formed a still more 
 definite class. Their begging was a recognized 
 means of maintenance ; it was a part of the 
 method of poor relief. Thus of Penelope it 
 was said that, if Ulysses' tale were true, she 
 would give him better clothes, and then he 
 might beg his bread throughout the country- 
 side. Feasts too and almsgiving were nearly 
 allied, and feasts have always been one resource 
 for the relief of the poor. Thus naturally the
 
 PRIMITIVE CHARITY 17 
 
 beggars frequented feasts, and were apparently 
 a recognized and yet inevitable nuisance. They 
 wore, as part of their dress, scrips or wallets 
 in which they carried away the food they 
 received, as later the Roman clients carried 
 away portions of food in baskets (sportulce) 
 from their patrons' dinners. Ulysses, when he 
 dresses up as a beggar, puts on a wallet as 
 part of his costume. Thus we find a system 
 of voluntary relief in force based on a 
 recognition of the duty of almsgiving as com- 
 plete arid peremptory as that which we shall 
 notice later among the Jews and the early 
 Christians. We are concerned here with country 
 districts, and not with towns, and, as social 
 conditions that are similar produce similar 
 methods of administration, so we find here a 
 general plan of relief similar to that which 
 was in vogue in Scotland till the Scottish Poor 
 Law Act of 1845. 
 
 In Hesiod the fundamental conceptions of 
 social religion and charity are more clearly 
 expressed. He has, if not his ten, at least 
 his four commandments, for disobedience to 
 which Zeus will punish the offender. They 
 are : Thou shalt do no evil to suppliant or 
 guest ; thou shalt not dishonour any woman 
 of the family ; thou shalt not sin against the
 
 18 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 orphan ; thou shalt not be unkind to aged 
 parents. 
 
 The laws of social life are thus duty to 
 one's guest and duty to one's family ; and 
 chastity has its true place in that relation, as 
 the later Greeks, who so often quote Hesiod 
 (cf. the so-called Economics of Aristotle), fully 
 realized. Also the charities of the family which 
 are due to the orphan, whose lot is deplored 
 in the Iliad (xxii. 490), and to the aged are 
 now clearly enunciated. But there is also in 
 Hesiod the duty to one's neighbour, not 
 according to the ' perfection ' of ' Cristes lore,' 
 but according to a law of honourable reciprocity 
 in act and intent. " Love him who loves thee, 
 and cleave to him who cleaveth to thee : to 
 him who would have given, give ; to him who 
 would not have given, give not." The ground- 
 work of Hesiod's charity outside the family is 
 neighbourly help (such as formed no small part 
 of old Scottish charity in the country districts); 
 and he put his argument thus : Competition, 
 which is a kind of strife, " lies in the roots of 
 the world and in men." It is good, and rouses 
 the idle ' handless ' man to work. On one 
 side are social duty (dike) and work, done 
 briskly at the right season of the year, which 
 bring a full barn. On the other side are
 
 PRIMITIVE CHARITY 19 
 
 unthrifb and hunger, and relief with the dis- 
 grace of begging ; and the relief, when the 
 family can do no more, must come from 
 neighbours, to whose house the beggar has to 
 go with his wife and children to ask for 
 victual. Once they may be helped, or twice, 
 and then they will be refused. Better is it, 
 Hesiod tells his brother, to work and so pay 
 off his debts and avoid hunger (see Erga, 391, 
 etc., and elsewhere). Here indeed is a problem 
 of to-day as it appeared to an early Greek. 
 The alternatives before the idler so far as his 
 own community is concerned are labour with 
 neighbourly help to a limited extent, or 
 hunger. 
 
 Hesiod was a farmer in Boeotia. Some 530 
 years afterwards a pupil of Aristotle thus 
 describes the district and its community of 
 farmers. "They are," he says, "well to do, 
 but simple in their way of life. They practise 
 justice, good faith, and hospitality. To needy 
 townsmen and vagabonds they give freely of 
 their substance ; for meanness and covetousness 
 are unknown to them." (Fraser's Pausanias, 
 p. xliii.) The charitable method of Homeric 
 and Hesiodic days still continued.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 CHARITY AMONG THE GREEKS. 
 
 SOCIETY in a Greek state was divided into 
 two parts, citizens and slaves. The citizens 
 required leisure for education, war, and govern- 
 ment. The slaves were their ministers, crafts- 
 men> and servants to enable them to secure this 
 leisure. We have therefore to consider, on the 
 one hand, the position of the family and the 
 clan-family, and the maintenance of the citizen 
 from public funds and by public and private 
 charities ; and on the other hand, the condition 
 of the slaves, and the relation between slavery 
 and charity. 
 
 The slaves formed the larger part of the 
 population. The census of Attica made between 
 317 and 307 B.C. gives their numbers at 400,000 
 out of a population of about 500,000 ; and even 
 if this be considered excessive, the proportion of 
 slaves to citizens must certainly have been very 
 large. The citizens with their wives and children
 
 CHARITY AMONG THE GREEKS 21 
 
 formed some 12 per cent, of the .community;/ 
 Thus, apart from the resident aliens, returned in 
 the census at 10,000, and their wive;s 'and 
 children, we have two divisions of society,: the 
 citizens, with their own organization of relief 
 and charities ; and the slaves, . permanently 
 maintained by reason of their dependence on 
 individual members of the civic class. Thus, 
 the only poverty is that of the poor citizens., 
 Poverty is limited to them. The slaves -that 
 is to say, the bulk of the labouring population ' 
 are provided for. ; 
 
 From times relatively near to Hesiod's we 
 may trace the growth and influence of 'the 
 clan-family as the centre of customary charity 
 within the community, the gradual increase of 
 a class of poor either outside the clan -family 
 or eventually independent of it, and the 
 development of a new organization of relief 
 introduced by the state to meet newer demands. 
 
 We picture the early state as a group of 
 families, each of which tends to form in time 
 a separate group or clan. At each expansion, 
 from the family to the clan the members of 
 the clan retain rights and have to fulfil duties 
 which are the same as, or similar to, those 
 which prevailed in the family. Thus, in Attica 
 the clan-families (gene) and the brotherhoods
 
 22 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 (phratrai) were " the only basis of legal rights 
 and obligations over and above the natural 
 family." The clan-family was ' a natural 
 guild,' consisting of rich and poor members 
 the well-born or noble and the craftsman alike ; 
 and originally it would seem that the land was 
 divided among the families of the clan by lot 
 and was inalienable. Thus with the family was 
 combined the means of supporting the family. 
 On the other hand, every youth was registered 
 in his phratry, and the phratry remained till 
 the reforms of Cleisthenes (509 B.C.) a political, 
 and even after that time a social, organization 
 of importance. 
 
 Again, first, as to the family the mother 
 and wife, and the father. Already before the 
 age of Plato and Xenophon (450-350 B.C.) we 
 find that the family has suffered a slow decline. 
 The wife, according to later Greek usage, was 
 married as a child, hardly educated, and con- 
 fined to the house, except at some festival or 
 funeral. But with the decline came criticism 
 and a nobler conception of family life. " First, 
 then, come laws regarding the wife," writes 
 the author of the Economics, and the law, 
 "thou shalt do no wrong; for, if we do no 
 wrong, we shall not be wronged." This is the 
 'common law/ as the Pythagoreans say,
 
 CHARITY AMONG THE GREEKS 23 
 
 " and it implies that we must not wrong the 
 wife in the least, but treat her with the 
 reverence due to a suppliant, or one taken 
 from the altar." The sanctity of marriage is 
 thus placed among the ' commandments ' of 
 Hesiod, besides the duty towards the stranger 
 and the orphan. These and other references 
 to the Pythagoreans suggest that they, possibly 
 in common with other mystics, preached the 
 higher religion of marriage and social life, and 
 thus inspired a deeper social feeling, which 
 eventually allied itself with the Christian move- 
 ment. 1 
 
 Next, as to parents and children : the son 
 was under an obligation to support his father, 
 subject, after Solon's time, to the condition 
 that he had taught him a trade ; and after 
 Solon's time the father had no claim for support 
 from an illegitimate son. " The possession of 
 children," it was said (Arist. Econ.) "is not by 
 nature for the public good only, but also for 
 private advantage. For what the strong may 
 
 1 " There was no such thing as a marriage in the presence of 
 priests or the representatives of the State " (Tucker : Life in 
 Ancient Athens (440-330 B.C.) p. 105). But later, custom would 
 appear to have changed. In Plutarch's time, 50 A.D. (Conjugal 
 Precepts, Introd.), it seems to have been usual. " The customary 
 marriage rites," he says, " by which the Priestess of Demeter 
 has united you together."
 
 24 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 gain by their toil for the weak, the weak in 
 their old age receive from the strong. . . . Thus 
 is the nature of each, the man and the woman, 
 prearranged by the Divine Being for a life in 
 common." Honour to parents is " the first and 
 greatest and oldest of all debts " (Plato, Laws, 
 717). The child has to care for the parent in 
 his old age. "Nemesis, the minister of justice 
 (dike), is appointed to watch over all these 
 things." And "if a man fail to adorn the 
 sepulchre of his dead parents, the magistrates 
 take note of it and inquire" (Xen. Mem. ii. 14). 
 The heightened conception of marriage implies 
 a fuller interpretation of the mutual relations 
 of parent and child as well ; both are and 
 become more sacred. 
 
 Then the orphans. Before Solon's time (594 
 B.C.) the property of any member of the clan- 
 family who died without children went to the 
 clan ; and after his time, when citizens were 
 permitted to leave their property by will, the 
 property of an intestate fell to the clan. This 
 arrangement carried with it corresponding 
 duties. Through the clan-family provision was 
 made for orphans. Any member of the clan 
 had the legal right to claim an orphan member 
 in marriage ; and, if the nearest agnate did 
 not marry her, he had to give her a dowry
 
 CHARITY AMONG THE GREEKS 25 
 
 proportionate to the amount of his own pro- 
 perty. Later, there is evidence of a growing 
 sense of responsibility in regard to orphans. 
 Hippodamus (about 443 B.C.), in his scheme 
 of the perfected state (Arist. Pol. 1268), sug- 
 gested that there should be public magistrates 
 to deal with the affairs of orphans (and 
 strangers) ; and Plato, his contemporary, writes 
 of the duty of the state and of the guardian 
 towards them very fully. Orphans, he proposes 
 (Laivs, 927), should be placed under the care 
 of public guardians. " Men should have a fear 
 of the loneliness of orphans . . . and of the 
 souls of the departed, who by nature take a 
 special care of their own children. ... A man 
 should love the unfortunate orphan (boy or 
 girl) of whom he is guardian as if he were 
 his own child ; he should be as careful and 
 diligent in the management of the orphan's 
 property as of his own or even more careful 
 still." 
 
 But, further, to relieve the poverty of citizens 
 and to preserve the citizenhood were objects 
 of public policy and of charity. In Crete and 
 Sparta the citizens were wholly supported out 
 of the public resources. In Attica the system 
 was different. The citizens were aided in 
 various ways, in which, as often happens, legal
 
 26 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 or official and voluntary or private methods 
 worked on parallel lines. The means were 
 (l) legal enactment for release of debts; (2) 
 emigration ; (3) the supply of corn ; (4) poor 
 relief for the infirm, and relief for the children 
 of those fallen in war; (5) emoluments; (6) 
 voluntary public service, separate gifts and 
 liberality ; (7) loan societies. 
 
 1. In 594 B.C. the labouring class in Attica 
 were overwhelmed with debts and mortgages, 
 and their persons pledged as security. Only 
 by a sharp reform was it possible to preserve 
 them from slavery. This Solon effected. He 
 annulled their obligations, abolished the pledge 
 of the person, and gave the labourers the 
 franchise. And, in addition to this, besides 
 the laws above mentioned, he gave power to 
 the Areopagus to inquire from what sources 
 each man obtained the necessaries of life, and 
 to punish those who did not work. His action 
 and that of his successor, Peisistratus (560 B.C.), 
 suggests that the class of poor (aporoi) was 
 increasing, and that by the efforts of these 
 two men the social decline of the people was 
 avoided or at least postponed. Peisistratus 
 lent the poor money that they might maintain 
 themselves in husbandry. He wished, it is said 
 (Arist. Ath. Pol. xvi.), to enable them to earn
 
 CHARITY AMONG THE GREEKS 27 
 
 a moderate living, that they might be occupied 
 with their own affairs, instead of spending their 
 time in the city or neglecting their work in 
 order to visit it. As rent for their land they 
 paid a tenth of the produce. 
 
 2. Akin to this policy was that of emigra- 
 tion. Athenians, selected in some instances 
 from the two lowest political classes, emigrated, 
 though still retaining their rights of citizenship. 
 In 570-565 B.C. Salamis was annexed and 
 divided into lots and settled ; and later Pericles 
 settled more than 2750 citizens in the Cher- 
 sonese and elsewhere practically a considerable 
 section of the whole body of citizens. " By 
 this means," says Plutarch, "he relieved the 
 state of numerous idle agitators and assisted 
 the necessitous." In other states this expedient 
 was frequently adopted. 
 
 3. A third method was the supply of corn 
 at reduced rates a method similar to that 
 adopted, as we shall see, at Rome, Constan- 
 tinople, and elsewhere. The maintenance of 
 the mass of the people depended on the corn 
 fleets. There were public granaries, where large 
 stores were laid up at the public expense. A 
 portion of all cargoes of corn was retained at 
 Athens, and in other ways importation was 
 promoted. Exportation was forbidden. Public
 
 28 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 donations and distributions of corn were fre- 
 quent, , and in times of scarcity rich citizens 
 made large contributions with that object. The 
 distributions were made to adult citizens of 
 eighteen years of age and upwards whose names 
 were on the registers. 
 
 4. In addition to this there was a system 
 of public relief for those who were unable to 
 earn a livelihood on account of bodily defects 
 and infirmities. The qualification was a pro- 
 perty test. The property of the applicant had to 
 be shown to be of a value of not more than three 
 minae (say 12). Socrates, it may be noted, 
 adopts the same method of estimating his com- 
 parative poverty (Xen. Econ. ii. 6), saying that 
 his goods would realize about five minae (or 
 about twenty guineas). The senate examined 
 the case, and the ecclesia awarded the bounty, 
 which consisted of one or two obols a day, rather 
 more than l|d. or 3d. out-door relief, as we 
 might say, amounting at most to about Is. 9d. 
 a week. There was also a fund for the main- 
 tenance of the children of those who had fallen 
 in war, up to the age of eighteen. 
 
 5. But the main source of support was the 
 receipt of emoluments for various public ser- 
 vices. This was not relief, though it produced 
 in the course of time the effect of relief. It
 
 CHARITY AMONG THE GREEKS 29 
 
 was rather the Athenian method of supporting 
 a governing class of citizens. 
 
 The inner political history of Athens is the 
 history of the extension of the franchise to 
 the lower classes of citizens, with the privileges 
 of holding office and receiving emoluments. 
 
 About 650 B.C., at a time when trade was 
 increasing, the citizens were classified on the 
 basis of property. The rich retained the fran- 
 chise and the right of holding office ; the middle 
 classes obtained the franchise ; the fourth or 
 labouring class gained neither. By the reforms 
 of Cleisthenes (509 B.C.) the clan-family and 
 the phratry were set aside for the deme or 
 parish, a geographical division superseding the 
 social. Finally, about 478 B.C., when all had 
 acquired the franchise, the right to hold office 
 also was obtained by the fourth class. These 
 changes coincided with a period of economic 
 progress. The rate of interest was high, usually 
 12 per cent. ; and in trading and bottomry 
 the returns were much higher. A small 
 capital at this interest soon produced compara- 
 tive wealth ; and simultaneously prices were 
 falling. Then came the reaction. "After the 
 Peloponnesian war" (432 to 404 B.C.), writes 
 Professor Jebb, " the wealth of the country 
 ceased to grow, as population had ceased to
 
 30 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 grow about 50 years sooner. The rich went 
 on accumulating ; the poor, having no means 
 of enriching themselves by enterprise, were for 
 the most part occupied in watching for some 
 chance of snatching a larger share of the 
 stationary total." Thus the poorer classes in 
 a time of prosperity had won the power which 
 they were able to turn to their own account 
 afterwards. 
 
 A period of economic pressure followed, 
 coupled with a decline in the population ; 
 no return to the land was feasible, nor was 
 emigration ; the people had become townfolk 
 inadaptable to new uses ; decreasing vitality 
 and energy were marked by a new temper, the 
 ' pauper ' temper, unsettled, idle, and grasping, 
 and political power was utilized to obtain relief; 
 and though the relief was forthcoming, it was of 
 no avail to stop the general decline. The state, 
 it might almost be said, in giving scope to 
 the assertion of the spirit of dependence, had 
 ruined the self- regarding energy on which both 
 family and state alike depended. 
 
 The emoluments were diverse. The number 
 of citizens was not large ; the functions in which 
 citizens could take part were numerous ; and 
 when payment was forthcoming the poorer 
 citizens pressed in to exercise their rights (cf.
 
 CHARITY AMONG THE GREEKS 31 
 
 Arist. Pol. 1293A). All Athenian citizens could 
 attend the public assembly or ecclesia. Pro- 
 bably the attendance at it varied from a few 
 hundred to 5000 persons. In 395 B.C. the 
 payment for attendance was fixed at 3 obols, 
 or little more than 4|d. a day for the system 
 of payment had probably been introduced a few 
 years before (cf. Daremberg, Diet, des Antiq.). 
 A juror or dikast would receive the same sum 
 for attendance, and the courts or juries often 
 consisted of 500 persons. If the estimate 
 (Bockh., Public Economy of Athens, Eng. 
 trans, pp. 109, 117) holds good that in the 
 age of Demosthenes (384-323 B.c.) the member 
 of a poor family of four free persons could live 
 (including rent) on about 3 '3d. or between 2 
 and 3 obols a day, the pay of the citizen 
 attending the assembly or the court would at 
 least cover the expenses of subsistence. On 
 the other hand, it would be less than the pay 
 of a day labourer, which was probably about . 
 4 obols or 6d. a day. In any case many 
 citizens they numbered in all about 20,000 
 in return for their participation in political 
 duties would receive considerable pecuniary 
 assistance. Attending a great public festival 
 also, the citizen would receive 2 obols or 3d. 
 a day during the festival days ; and there were
 
 32 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 besides frequent public sacrifices, with the meal 
 or feast which accompanied them. 
 
 But besides this there were confiscations of 
 private property, which produced a surplus 
 revenue divisible among the poorer citizens. 
 (Some hold that there were confiscations in 
 other Greek states, but not in Athens.) In 
 these circumstances it is not to be wondered 
 that men like Isocrates should regret that the 
 influence of the Areopagus, the old court of 
 morals and justice in Athens, had disappeared, 
 for it " maintained a sort of censorial police 
 over the lives and habits of the citizens ; and 
 it professed to enforce a tutelary and paternal 
 discipline, beyond that which the strict letter 
 of the law could mark out, over the indolent, 
 the prodigal, the undutiful, and the deserters 
 of old rite and custom." 
 
 6. In addition to public emoluments and 
 relief there was much private liberality and 
 charity. Many expensive public services were 
 undertaken honorarily by the citizens under 
 a kind of civic compulsion. Thus in a trial 
 about 425 B.C. (Lysias, Or. 19. 57) a citizen 
 submitted evidence that his father expended 
 more than 2000 during his life in paying 
 the expenses of choruses at festivals, fitting 
 out seven triremes for the navy, and meeting
 
 CHARITY AMONG THE GREEKS 33 
 
 levies of income-tax to provide for emergencies. 
 Besides this he had helped poor citizens by por- 
 tioning their daughters and sisters, had ransomed 
 some, and paid the funeral expenses of others 
 (cf. for other instances Plutarch's Cimon, Theo- 
 phrastus' Characteres, and Xenophon's Econ.}. 
 
 7. There were also mutual help societies 
 (eranoi). Those for relief would appear to 
 have been loan societies (cf. Theoph. Char act.}, 
 one of whose members would beat up contri- 
 butions to help a friend, who would afterwards 
 repay the advance. 
 
 The criticisms of Aristotle (384-321 B.C.) 
 suggest the direction to which he looked for 
 social reform. He (Pol. 1320A) passes a very 
 unfavourable judgment on the distribution of 
 public money to the poorer citizens. The 
 demagogues (he does not speak of Athens 
 particularly) distributed the surplus revenues 
 to the poor, who received them all at the 
 same time ; and then they were in want 
 again. It was only, he argued, like pouring 
 water through a sieve. It were better to see 
 to it that the greater number were not so 
 entirely destitute, for the depravity of a 
 democratic government was due to this. The 
 problem was to contrive how plenty- (euporia, 
 not poverty, aporia) should become permanent.
 
 34 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 His proposals are adequate aid and voluntary 
 charity. Public relief should, he urges, be 
 given in large amounts so as to help people 
 to acquire small farms or start in business, 
 and the well-to-do (euporoi) should in the 
 meantime subscribe to pay the poor for their 
 attendance at the public assemblies. This 
 proves, indeed, how the payments had become 
 poor relief. He mentions also how the Car- 
 thaginian notables divided the destitute amongst 
 them and gave them the means of setting to 
 work, and the Tarentines (koina poiountes) 
 shared their property with the poor. The 
 Rhodians also may be mentioned (Strabo, xiv. 
 c. 652), amongst whom the well-to-do under- 
 took the relief of the poor voluntarily. The 
 later word for charitable distribution was a 
 sharing (Jcoinonia, Ep. Rom. xv. 26). To this 
 we shall return. But the chief service rendered 
 by Aristotle a service which covered indeed the 
 whole ground of social progress was to show 
 that unless the purpose of civil and social 
 life was carefully considered and clearly under- 
 stood by those who desired to improve its 
 conditions, no change for the better could result 
 from individual or associated action.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 CITY LIFE AND ITS PROBLEMS IN GREECE. 
 
 WE should, however, consider the question 
 further in its relation to Greek thought. 
 
 Aristotle stated the problem of city life to 
 be how plenty rather than poverty should be 
 made permanent. In the time of Plato the 
 supremacy of Athens had passed away. The 
 conditions of social life seemed to call for 
 inquiry, for some reform and revival of effort. 
 He analyses the subject in the Republic and 
 in the Laws, and the analysis bears closely 
 on our modern questions. We would take from 
 these two books some thoughts and suggestions 
 which touch on social development, and make 
 some comments. The city comes into being 
 by reason of the economic wants of its 
 inhabitants : but it cannot flourish by the 
 mere satisfaction of these wants. Social
 
 36 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 decline will set in. Extravagance and effemi- 
 nacy will take the place of simplicity. The 
 easy satisfaction of wants will serve no 
 moral end, and have in itself no finality. There 
 is a class of men who are wholly absorbed in 
 the pursuit of wealth, attending to nothing but 
 their daily gains, who care for knowledge 
 only in so far as it will equip them to attain 
 that purpose. There is the factious and un- 
 settled element in society of which account 
 must t be taken. But there is also the large 
 poor population : they are a population within 
 the population ; they form a city within the 
 city. 
 
 What is the remedy? There are several to 
 be considered and applied together and not 
 separately. There must be an education of 
 body and soul. The education of the soul is 
 achieved first by its invigoration by a courage 
 that is more than animal courage, that will 
 not melt away in the face of temptation or 
 obloquy any more than in the midst of physical 
 dangers. With this, and akin to it, is Temper- 
 ance, the mood of the balanced, self-restraining 
 mind, the mood in which the measure of 
 things is rightly taken. Then Justice to 
 do one's duty to take one's place in life and 
 fulfil its duties. Justice fits the parts together
 
 CITY LIFE IN GREECE 37 
 
 in a true whole makes of the courageous and 
 the temperate man a doer of the word, and 
 makes of the State an ordered unit. For what 
 is the characteristic of the individual members 
 becomes the characteristic of the community. 
 We may apply to this a modern illustration. 
 The lower impulses of the individuals that 
 compose what Fielding calls ' the mob ' dom- 
 inate it. The mob or crowd is more excitable 
 than the individual, more quickly touched by 
 what is trivial and transient, more partisan, 
 if roused, and more cruel. According to the 
 quality of the crowd so is the nature of its 
 excitement. If the crowd be an assembly of 
 brave and temperate men accustomed to the 
 ordered life of justice what they are individually 
 it will reveal in its gathered force. It will 
 respond to the higher appeal, and instead of 
 the laudations of partisanship it will accept 
 with approval the call to fulfil new obligations. 
 Servility will annoy it ; the incitement to a 
 closer fellowship and a harder duty will move 
 it. 
 
 And who shall rule ? The rule must be in 
 conformity with Wisdom, with the science of 
 guardianship. The guardians are a selection of 
 the competent, tried by the hardest tasks and 
 not found wanting. They have no interest of
 
 38 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 their own to serve. They form a class apart, 
 sharing all things, and possessing no personal 
 property. Their sole interest is the community. 
 These are the characteristics of honourable rulers 
 moral and intellectual ability, and freedom 
 from regard to personal ends. Somehow the 
 method of government must evolve them, and 
 set them upon its high places. 
 
 Then education : Plato would have similar 
 training for boy and girl. In general they 
 should learn beforehand in play the art or 
 accomplishments with which they will after- 
 wards have to be occupied in life. It is the 
 earliest stage of education when the child is 
 being reared, that counts for most. In his play 
 his soul should be led to love that kind of 
 practical excellence of which he will stand in 
 need as a grown man. The future carpenter 
 should learn to measure and apply the line in 
 play ; and the future warrior should learn riding 
 or some other exercise for amusement. Till the 
 age of six boys and girls should play together. 
 Then " they must begin to learn the boys 
 going to teachers of horsemanship arid the use 
 of the bow, the javelin, and the sling ; and if 
 they do not object let women* go too to learn 
 if not to practise ; above all they ought to 
 know the use of arms, for these are matters
 
 CITY LIFE IN GREECE 39 
 
 which are almost entirely misunderstood at 
 present" (The Laws, vii. sec. 794 (Jowett's 
 trans.)). The "education has two branches, one 
 of gymnastic, which is concerned with the body, 
 and the other of music, which is designed for 
 the improvement of the soul." Body and soul 
 are each considered. Gymnastic consists of 
 wrestling and dancing. A free habit of body, 
 " health, agility, and beauty in the limbs and 
 parts of the person," these are its objects. 
 Music expresses the feeling that should accom- 
 pany life, the sense of inner harmony, the 
 expression of thought in terms so touching and 
 mysterious that language fails to convey them. 
 It is a language of the soul. Therefore the 
 object of this education is strength, adaptability, 
 and fineness of spirit. It is an education for 
 the elite, some may say. To Plato it was an 
 education that would rear a strong race and 
 make the people good. Such a race and people 
 could both support itself and defend itself. This 
 is the ground work. With it come lessons. 
 " A fair time for a boy of ten years old to 
 spend in letters is three years " ; and other 
 studies follow. 
 
 Perhaps in that revision of our elementary 
 and secondary education that is so urgently 
 required, these thoughts of Plato's might be
 
 40 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 re-considered and re-applied with great advantage 
 to our own race. 
 
 The question of the human breed he has also 
 in his mind. " We will say to him " the 
 younger man : " my son, he who is born of 
 good parents ought to make such a marriage 
 as sensible people approve . . . They would 
 advise you neither to avoid a poor marriage, 
 nor specially to desire a rich one ; but if other 
 things are equal to honour persons of an inferior 
 rank, and with them to form connexions. This 
 will lead to the good of the city and of the 
 families that are united." Marriage should be 
 of opposites. So one tendency in excess will 
 counteract another in the race. " Let there be 
 one word about all marriages : Every marriage 
 should be settled according to what is bene- 
 ficial to the city, not according to what is 
 most pleasant to oneself"; and to this end 
 in the Laws many minute regulations are 
 suggested. 
 
 In this comes to light a defect quite modern 
 in its nature ; of the very virtues themselves 
 there seems to be a latent distrust. Neither 
 the individual nor the State can fulfil their 
 purpose unless they be ruled by courage, tem- 
 perance, and justice ; they, and not the minutiae 
 of superintendence, are the necessary condition
 
 CITY LIFE IN GREECE 41 
 
 of social life. If they be there, the right is 
 done in the spontaneity of the good will. If 
 they are not there, minute legislation can hardly 
 be effective. The complexity of life must always 
 defeat those who try to control it in its inner- 
 most recesses by a complexity of statutes. To 
 a point they can go, the point at which 
 inspection can be made as complete as the 
 regulation is detailed ; but except perhaps in 
 a very small community such as that of 5040 
 persons which Plato makes his measure of 
 population, the details of enactment may easily 
 outrun the possibilities of inspection, and so 
 become valueless. A great evil may then result. 
 The supreme morality of self-guidance may be 
 weakened or lost. ' Instructions ' may take the 
 place of intelligence. Initiative may grow less. 
 After all, reliance must be placed not on the 
 minutiae of legislative instructions, but on educa- 
 tion, on the spread of information, and on the 
 effect of the general polity of the State on 
 the development of the people. 
 
 The economic aim of the State which Plato 
 explains in the Laws, is a relatively fixed con- 
 dition of resources. A taint of injustice adheres 
 to the rich man. According to Plato's idea he 
 cannot be rich except by dishonourable means. 
 "Very rich and very good at the same time
 
 42 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 the citizen cannot be, not at least in the sense 
 that the many speak of riches. For they 
 describe by the term ' rich ' a few who have 
 the most valuable possessions, although the 
 owner of them be a rogue." " He who spends 
 on noble objects, and acquires wealth by just 
 means only, can hardly be remarkable for riches, 
 any more than he can be very poor." This 
 community accordingly foregoes money-making. 
 It is to trust to the produce of agriculture, 
 " and only so much of this as will not compel 
 us in pursuing it to neglect that for the sake 
 of which riches exist I mean soul and body, 
 which, without gymnastics and without educa- 
 tion, will never be worth anything ; and there- 
 fore, as we have said, not once, but many 
 times, the care of riches should have a last 
 place in one's thoughts " (sec. 743). 
 
 The fixed condition is to be obtained by a 
 registration of all property (sec. 754) and by 
 the restriction of it in the first class of citizens 
 to four minae, or 16 os. Od. ; in the second 
 class to three minae, or 12 3s. 9d. ; and in the 
 third class to one minae, or 4 Is. 3d. And to 
 the population, in tribal fashion, are assigned 
 lots of land, a lot for each family ; and the lots 
 remain by adjustment ever the same in number, 
 and ever possessed by the same number of
 
 CITY LIFE IN GREECE 43 
 
 families. The limit of poverty is the value of 
 the lot, which is inalienable. The population 
 remains the same. Families are limited. There 
 is, if considered necessary, the exposure of 
 infants. There is emigration. 
 
 The recognition of the evils of town life, here 
 and elsewhere, suggest reaction, a reversion to 
 an earlier state, to tribal conditions or to those 
 of the yeoman farmer. But the reaction is a 
 sign of sentiment, of an intellectual and possibly 
 physical weakness. The life in the city in 
 general unfits for the life in the country. 
 Practical experience in many cases proves this. 
 Philanthropic ruralism can effect very little. 
 The line of progress is not backwards or out- 
 wards to the past or to the country life. It 
 is forwards : how to make the citizen more com- 
 petent as a citizen living in the city with a 
 parsimony that a labourer in the country is 
 bound to practise, and with a greater ingenuity 
 and carefulness in safeguarding his life and the 
 life of his family. If this is not possible, one 
 may almost say nothing is possible. A life 
 of greater or less dependence in the city is the 
 only alternative : and that is only another name 
 for failure. 
 
 In the desire for unity and fixity Plato hankers 
 after the fulfilment of the Pythagorean motto :
 
 44 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 "The goods of friends are common." 1 That 
 seems to him to imply a primal unity of thought 
 and feeling which is the perfection of the life of 
 a community. His Guardians in the Republic 
 adopt it. For his citizens in the Colony in the 
 Laws he provides, as we have seen, what is in 
 his judgment the inferior method of the equal 
 and unchanging plots of land. But in spite of 
 this permanent provision against destitution a 
 city may according to his phrase have to be puri- 
 fied. " When best the purification is painful, like 
 similar cures in medicine, involving righteous 
 punishment and inflicting death and exile in the 
 last resort (sec. 735). For in this way we com- 
 monly dispose of great sinners who are incurable 
 and are the greatest injury to the whole State. 
 But the milder purification is as follows : when 
 men who have nothing show a disposition to 
 follow their leaders in an attack on the property 
 of the rich these, who are the natural plague of 
 the State, are sent away by the legislator in a 
 friendly spirit, as far as he is able, and this 
 dismissal of them is euphemistically termed a 
 Colony. And every legislator should contrive 
 to do this at once." 
 
 Then he deals with the question of poverty 
 
 1 The complete saying is : " The things of friends are common, 
 and one's friend is another self."
 
 CITY LIFE IN GREECE 45 
 
 and mendicancy. " A man," he says (sec. 936) is 
 not to be pitied who suffers hunger or anything 
 of that kind ; but we should pity a temperate 
 man or one who has some goodness or some 
 particle of goodness, if, having this character, 
 he suffers misfortune. It would accordingly be 
 very strange if a man of this kind were entirely 
 uncared for, so that he came to utter beggary, 
 whether he were a slave or a freeman in even a 
 poorly managed city or commonwealth. There- 
 fore the legislator may safely make a law 
 applicable to cases of this kind in such terms 
 as these : in our city-state let there be no 
 beggar, but if any one attempts to beg, and 
 to make a living by endless petitions, let the 
 wardens of the Agora turn him out of the 
 Agora, and the Office of the wardens of the city 
 turn him out of the city, and let the wardens in 
 the country send him on from there to beyond 
 the boundary, so that the place may be clear 
 of such a creature altogether." 
 
 This process of clearing away and sending 
 on the beggars is quite in accordance with 
 early English legislation, though, unless it were 
 Scotland, there was no alien land adjacent to 
 our border into which the beggars could be 
 finally driven. They were sent back to their 
 parish. For the rest the argument is of general
 
 46 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 interest. No Poor Law is suggested, because in 
 the case of persons who ought to be assisted, 
 private charity will certainly suffice. The dis- 
 orderly person who has no part of goodness in him 
 should be cleared away as if he were a polluted 
 thing from which the city should be cleansed, as 
 in the rites of purification. No argument is 
 pressed, such as illogically affects our modern 
 sentiment, that if we refuse to allow begging we 
 must make a public provision for the beggar, as 
 an alternative to the livelihood he may gain by 
 begging, The thing is wrong and to be punished 
 out of existence, like any other wrong-doing. 
 No substitute for it is to be considered. A 
 reversion to an ordered life is the only alternative 
 that is conceivable as against expulsion. But 
 if there were in truth that possibility, then the 
 beggar would have some goodness left in him 
 or some particle of goodness sufficient for that 
 object. Thus the position is taken ythat there 
 is a condition of life, entirely disordered or 
 wrecked, which admits of no revival. That 
 Plato recognizes, and so must anyone who' has 
 tried to help men of this class with sufficient 
 knowledge and persistence. In effect in modern 
 times when there remains no place to which to 
 expel this class, this is an argument for some 
 colony such as Merxplas in Belgium a colony
 
 CITY LIFE IN GREECE 47 
 
 of the ill-controlled and intemperate, where they 
 are made as useful as may be. 
 
 We have thus a community of landholders, 
 with relatively small and fixed means, closely 
 supervised and almost ascetic, working with the 
 aid of slaves and hirelings, living in friendship 
 and good cheer, educated to think and to enjoy ; 
 by a fixity of possessions avoiding destitution 
 and ensuring security of maintenance ; by the 
 avoidance of strangers, subjected to no disturb- 
 ance from alien thoughts and unsound doctrines ; 
 by good habits and careful marriages enabled 
 to prevent social decline. The picture is that 
 of a community of the good in an island 
 seclusion. In its very security there is a 
 limitation of sympathy. The recalcitrant is 
 evicted, and the slave, though kindly treated, 
 remains outside the body of citizens. Pro- 
 gress reaches finality, and thus progress itself 
 in its isolation becomes impossible. One fears 
 lest joy should vanish in routine, and love in 
 a finely poised superiority, lest economic social 
 life should be hardened into the trammels of 
 caste, on the one side the elect, on the other the 
 sinful and the servile. 
 
 But this is hardly a complete judgment. 
 Every society or association has, for the sake 
 of its own preservation, laws for the expulsion
 
 48 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 of those who according to its standard of thought 
 or purpose are disorderly. This is true of 
 churches and the State, of clubs and of societies. 
 Expulsion may be in part punishment. In part 
 it may be considered reformatory. But in effect 
 the ban of a church or the sentence of death are 
 expulsion pure and simple, the one mortal 
 spiritually, the other mortal bodily. We must 
 in some measure, according to the purpose of 
 our social life, accept this principle. Ameliora- 
 tion has its limits : and men and women who 
 are themselves proven and manifest sources of 
 evil to the community it is but just to withdraw 
 from it, at least till their power for evil be 
 neutralized. 
 
 On the other hand, the basis of social life and 
 social reform remain as they are here clearly and, 
 one may say, finally enunciated. No society 
 can reform itself unless within its membership 
 courage, temperance and justice with a kind 
 of wisdom predominate. Later on this is the 
 argument of Cicero and Epictetus, and later 
 still it becomes the moral creed of Christianity. 
 The civilization of a people implies its moraliza- 
 tion. Unless it can make itself moral according 
 to a higher standard, it cannot reform itself to a 
 higher standard, let laws and inspection be what 
 they may.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 PROVISION AMONG THE GREEKS FOR THE 
 STRANGER AND THE SICK. 
 
 WE return to charity among the Greeks, two 
 forms of which we have still to mention : 
 charity to the stranger and to the sick. It will 
 be convenient to consider both in relation to 
 the whole classical period. 
 
 With the growth of towns the administration 
 of hospitality was elaborated. 
 
 There was hospitality between members of 
 families bound by the rites of host and guest. 
 The guest received as a right only shelter and 
 fire. Usually he dined with the host the first 
 day, and if afterwards he was fed, provisions 
 were supplied to him. There were large guest 
 chambers (xenbna) or small guest houses, com- 
 pletely isolated on the right or left of the 
 principal house ; and here the guest was lodged. 
 There were also, e.g. at Hieropolis (Prof. W. 
 M. Ramsay's Phrygia, ii. 97), brotherhoods of
 
 50 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 hospitality (xenoi tekmoreioi, bearers of the sign), 
 which made hospitality a duty, and had a 
 common chest and Apollo as their tutelary god. 
 There were inns or resting-places (katagogia} 
 for strangers at temples (Thuc. iii. 68 ; Plato, 
 Laws, 953A) and places of resort (leschai) at or 
 near the temples for the entertainment of 
 strangers as for instance, at a temple of Askle- 
 pios at Epidaurus (Pausanius, iii. 240). The 
 evidence at present is not perhaps sufficiently 
 complete, but, so far as it goes, it tends to 
 the conclusion that in pre-Christian times hospi- 
 tality was provided to passers-by and strangers 
 in the temple buildings, as later it was furnished 
 in the monasteries and churches. 
 
 There were also in towns houses for strangers 
 (xenb'na) provided at the public cost. This was 
 so at Megara ; and in Crete strangers had a 
 place at the public meals and a dormitory. 
 Xenophon suggested that it would be profitable 
 for the Athenian state to establish inns for 
 traders (katagogia demosia) at Athens. Thus, 
 apart from the official hospitality of the 
 proxenus or ' consul,' who had charge of the 
 affairs of foreigners, and the hospitality which 
 was shown to persons of distinction by states 
 or private individuals, there was in Greece a 
 large provision for strangers, wayfarers, and
 
 THE STRANGER AND THE SICK 51 
 
 vagrants based on the charitable sentiment of 
 hospitality. Among the Romans similar customs 
 of private and public hospitality prevailed ; and 
 throughout the empire the older system was 
 altered, probably very slowly. In Christian 
 times (cf. Ramsay above) Pagan temples were 
 (about A.D. 408) utilized for special purposes, 
 including that of hospitality to strangers. 
 
 Round the temples, at first probably village 
 temples, the organization of medical relief grew 
 up. Primitive medicine is connected with 
 dreams, worship, and liturgical ' pollution,' 
 punishment and penitence, and an experimental 
 practice. Finally, systematic observation and 
 science (with no knowledge of chemistry and 
 little of physiology) assert themselves, and a 
 secular administration is created by the side of 
 the older religious organization. 
 
 Sickness among primitive races is conceived 
 to be a material substance to be extracted, or 
 an evil spirit to be driven away by incantation. 
 Religion and medicine are thus at the beginning 
 almost one and the same thing. In Anatolia, 
 in the groups of villages (cf. Ramsay as above, 
 i. 101) under the theocratic government of a 
 central hieron or temple, the god, Men Karou, 
 was the physician and saviour (sbter and sozon) 
 of his people. Priests, prophets and physicians
 
 52 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 were his ministers. He punished wrongdoing 
 by diseases which he taught the penitent to 
 cure. So elsewhere pollution, physical or moral, 
 was chastened by disease and loss of property 
 or children, and further ills were avoided by 
 sacrifice and expiation and public warning. 
 
 In the temple and out of this phase of 
 thought grew up schools of medicine, in the 
 practice of which dreams and religious ritual 
 retained a place. The newer gods, Asklepios 
 and Apollo, succeeded the older local divinities; 
 and the 'sons' of Asklepios became a profession, 
 and the temple with its adjacent buildings a 
 kind of hospital. There were many temples 
 of Asklepios in Greece and elsewhere, placed 
 generally in high and salubrious positions. 
 After ablution the patient offered sacrifices, 
 repeating himself the words of the hymn that 
 was chanted. Then, when night came on, he 
 slept in the temple. In the early dawn he 
 was to dream ' the heavenly dream ' which 
 would suggest his cure ; but if he did not 
 dream, relations and others officials at the 
 temple might dream for him. At dawn the 
 priests or sons of Asklepios came into the 
 temple and visited the sick, so that, in a 
 kind of drama, where reality and appearance 
 seemed to meet, the patients believed that
 
 THE STRANGER AND THE SICK 53 
 
 they saw the god himself. The next morning 
 the prescription and treatment were settled. 
 At hand in the inn or guest chambers of the 
 temple the patient could remain, sleeping again 
 in the temple, if necessary, and carrying out 
 the required regimen. In the temple were 
 votive tablets of cases, popular and awe-in- 
 spiring, and records and prescriptions, which 
 later found their way into the medical works 
 of Galen and others. At the temple of 
 Asklepios at Epidaurus was an inn (katagogiori) 
 for visitors to the temple and patients, with 
 four courts and colonnades, and in all 160 
 rooms. (Cf. Pausanius, ii. 171 ; and Report, 
 Archaeol. in Greece, R. C. Bosanquet, 1899, 
 1900.) 
 
 At three centres more particularly, Rhodes, 
 Cnidos, and Cos, were the medical schools of 
 the Asklepiads. If one may judge from an 
 inscription at Athens, priests of Asklepios 
 attended the poor gratuitously. And years 
 afterwards, in the llth century, when there was 
 a revival of medicine, we find (Ch. Daremberg, 
 La Medecine : Histoire et Doctrines) at Salerno 
 the Christian priest as doctor,, a simple and 
 less palatable pharmacy for the poor than 
 for the rich, and gratuitous medical relief. 
 
 Besides the temple schools and hospitals there
 
 54 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 was a secular organization of medical aid and 
 relief. States appointed trained medical men 
 as physicians, and provided for them medical 
 establishments (iatreia, " large houses with 
 large doors full of light") for the reception of 
 the sick; and for operations there were provided 
 beds, instruments, medicines, etc. At these 
 places also pupils were taught. A lower degree 
 of medical establishment was to be found at 
 the barbers' shops. Out-patients were seen at 
 the iatreia. They were also visited at home. 
 There were doctors' assistants and slave doctors. 
 The latter, apparently, attended only slaves 
 (Plato, Leg. iv. 720) ; they do " a great service 
 to the master of the house, who in this manner 
 is relieved of the care of his slaves." It was 
 a precept of Hippocrates, that if a physician 
 came to a town where there were sick poor, 
 he should make it his first duty to attend 
 to them ; and the state physician attended 
 gratuitously any one who applied to him. 
 There were also travelling physicians going 
 rounds to heal children and the poor. These 
 methods continued, probably all of them, to 
 Christian times. 
 
 It has been argued that medical practice 
 was introduced into Italy by the Greeks. But 
 the evidence seems to show that there was a
 
 THE STRANGER AND THE SICK 55 
 
 quite independent Latin tradition and school 
 of medicine (Rene Brian, " Me'decine dans le 
 Latium et a Rome," Rev. Arche'ol., 1885). In 
 Rome there were consulting-rooms and dispen- 
 saries, and houses in which the sick were 
 received. Hospitals are mentioned by Roman 
 writers in the first century A.D. There were 
 infirmaries detached buildings for sick slaves; 
 and in Rome, as at Athens, there were slaves 
 skilled in medicine. In Rome also for each 
 regio there was a chief physician who attended 
 to the poorer people.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE LEAVEN OF RELIGION. 
 
 THE conditions of thought which prevailed 
 among the people, and under which these 
 charities were practised, are not at once under- 
 stood, nor is the relation of charity to religion 
 appreciated, unless the growth of religious 
 thought be taken into consideration. The old 
 world of religion in Greek and Roman times 
 is like a changing sea. The waves of feeling 
 and imagination are endless. Their colours and 
 forms shift rapidly, as it seems, in constant 
 and ineffectual movement. Then sometimes in 
 the midst of this wide expanse of indeterminate 
 changefulness there come at intervals great 
 movements of innovating thought that like leap 
 tides sweep the reaches of the sea and recast 
 its coast lines. Some God, for instance, there 
 may be who is but little known. He is 
 accredited with power. His influence spreads. 
 He ousts other and older Gods. He links his
 
 THE LEAVEN OF RELIGION 57 
 
 name to theirs and shares or takes their place. 
 The mind of the worshippers is ever ready to 
 find for him new imaginative affinities, and to 
 assume new identifications. There is no un- 
 naturalness in this. The whole God-atmosphere 
 is what to us would seem abnormal. The 
 personalities of the Gods are vague and unfixed, 
 as vague and variable as the aspirations of the 
 worshippers. As there is no consistency in 
 the one, there is no unity or order in the other. 
 Theology is still theogony. A series of mon- 
 strous births of elemental forces, regarded as 
 personal beings, or of immortalized man-like 
 creatures, makes out of earth the heaven of a 
 confused adoration. The growing reason, the 
 growing morality and civility of man are in 
 fact, however, perpetually adapting, and re-adapt- 
 ing the material of the Universe to consistency 
 with the necessities and standards of human 
 thought. What the soul imagines and what it 
 sees with ever clearer eyes in the world outside 
 itself, it turns continually to new account for 
 its own higher purposes, and for its progress. 
 It moulds these sights and imaginations both 
 into its ways of living and into its ways of 
 worship. Thus ritual, oblation, and prayer find 
 their counterpart in religious contentment and 
 social security.
 
 58 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 At first the mere recognition of what is 
 strange suffices for an elemental regard or 
 reverence. A hill or stone is strange in shape. 
 Therefore it in some way impresses the mind. 
 A story is made of it ; or it merely remains a 
 thing of power by reason of its oddity, owing 
 to the feeling that the exceptional is the potent. 
 It becomes a fetish. But even this is a step 
 in the religious consciousness. There is a new 
 idea dimly connected with it. It represents 
 something apart from ourselves which stands 
 over against us and our life. It is hill or stone, 
 but it is also something more. If it goes we 
 are uncomfortable. There is a feeling that 
 something is amiss. We associate our prosperity 
 or failure with it. Like the friendly old-world 
 Lares in the Roman house we may treat our 
 stone as the responsible offender if things go 
 amiss ; but yet though we treat it so ignomini- 
 ously as our creature, it remains a recognition 
 of our belief in a power outside us, in a universe 
 with which we would be in harmony or which 
 we would bring into harmony with us. Our 
 recognition of the stone is indeed a recognition 
 of a higher or different standard than ours. 
 It reacts on our social life and on our morality. 
 It creates by degrees new fears and new duties. 
 
 At this stage we are far from the coming of
 
 59 
 
 the Olympian Gods, the Gods associated with 
 a life in high or heavenly places. Hesiod's 
 Gods are Olympian. There are earlier spirits 
 or deities, Pelasgian, not Achaean, of the earth 
 and under the earth, not heavenly. Some, the 
 most primitive, are " Keres," unseen and blight- 
 like things that corrupt, and for the expulsion 
 of which there are ceremonies of riddance 
 (Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion : 
 J. E. Harrison, 33). In the religious imagina- 
 tion these developed into many sister forms : 
 and there were Fates, Erinnyes and Harpies, 
 and others. 
 
 In the Anthesteria at Athens, the festival of 
 the re-vocation, as the word is now interpreted, 
 we find an All Souls Day. The Keres are the 
 ghostlike outcome of the burial cists. The first 
 day of the feast -they come : on the last they 
 are ridded away after " ceremonies of placation 
 and purgation." The offering is primitive, like 
 the worship grain and seeds not even wine. 
 In the offering the worshipper did not partake. 
 He fasted and he chewed a purgative plant, 
 branches of which were fastened to the door 
 of his house. The body and the home were 
 purified. Then the world was, as it were, purged 
 of the evil, and the spirits were bidden to 
 leave. The cry was raised " Out of the doors,
 
 60 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 ye Keres : it is no longer Anthesteria " : and 
 the gloom of purgation was over. The Luper- 
 calia is the corresponding Roman feast, occurring 
 in the month of purging februarius February, 
 the month corresponding to the Anthesterion 
 in the Greek Calendar. The thought and the 
 ceremonial in many forms are world-wide. Of 
 the Olympic worship, Miss Harrison says, the 
 theory is, do ut des : of this primitive service 
 it is do ut abeas 1 give that thou mayest go 
 away. 
 
 In touch with the deep feeling of the need 
 of annual purification is the long-lingering 
 human sacrifice, even " in civilized Athens of 
 the fifth century " (Harrison, 96). The com- 
 munity was cleansed by the expulsion from it 
 of the Pharmakos, the medicine-man or magic- 
 man, man or woman, or both man and woman. 
 These in later days were criminals reserved for 
 the purpose, and were counted as infected 
 members of society. On them by a theory of 
 substitution was concentred on behalf of the 
 community all that fatal contamination of evil 
 and impurity that would otherwise infect the 
 whole body, and bring to it plagues and famines, 
 
 A woman's feast, that of the Thesmophoria, 
 is of another type (Harrison, 120). It is an 
 autumn feast of fertility, held in October or
 
 THE LEAVEN OF RELIGION 61 
 
 November. What is done by woman's hand 
 is fertile, according to folk-lore ; and women 
 are agriculturists early. It was a three days' 
 feast : one day was that of down-going and 
 uprising, the next of fasting, and the third of 
 fair birth. On the first day the women went 
 down to hollow places in the earth and under- 
 ground caves and brought up from below rotting 
 portions of swine's flesh that had been placed 
 there before. The next day the women sat 
 fasting on the ground. " The strictness of the 
 fast made it proverbial. On this day prisoners 
 were released, the law courts were closed, the 
 Boule could not meet." The last day the women 
 strewed the rotten flesh on the fields. 
 
 The festivals are agricultural and correspond 
 to the seasons. They are a solemn recognition 
 of the larger cosmic life on which the lesser 
 life of human beings depends. But the thought 
 goes further. What is so akin to man is 
 imagined into human forms ; for, to take one 
 of the well known and widely spread myths, 
 the world with its season of fruitage and its 
 season of ploughing and sowing, becomes the 
 myth of the mother and the maid, of Demeter 
 and Persephone. There is thus a new union of 
 nature and man. The worship is one of 
 sympathetic magic. What nature does, the
 
 62 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 worshippers do. What the Gods do is what 
 nature is doing. From this springs a large and 
 apprehensive sympathy between the man and 
 nature. Their oneness is realized. Demeter is 
 the mother of the Spelt (Harrison, 272.) She 
 is the yellow-haired lady of the corn. The 
 offering to her is a peasant's dish, a cup of 
 thin porridge of barley-meal and water, made 
 tasty with the penny-royal or mint that one 
 might find by any ditch or swampy corner of 
 the cornfield. If she does not come, there is 
 hunger and want. And when she is cut down 
 and gone, there is blank winter time, for, as 
 the maid, she passes underground, when the 
 ploughings are done, and the seed is sown. 
 Or we may think of her, not as one deity in 
 two persons, but as mother of the corn, with 
 Persephone, the death-bearer, as her daughter. 
 For the sowing is death ; and the mother is 
 disconsolate and wanders the world over (Calli- 
 machus : Hymn to Demeter, 14), out to the 
 West, to the black races of Africa, and " where 
 the golden apples are," then thrice across 
 Achelous and the rivers of Greece, and thrice 
 to the earth's centre, Henna in Sicily. Beside 
 Callichorus, the spring of beautiful dances, near 
 Eleusis, athirst, yet without quenching her thirst, 
 thrice she sat on the ground ; and she neither ate
 
 THE LEAVEN OF RELIGION 63 
 
 nor performed ablutions. She is the mother 
 of sorrows and toil and expectation, suffering a 
 long fast. Then her daughter comes up to her 
 again in the springing corn. And she has, as 
 her civil counterpart in the world, a wise hero- 
 king in whom she implants the love of farming 
 Triptolemus the thrice plougher, who ploughs 
 in winter, spring and summer (p. 275). So at 
 last Demeter after sorrow is made perfect in 
 joy at the festivals of harvest : but her daughter 
 becomes to the imagination the maid of death, 
 the inscrutable death which is not death, but 
 which as a witness of revival at springtime 
 pushes green and tender blades of corn into 
 an upper world. "It is not surprising that a 
 religion like Orphism which concerned itself 
 with the abnegation of this world and the life 
 of the soul hereafter, laid hold rather of the 
 figure of the underworld Kore (maid), and left 
 the prosperous, genial, corn -mother to make her 
 way alone into Olympus"- to become from an 
 earth spirit a deity in the respectable world of 
 blissful Olympus. And at last the sweet heart 
 of the tale becomes lost. It passes away from 
 the common people and becomes formalized. 
 
 Two elements then we have that make for 
 the growth of religious thought and for 
 charity purification and sympathy. The puri-
 
 64 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 fication is ritual purification, but by implication 
 in it lies the moral also ; and in the course of 
 time alms-deeds are regarded as a kind of 
 ritual offering which will like an oblation purify 
 the life. There is also the sympathy with 
 sorrow. In the worship of Isis later we find 
 it again. And the sympathy of man increases 
 its circle, as we shall see, prompted step by 
 step by a clearer conception of religious obliga- 
 tion. 
 
 The later, the Achaean element, is anthro- 
 pomorphic. The Gods, it is felt, are not forces 
 merely, like darkness and winter and death, 
 and sunlight, and spring, and life. In some 
 way they are like-minded with ourselves and 
 we imagine them alike in body ; but they 
 transcend us, and are all-powerful. The hero 
 is God-like, and may become a God. The 
 sacrifice to these Gods is that of a common 
 meal. There is an understanding that if the 
 right offerings are made the worshipper will be 
 considered and may share the sacrifice. The 
 offering is of flesh. The oblation of fruits no 
 longer suffices for the God, as it no longer 
 suffices for the man ; and the sacrifices may 
 be accessory to a dinner or a feast or a dis- 
 tribution of food. Public sacrifices are con- 
 stant. The sacrifice worship and the meal
 
 THE LEAVEN OF RELIGION 65 
 
 are associated. Where there is a feast the 
 beggars come. 
 
 Out of this religion on the Olympian level 
 comes Zeus, the paramount God, and by a 
 process of logical elucidation ultimately the one 
 and only God : and, as typically Greek, we may 
 take Apollo as the best example of a great but 
 subordinate God. Apollo renders to man the 
 services of which man in social life most stands 
 in need. He is the son of Zeus. He is the 
 light bringer, the Sun. " The beginning of all 
 things and the end he comprehends, and for 
 the shining plectrum of his lyre he has the sun- 
 light" (Plutarch on the Pythian Oracles, 402). 
 He is good and chaste. 1 He is the inspirer of 
 good and beautiful thoughts. He leads the 
 Muses. He is a God of healing. He wards off 
 evil. He is the counsellor. His oracles guide 
 states and men in their perplexities. He is a 
 Lord of quick and far-reaching justice. He is 
 brave. He is the slayer of the Python, the snake 
 worshipped in the old earth religion. His wisdom 
 is practical as the wisdom of Ulysses, but he is 
 without guile or intrigue. He is the God of har- 
 mony, of the lyre and the stately dance ; and he 
 is beautiful. He is the good and supremely 
 gifted Greek glorified and made immortal. 
 
 1 Plutarch on the E at Delphi: 20. 
 E
 
 66 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 So does the Olympian worship serve in the 
 process of growth. It strikes a higher, a more 
 intellectual, note. It brings the Gods into a 
 friendly partnership. It leads ultimately to 
 that great reform in the thought of humanity 
 the realization that God is one. This came 
 through the philosophers, or in part through 
 them. It was a moralizing of all things. There 
 can be in God no variableness, no shadow of 
 turning. He must be at one with himself. To 
 be God-like is to be perfect. In him are realized 
 the endeavours of morality. A new conception 
 of the son-ship of God appears on the world's 
 horizon like a figure in a dream. 
 
 It is hardly too much to say that, till this 
 thought of the oneness of God became dominant, 
 charity in its fullest sense could hardly be. 
 With it there came a standard of judgment now 
 first applicable to social life. With the unity 
 of God came the thought that all men are 
 spiritually of one kith and kin. This is the 
 groundwork of charity. 
 
 But the leaven of the older worships still 
 worked among the people at large. They were 
 not philosophers, they felt their way by symbo- 
 lism and by emotion. They found the expression 
 of part of their thought in two religious move- 
 ments that associate themselves with the older
 
 THE LEAVEN OF RELIGION 67 
 
 conceptions with "a reading of earth," as 
 George Meredith would have said. There is the 
 worship of Dionysos and the worship of the grape. 
 The grape has come as a new invention. 
 Demeter refuses the cup of the " red, red wine " 
 that her hostess Metaneira first offers her. She 
 is of an earlier date. Her peasants did not 
 offer her wine, any more than they sacrificed to 
 her sheep or oxen. Now the Wine God has 
 come. He has at first no share in the family- 
 state of the Olympian Gods in their serene sky- 
 land above the mountain tops. He is the God of 
 intoxication (Harrison, 447), wild inspirations, 
 excitement, and rhapsody. His worshippers, 
 possessed by him, exult in the beauty and joy of 
 the mere life of woods and mountains and wild 
 animals, or like wild animals are tossed about 
 and lose themselves in brutal frenzy, and tear 
 and rend creatures wild like themselves. As 
 human beings they may become disordered, 
 violent, uncontrolled in their passions, degraded. 
 A brutal sacrificial rite, afterwards explained and 
 so in a manner made reasonable by the story of 
 Zagreus, was the culmination of this worship, 
 the tearing and eating of the raw flesh of a bull. 
 The bull consecrated represents, is identified 
 with, Dionysos or Bacchos. Dionysos takes the 
 form of a bull. Then Orpheus appears to come
 
 68 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 as a reformer (pp. 475, 476, 502, etc.). He is 
 not a being of the imagination, but a man. 
 Symbolism in his hands elevates the ceremonial 
 and cloaks its brutality. The worshippers eating 
 the raw flesh do not share merely in an offered 
 sacrifice, but they partake of the life of the 
 God himself. The worshipper himself became 
 Bacchos (p. 433). Thus, by a strange conversion 
 of thought, there is wrought into this savage 
 ceremony the twofold conception of an in- 
 spired life. The physical intoxication was 
 thought to pass away in a spiritual fervour, 
 and the feast of flesh to resolve itself into a 
 participation in the life of the God. 
 
 The Orphic element assumes many forms and 
 influences the worship of many deities. At 
 Athens they called Dionysos lacchus. He was 
 the celebrant God of the Eleusinian mysteries, 
 the mysteries of Demeter. He was the Son-God. 
 He was Dionysos as the babe at the breast, the 
 ever-new yearly entrant into life. He repre- 
 sented " just so much of the religion of Dionysos 
 as the imaginative Athenian could face" (p. 544). 
 The mysteries of Demeter at Eleusis retained 
 their old character as a harvest festival. The 
 initiated confessed to having fulfilled a certain 
 harvest ritual. The " fresh ear of grain was 
 reaped," and there was, it would seem, a mimetic
 
 THE LEAVEN OF RELIGION 69 
 
 marriage, and a sacred child (pp. 550-552), the 
 ear of corn in the harvesting world of the fruits, 
 the child in the harvesting world of life. Each 
 was holy. It was a confession that the earth is 
 the Lord's and the fulness thereof. The tale was 
 told in drama or mystery play. lacchus, the 
 mystic child, was the celebrant. Orphic reforms 
 went far, even, it would appear, to an abandon- 
 ment of the animal sacrifice itself. 
 
 Orpheus is the sweet singer of a reformed 
 religion. The people were charmed by his 
 hymns. " Nor shall anyone in our City State" 
 Plato wrote in his Laws " dare to sing a song 
 which has not been approved by the judgment 
 of the guardians of the laws, not even if his 
 strain be sweeter than the songs of Thamyras 
 and of Orpheus" (Laws, 829). Plato recognizes 
 the sweetness of the song, even while he looks 
 for safeguards against its having an unlicensed 
 run in his Colony. And there is (Laws, 782) 
 this other suggestive comment : " We hear of 
 other human beings who do not even venture to 
 taste the flesh of a cow and have no animal 
 sacrifices, but only cakes and fruit soaked in 
 honey and similar pure offerings, but no flesh or 
 animals ; from these they abstain, under the 
 idea that they ought not to eat them, and may 
 not stain the altars of the Gods with blood. In
 
 70 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 those days men are said to have lived a sort 
 of Orphic life, having the use of all lifeless 
 things, but abstaining from all living things." 
 So the Dionysian worship changes. The intoxi- 
 cation is now of music. The sacrifice of the 
 bull passes away. Its place is taken by the 
 bloodless sacrifice. Quietness or order are to 
 prevail in the mysteries (Harrison, 476). The 
 worshipper is to be temperate, ascetic even. 
 Orpheus' doctrine is monotheist ; it includes a 
 belief in an after-life, in which, except for the 
 ' holy,' there have to be cycles of delay and 
 purgation before the creature " becomes God 
 instead of mortal." Orpheus is the cherisher 
 (p. 595) of the young and delicate, of nurslings, 
 of lambs ; and on the vases he is drawn with 
 a lamb on his shoulders. To the Christians he 
 seemed another " Good Shepherd." He met 
 with death, as the story goes, at the hands of 
 the wild followers of Dionysos, the Maenads. 
 They tore him to pieces, the intruding reformer 
 and innovator, and the hearts of his worshippers 
 are moved to grief at the tale of his sorrowful 
 death. This new phase of religion also finds 
 its expression in sympathy with suffering. 
 
 With this change the sympathies of man to 
 man are enlarged. There is a finer charity, and 
 religion, instead of being non-moral or licentious,
 
 THE LEAVEN OF RELIGION 71 
 
 now schools men in moderation and personal 
 morality. There is what we call a sense of sin. 
 The after-world becomes a place not of imprison- 
 ment but of purgation during cycles of after- 
 existence. But the ' pure ' soul may pass into 
 the bliss of the ' circle desired ' at once. In part 
 this is a ritual purity, but in part it is moral 
 purity also, purity of soul. The need of a fulfil- 
 ment of duty in all relations of life is recognized. 
 Of a kindred religious mysticism in the worship 
 of Osiris and Isis is the Egyptian Book of the 
 Dead to which we refer later. 
 
 But the Orphic worship has yet another signi- 
 ficant feature. Dr. Gomperz (Greek Thinkers, i. 
 135) points out that " the religious crisis " which 
 it represents " was clearly the reflex of a social 
 crisis. It was the accompaniment of the battle 
 of the classes which filled the seventh century 
 and part of the sixth in the towns throughout 
 the Greek world." Orphicism took its rise among 
 the middle-classes, and not among the nobles. 
 A prominent trait in the creed of its adherents 
 was their horror of bloodshed, and this moral 
 idea points to a class of society which neither 
 yearned for warlike renown nor was famous for 
 its prowess in arms. The reaction from endless 
 civic feuds would be found in a new regard for 
 peace. As in the Aeneid, after more than a
 
 72 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 century of pitiless personal warfare and faction 
 in the Roman world, the misery of bloodshed 
 and destruction was realised afresh, and sadness, 
 it was felt, waited upon the glory of victory ; so 
 here strife and conflict led to a religion of peace. 
 Another feature too there is. Pythagoras 
 (born probably about 582 B.C.) is Orphic. 
 He was a philosopher who found his satis- 
 faction in a religion which became associated 
 with his name. He is not a critic of religion 
 merely, but equally philosopher and worshipper. 
 He appears, like several other sages, as the travel- 
 ling scholar of an inquisitive age. He visited 
 Egypt, and may have came into touch with India 
 and Buddhism. He had for students and friends 
 parable sayings, which he used to test their 
 quickness and insight. There are some sixteen 
 of them left. Two are : " Do not bear the image 
 of a God on a ring," which may perhaps be inter- 
 preted : bear the image within. And " Do not 
 cherish swallows under your roof" : have friends 
 that will not fly from you. These were called 
 his ' symbols.' He had a majestic bearing, like 
 that of a god. He seemed like an Apollo. He 
 was of the large heroic build. He was musician 
 and man of science. He discovered " the depend- 
 ence of the pitch of sound on the length of the 
 vibrating chord." He discovered that the square
 
 THE LEAVEN OF RELIGION 73 
 
 of the hypothermse of a right-angled triangle 
 was equal to the squares on the sides containing 
 the right angles ; and he offered up, so it is said, 
 a hecatomb to the Gods in honour of his dis- 
 covery. He mastered man. He was initiated, 
 it was said, in all the sacred mysteries of Greeks 
 and barbarians. 
 
 He had a great capacity for friendship. The 
 saying is his : " The things of friends are common ; 
 and friendship is equality." If he heard of any 
 one who had used one of his symbols, straight- 
 way he made a companion of him and made him 
 a friend. His sayings seem to have had a vogue 
 in his life-time, and to have passed round the 
 world. He founded a social brotherhood on the 
 basis of friendship. His disciples used to "lay 
 up all their property in store and use it in 
 common " (Diogenes, Laertes, viii. 8). They had 
 a five years' course of study during which they 
 listened to addresses and kept silence. Till they 
 were approved they did not see Pythagoras. 
 
 The following notes are marks of his teaching, 
 teaching that was evidently interfused with re- 
 ligion. He did not allow prayers for oneself, for 
 one did not know what was good for one (Dio- 
 genes, Laertes, viii. 6,19). Strong drink, he said, 
 the mind in its flower calls ruin. He disapproved 
 of all excess, for no one should exceed a due
 
 74 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 proportion in toil or in food. He counselled 
 self-restraint and chastity. He counselled the 
 introspective life. When they returned home his 
 disciples were to ask themselves : " In what have 
 I transgressed : what have I done : what that I 
 ought to have done have I not accomplished." 
 These are some of his sayings : " Honour Gods 
 more than daimons, heroes more than men ; and 
 of men honour our parents above all. Associate 
 with one another not in order to make friends 
 into enemies, but to make enemies friends. Count 
 nothing your own. Be the auxiliaries of law : 
 make war against lawlessness. Modesty and dis- 
 cretion is not to be overwhelmed with laughter 
 nor yet to be of a sad countenance. Flee excess 
 in flesh. In your wayfaring let rest succeed effort. 
 Cultivate the memory. In anger say naught and 
 do naught. Honour all prophecy. Use songs set 
 to the lyre. With a hymn to Gods and good men 
 give your reasonable thanks." 
 
 And of offerings he said : " Cease to offer up 
 victims to the Gods ; worship only at a bloodless 
 altar. Nor swear by the Gods, but be disciplined 
 and show yourself to be worthy of credence (with- 
 out an oath)." "At Delos Pythagoras worshipped 
 only at the altar of Apollo the Father, because 
 wheat and barley and cakes were offered there, 
 and no victim had ever been slain there."
 
 THE LEAVEN OF RELIGION 75 
 
 Thus we have seen the springs of friendship 
 and charity. Charity grows as religion develops. 
 We pass from the ritual of the banning and 
 banishing of unclean things to a religion of 
 sympathy with nature and not a mere dread of 
 her. Keligion makes room for sorrow ; and 
 amongst other forms which the ritual of the wor- 
 shippers takes is that of a kind of nature-acting, 
 in which there is sorrow and joy made personal 
 in a divine being the mother and maid. Then 
 the Olympians conquer a place in the old world 
 of spirits and shapeless unpersonified deities ; 
 and from their victory eventually there emerges 
 a single paramount God, who is a God of justice. 
 But the undergrowth of the Earth Gods continues, 
 and religion the inner religion of the common 
 people is humanized by degrees. The wildness 
 of Bacchic orgies disappears. Intoxication, is 
 superseded by inspiration. Music orders all 
 things, and the Maenads are succeeded by the 
 Muses. Orpheus rules instead of Dionysos. 
 The claim of duty becomes clearer, and of the 
 good and the initiated a large spirit of charity is 
 expected, and deeds worthy of the spirit. The 
 religion retains what is indeed but a necessary 
 part of it, its tragic story, whether of Demeter, 
 or Dionysos, or Orpheus, or Isis. All objects of 
 religious reverence must pass into our human
 
 76 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 world and bear their sorrows there, and so share 
 our sympathy and give us their aid. Apollo 
 even must work as a farm servant for Admetus. 
 Pythagoras touches religion with philosophy. 
 Orphic becomes Pythagorean. Religion becomes 
 more expressly a kind of life. The bloody 
 sacrifices are superseded by the old earth offer- 
 ings of wheat and barley and cakes ; and in social 
 life the reformer would build society out of friend- 
 ship and turn enemies to friends. From a new 
 quarter come words like " Love thy neighbour as 
 thyself": "Friends, things are in common: to 
 love one's friends is to love oneself."
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 CHARITY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 SLAVERY was so large a factor in pre-Christian 
 and early Christian society that a word should 
 be said on its relation to charity. Indirectly 
 it was a cause of poverty and social degradation. 
 Thus in the case of Athens, with the achieve- 
 ment of maritime supremacy the number of 
 slaves increased greatly. Manual arts were 
 despised as unbecoming to a citizen, and the 
 slaves carried on the larger part of the agri- 
 cultural and industrial work of the community ; 
 and for a time until after the Peloponnesian 
 war (404 B.C.) slavery was an economic success. 
 But by degrees the slave, it would seem, 
 dispossessed the citizen and rendered him unfit 
 for competition. The position of the free 
 artisan thus became akin to that of the slave 
 (Arist. Pol. 1260A, etc.), and slavery became 
 the industrial method of the country. Though
 
 78 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 Greeks, Romans, Jews, and Christians spent 
 money in ransoming individual slaves, and also 
 enfranchised many, no general abolition of 
 slavery was possible. By degrees, here earlier, 
 there later, through economic changes slavery or 
 serfdom was superseded in agriculture by the 
 status of the coloni, who were attached to the 
 soil, but paid as rent part of the produce of 
 the land they tilled. Household slavery lasted 
 long. (Of. Article on Slavery, Brit. Encycl. 
 1887.) 
 
 In Greece the feeling towards the slave 
 became constantly more humane. Real slavery, 
 Aristotle said, was a cast of mind, not a 
 condition of life. The slave was not to be 
 ordered about, but to be commanded and 
 persuaded like a child. The master was under 
 the strongest obligation to promote his welfare. 
 In Rome, on the other hand, slavery continued 
 to the end a massive, brutal, industrial force a 
 standing danger to the state. But alike in 
 Greece and Rome the influence of slavery on 
 the family was in the main pernicious. The 
 pompous array of domestic slaves, the transfer 
 of motherly duties to slave nurses, the loss of 
 that homely education which for most people 
 comes only from the practical details of life 
 all this prevented the permanent invigoration
 
 CHARITY AND SLAVERY 79 
 
 and reform of family life which in the later 
 empire Jewish and Christian influences might 
 otherwise have produced. 1 
 
 1 Cf. Wallon, Hist, de I'esclavage dans I'antiquite' ; and 
 Social Life at Rome in the Age of Cicero : W. Warde Fowler, 
 p. 204.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 CHAEITY IN ROMAN TIMES. 
 
 THE words that suggest most clearly the 
 Roman attitude towards what we call charity 
 are liberalitas, beneficentia, and pietas. The 
 two former are almost synonymous (Cic. de 
 Offic. i. 7, 14). Liberality lays stress on the 
 mood that of the liber, the freeborn, and 
 so in a sense the independent and superior ; 
 beneficence on the deed and its purpose (Seneca, 
 de Benef. vi. 10). The conditions laid down 
 by Cicero, following Panoetius the Stoic (185-1 12 
 B.C.) are three : not to do harm to him whom 
 one would benefit, not to exceed one's means, 
 and to have regard to merit. The character 
 of the person whom we would benefit should 
 be considered, his feelings towards us, the 
 interest of the community, our social relations 
 in life, and services rendered in the past. 
 The utility of the deed or gift, graded ac- 
 cording to social relationship and estimated
 
 CHARITY IN ROMAN TIMES 81 
 
 in some degree from the point of view of 
 its advantage to the doer or donor, has its 
 place in the argument of the book, though 
 (cf. Arist. Eth. viii. 3) the idea culminates 
 in the completeness of friendship where ' all 
 things are in common.' Pietas has the re- 
 ligious note which the other words lack, 
 loving dutifulness to gods, home, and country. 
 Not ' piety ' only but ' pity ' derive from it : 
 thus it comes near to our ' charity.' This 
 by way of introduction. To the great 
 philosophic and literary movement that 
 aimed at the preservation of the strength 
 and responsibility of Roman social life we refer 
 later. 
 
 As from the point of view of charity the 
 well-being of the community depends upon 
 the vigour of the deep-laid elemental life 
 within it, so in passing to Roman times we 
 consider the family first. The Roman family 
 was unique in its completeness. The father 
 alone had independent authority (sui juris), 
 and so long as he lived all who were under 
 his power his wife, his sons, and their wives 
 and children, and his unmarried daughters 
 could not acquire any property of their 
 own. Failing father or husband, the unmarried 
 daughters were placed under the guardianship
 
 82 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 of the nearest male members of the family. 
 Thus the family, in the narrower sense in 
 which we commonly use the word, as meaning 
 descendants of a common father or grandfather, 
 was, as it were, a single point of growth in a 
 larger organism, the gens, which consisted of 
 all those who shared a common ancestry. 
 
 The wife, though in law the property of her 
 husband, held a position of honour and influence 
 higher than that of the Greek wife, at least in 
 historic times. She seems to come nearer to 
 the ideal of Xenophon : " the good wife should 
 be the mistress of everything within the house." 
 "A house of his own and the blessing of 
 children appeared to the Roman citizen as the 
 end and essence of life" (Mommsen, Hist. 
 Rome). The obligation of the father to the 
 sons was strongly felt. The family, past, 
 present, and future, was conceived as one and 
 indivisible. Each succeeding generation had a 
 right to the care of its predecessor in mind, 
 body, and estate. The training of the sons 
 was distinctively a home and not a school 
 training. Brought up by the father and con- 
 stantly at his side, they learnt spontaneously 
 the habits and traditions of the family. The 
 home was their school. By their father they 
 were introduced into public life, and though
 
 CHARITY IN ROMAN TIMES 83 
 
 still remaining under his power during his life- 
 time, they became citizens, and their relation 
 to the state was direct. The nation was a 
 nation of yeomen. Only agriculture and war- 
 fare were considered honourable employments. 
 The father and sous worked outdoors on the 
 farm, employing little or no slave labour ; the 
 wife and daughters indoors at spinning and 
 weaving. The drudgery of the household was 
 done by domestic slaves. The father was the 
 working head of a toiling household. Their 
 chief gods were the same as those of early 
 Greece Zeus-Diovis and Hestia-Vesta, the 
 goddess of the hearth and home. Out of this 
 solid, compact family Roman society was 
 built, and so long as the family was strong 
 attachment to the service of the state was 
 intense. The res publica, the common weal, 
 the phrase and the thought, meet one at every 
 turn ; and never were citizens more patient 
 and tenacious combatants on their country's 
 behalf. The men were soldiers in an unpaid 
 militia and were constantly engaged in wars 
 with the rivals of Rome, leaving home and 
 family for their campaigns and returning to 
 them in the winter. With a hardness and 
 closeness inconsistent with indeed, opposed 
 to the charitable spirit, they combined the
 
 84 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 strength of character and sense of justice 
 without which charity becomes sentimental and 
 unsocial. In the development of the family, 
 and thus, indirectly, in the development of 
 the good life, they stand for settled obligation 
 and unrelenting duty. 
 
 Under the protection of the head of the 
 family ' in dependent freedom ' lived the clients. 
 They were in a middle position between the 
 freemen and the slaves. The relation between 
 patron and client lasted for several generations ; 
 and there were many clients. Their number 
 increased as state after state was conquered, 
 and they formed the plebs, in Rome the plebs 
 urbana, the lower orders of the city. 
 
 In relation to our subject the important 
 factors are the family, the plebs, and slavery. 
 
 Two processes were at work from an early 
 date, before the first agrarian law (486 B.C.) : the 
 impoverishment of the plebs, and the increase of 
 slavery. The former led to the annona civica, 
 or the supply of corn to the citizens, and 
 to the sportula, or the organized food-supply 
 for poor clients, and ultimately to the alimentarii 
 pueri, the maintenance of children of citizens 
 by voluntary and imperial bounty. The latter 
 slavery was the standing witness that, as self- 
 support was undermined, the task of relief
 
 CHARITY IN ROMAN TIMES 85 
 
 became hopeless, and the impoverished citizen, 
 as the generations passed, became in turn 
 dependent, beggar, pauper, and slave. 
 
 The great patrician families ' an oligarchy 
 of warriors and slaveholders' did not them- 
 selves engage in trade, but, entering on large 
 speculations, employed as their agents their 
 clients, libertini or freedmen, and, later, their 
 slaves. The constant wars, for which the soldiers 
 of a local militia were eventually retained in 
 permanent service, broke up the yeomanry and 
 very greatly reduced their number. Whole 
 families of citizens became impoverished, and 
 their lands were in consequence sold to the 
 great patrician families, members of which had 
 acquired lucrative posts, or prospered in their 
 speculations, and assumed possession of the 
 larger part of the land, the ager publicus, 
 acquired by the state through conquest. The 
 city had always been the centre of the patrician 
 families, the patrons of the trading libertini 
 and other dependents. To it now flocked as 
 well the metoeci, the resident aliens from the 
 conquered states, and the poorer citizens, landless 
 and unable for social reasons to turn to trade. 
 There was thus in Rome a growing multitude 
 of aliens, dispossessed yeomen, and dependent 
 clients. As the population increased the poorer
 
 86 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 classes came to live in large ill-built tenement- 
 houses, and all the conditions of need and 
 struggle in an overcrowded city came into 
 existence, qualified, however, by good drainage, a 
 good supply of water, and baths and good pave- 
 ments. Simultaneously slavery increased very 
 largely after the second Punic war (202 B.C.). 
 Every conquest brought slaves into the market, 
 for whom ready purchasers were found. The 
 slaves took the place of the freemen upon many 
 old family estates, and in many large districts 
 the free country people became extinct. Hus- 
 bandry gave place to shepherding. The estates 
 were thrown into large domains (latifundia) , 
 managed by bailiffs and worked by slaves, often 
 fettered or bound by chains, lodged in cells in 
 houses of labour (ergastula), and sometimes 
 cared for when ill in infirmaries (valetudinaria). 
 In Crete and Sparta the slaves toiled that the 
 mass of citizens might have means and leisure. 
 In Rome the slave class was organized for 
 private and not for common ends. In Athens 
 the citizens were paid for their services; at Rome 
 there were no paid offices. Thus the citizen 
 at Rome was, one might almost say, forced into 
 a dependence on the public corn, for as the 
 large properties swallowed up the smaller, and 
 the slave dispossessed the citizen, a population
 
 CHARITY IN ROMAN TIMES 87 
 
 grew up unfit for rural toil, disinclined to live by 
 methods that pride considered sordid, unstable 
 and pleasure-loving, and yet a serious political 
 factor, as dependent on the rich for their enjoy- 
 ments, as they were on their patrons or the 
 prefect of the corn in the city for their food. 
 
 In the year 5 A.D. Augustus distributed a 
 largess to the plebs urbana, who were then, 
 according to the Ancyrean monument, stated to 
 number 320,000 : but who exactly were included 
 in that term, and whether they included only 
 the plebs in the old city or that also in the 
 suburbs, we do not know. (Cf. Die Uber- 
 volkerung der antiken Grossstadte, Pohlmann, 
 p. 22.) But this at least they represent, the 
 number of persons whom in round numbers 
 the authorities entered under the name of plebs 
 urbana as recipients of a largess : and in that 
 sense they give us some idea of the number of 
 dependent persons in Rome. 
 
 The population of Rome we may picture as 
 consisting of patrician families and wealthy or 
 money -making men of the Equestrian Order 
 ministered to by a very large number of slaves, 
 and a populace of needy citizens, in whose 
 ranks it was profitable for an outsider to find 
 a place in order that he might participate in 
 the advantages of state maintenance.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE ANNONA CIVICA. 
 
 IN Rome the clan-family became the dominant 
 political factor. As in England and elsewhere 
 in the Middle Ages, and even in later times, 
 the family in these circumstances assumes an 
 influence which is out of harmony with the 
 common good. The social advantage of the 
 family lies in its self-maintenance, its home 
 charities, and its moral and educational force, 
 but if its separate interests are made supreme, 
 it becomes uncharitable and unsocial. In Rome 
 this was the line of development. The stronger 
 clan-families crushed the weaker, and became 
 the ' oligarchy of warriors and slaveholders.' 
 In the same spirit they possessed themselves 
 of the ager publicus. The land obtained by 
 the Romans by right of conquest was public. 
 It belonged to the state, and to a yeoman state 
 it was the most valuable acquisition. At first 
 part of it was sold and part was distributed
 
 THE ANNONA CIVICA 89 
 
 to citizens without property and destitute (cf. 
 Plutarch, Tib. Gracchus). At a very early date, 
 however (493 B.C.), the patrician families acquired 
 possession of much of it and held it at a low 
 rental, and thus the natural outlet for a con- 
 quering farmer race was monopolized by one 
 class, the richer clan-families. This injustice 
 was in part remedied by the establishment of 
 colonies, in which the emigrant citizens received 
 sufficient portions of land. But these colonies 
 were comparatively few, and after each conquest 
 the rich families made large purchases, while the 
 smaller proprietors, whose services as soldiers 
 were constantly required, were unable to attend 
 to their lands or to retain possession of them. 
 To prevent this (367 B.C.) the Licinian law was 
 passed, by which public occupations of land were 
 limited to 500 jugera, about 312 acres. This 
 law was ignored, however, and more than two 
 centuries later the evil, the double evil of the 
 dispossession of the citizen farmer and of slavery, 
 reached a crisis. The slave war broke out 
 (134 B.C.), and (133 B.C.) Tiberius Gracchus 
 made his attempt to re-endow the Roman 
 citizens with the lands which they had acquired 
 by conquest. 
 
 The circumstances were in many ways excep- 
 tional. After the fall of Carthage there was
 
 90 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 apparently a long period of impoverishment and 
 depression. This may have been due in part 
 to the destruction of capital and of human lives 
 in a long and continuous war, and to the stop- 
 page of the demand for war supplies on a large 
 scale. It has been argued that it was due to 
 foreign competition in corn, which the policy of 
 the Gracchi in instituting a regular corn service 
 and selling it to the people at a reduced rate 
 fostered. But, on the other hand, it is stated 
 apparently on good grounds (G. Ferrero, Gran- 
 deur et Decadence de Rome, French ed. i. 45, 
 etc.; ii, 405) that there was little or no spon- 
 taneous economic importation of corn in ancient 
 times (see the arrangements at Athens, ante), 
 and that in the case of all large cities it had to 
 be imported by some kind of special service or 
 under some special regulations. The facilities 
 of modern commerce were unknown. Transit 
 was costly, and corn, under normal circumstances, 
 was not, compared with other merchandise, a 
 lucrative import. It is suggested therefore that 
 the impoverishment was due, in part at least, 
 to the rise in the demand for more luxury, and 
 more expensive food, and for more pleasure, out 
 of proportion to the general resources of the 
 country and the resources of individuals. This 
 is a reasonable supposition. A similar change
 
 THE ANNONA CIVICA 91 
 
 in England at the present time affects the pro- 
 blem of poverty very greatly. New wants 
 which seem indispensable may very easily out- 
 strip new resources ; and thus a poverty may 
 arise and be deeply felt which to a previous 
 generation would have appeared factitious. 
 
 In circumstances such as these Tiberius 
 Gracchus undertook what was essentially a 
 charitable or philanthropic movement, which 
 was set on foot too late. He had passed through 
 Tuscany, and seen with resentment and pity 
 the deserted country where the foreign slaves 
 and barbarians were now the only shepherds 
 and cultivators. He had been brought up under 
 the influence of Greek Stoical thought, with 
 which, almost in spite of itself, there was always 
 associated an element of pity. The problem 
 which he desired to solve differed from that 
 with which Solon and Peisistratus had dealt 
 successfully. They had to deal with small 
 landowners who were hopelessly encumbered 
 with debt, and to reorganize the conditions of 
 land tenure. He had to bring back to the 
 private use of one class land of which another 
 class had in the course of years constantly 
 deprived it. His was the harder task. The 
 close of the Punic War brought back to Italy 
 large numbers of soldiers who had been accus-
 
 92 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 tomed to years of campaigning. Many of them 
 would naturally pass into the city, and thus a 
 yet larger mass of idle or ill-employed labour 
 would be congested there. Many of them might 
 settle in the country. But apart from this 
 there was also a demand from other citizens 
 for settlement; and it ^seemed right that if 
 possible citizens and free men should supersede 
 slaves in the cultivation of the land. But the 
 land, however, had in large part been occupied 
 by the wealthy families, and the available supply 
 of it had become limited. At bottom the issue 
 lay between private property, considered as the 
 *t>asis of family life for the great bulk of the 
 community, with personal independence, and 
 pauperism, with the annona, or slavery. In 
 133 B.C. Tiberius Gracchus became tribune. To 
 expand society on the lines of private property, 
 he proposed the enforcement of ' the Licinian 
 Rogations ' ; the rich were to give up all beyond 
 their rightful 312 acres, and the remainder was 
 to be distributed amongst the poor (penes). The 
 measure was carried by the use of arbitrary 
 powers, and followed by the death of Tiberius 
 at the hands of the patricians, the dominant 
 clan-families. The law was put in operation, 
 and " the number of landowning citizens on 
 the census roll rose rapidly in the next ten
 
 THE ANNONA CIVICA 93 
 
 years " (cf. History of Rome, J. L. Myres, 
 pp. 325, etc.), but it was practically too late. 
 The occupation of the property had become for 
 the most part settled. It had exchanged hands. 
 For the most part it could not be resettled, even 
 at the cost of much contention and of what 
 amounted to a renewal of injustice. For present 
 justice could not remodel the past without 
 measures that were themselves unjust to the 
 intervening generations. In 123 B.C. Caius 
 Gracchus, the brother of Tiberius, was elected a 
 Tribune, and as part of a large scheme of politi- 
 cal and social reform, he proposed measures for 
 emigration and for relief. The scheme in part 
 was carried, but whether to the ultimate advan- 
 tage of the City State may well be considered 
 doubtful. The measures for relief may have 
 had for their object to bring into quietness the 
 unstable and irresponsible plebs of the city. They 
 may have been suggested by the contemporary 
 conditions of great states, where citizens were in 
 part supported from public funds. Perhaps in 
 proposing them there was some element of com- 
 miseration, like that which affected Tiberius 
 Gracchus when he saw " the deserted state of the 
 country, and that the cultivators and shepherds 
 were foreign slaves and barbarians." But, how- 
 ever this may be, the relief measures were
 
 94 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 apparently acceptable to all parties, and they 
 continued in force long after C. Gracchus had 
 been slain (121 B.C.). Already at times there had 
 been sales of corn at cheap prices. Now by the 
 lex frumentaria he gave the citizens those who 
 had the Roman franchise the right to purchase 
 corn every month from the public stores at 
 rather more than half-price, 6^ asses, or about 
 3'3d. , the peck. This fatal measure was accepted, 
 and henceforth for the lower classes, the urban 
 plebs, there was no possibility of a reversion to 
 better social conditions. 
 
 The provisioning of Rome was, like that of 
 Athens, a public service. There were public 
 granaries (267 B.C.), and there was a quaestor 
 to supervise the transit of the corn from 
 Sicily and, later, from Spain and Africa, and 
 an elaborate administration for collecting and 
 conveying it. The lex frumentaria of Caius 
 was followed by the lex Octavia, restricting 
 the monthly sale to citizens settled in Rome, 
 and to 5 modii (l bushels). According to 
 Polybius, the amount required for the main- 
 tenance of a slave was 5 modii a month, and 
 of a soldier 4. Hence the allowance, if continued 
 at this rate, was practically a maintenance. The 
 lex Clodia (58 B.C.) made the corn gratuitous 
 to the plebs urbana.
 
 THE ANNONA CIVICA 95 
 
 Julius Caesar (5 B.C.) found the number of 
 recipients to be 320,000, and reduced them to 
 150,000. In Augustus's time they rose to 
 200,000. There seems, however, to be some 
 confusion as to the numbers. From the 
 Ancyranum Monumentum it appears that the 
 plebs urbana who received Augustus's dole of 
 60 denarii (37s. 6d.) in his eighth consulship 
 numbered 320,000. And (Suet. Caes. 41) it 
 seems likely that in Caesar's time the lists of 
 the recipients were settled by lot ; further, 
 probably only those who were of a lower status 
 than that of the equites, those whose property 
 was worth less than 400,000 sesterces (3540) 
 were placed on the lists. It is probable, therefore, 
 that 320,000 represents a maximum, reduced for 
 purposes of administration to a smaller number 
 (a) by a property test, and (6) by some kind 
 of scrutiny. The names of those certified to 
 receive the corn were exposed on bronze tablets. 
 They were thus called aerarii. They had 
 tickets (tesserae} for purposes of identification, 
 and they received the corn or bread in the time 
 of the republic at the temple of Ceres, and 
 afterwards at steps in the several (14) regions 
 or wards of Rome. Hence the bread was called 
 panis gradilis. In the middle of the second 
 century there were state bakeries, and wheaten
 
 96 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 loaves were baked for the people perhaps two or 
 three times a week. In Aurelian's time (A.D. 
 270) the flour was of the best, and the weight 
 of the loaf (one undo) was doubled. To the 
 gifts of bread were added pork, oil, and possibly 
 wine ; clothes also white tunics with long 
 sleeves were distributed. In the period after 
 Constantine (d. 337, cf. Theod. Code, xiv. 15) 
 three classes received the bread the palace 
 people (palatini), soldiers (militares], and the 
 populace (populares). No distribution was per- 
 mitted except at the steps. Each class had its 
 own steps in the several wards. The bread at 
 one step could not be transferred to another step. 
 Each class had its own supply. There were 
 arrangements for the exchange of stale loaves. 
 Against misappropriation there were (law of 
 Valentinian and Valens) severe penalties. If 
 a public prosecutor (actor), a collector of 
 the revenue (procurator], or the slave of a 
 senator obtained bread with the cognizance of 
 the clerk, or by bribery, the slave, if his master 
 was not a party to the offence, had to serve 
 in the state bakehouse in chains. If the master 
 were involved, his house was confiscated. If 
 others who had not the right obtained the 
 bread, they and their property were placed 
 at the service of the bakery (pistrini exercitio
 
 THE ANNONA CIVICA 97 
 
 subjugari). If they were poor (pauperes) they 
 were enslaved, and, if the delinquent was a 
 client, he was to be put to death. 
 
 The right to relief was dependent on the 
 right of citizenship. Hence it became hereditary 
 and passed from father to son. It was thus 
 in the nature of a continuous endowed charity, 
 like the well-known family charity of Smith, 
 for instance, in which a large property was 
 left to the testator's descendants, of whom it 
 was said that as a result no Smith of that 
 family could fail to be poor. But the annona 
 civica was an endowed charity, affecting not 
 a single family, but the whole population. 
 Later, when Constantinople was founded, the 
 right to relief was attached to new houses as 
 a premium on building operations. Thus it 
 belonged not to persons only, but also to houses, 
 and became a species of ' immovable ' property, 
 passing to the purchaser of the house or 
 property, as would the adscript slaves. The 
 bread followed the house (aedes sequantur 
 annonae). If, on the transfer of a house, bread 
 claims were lost owing to the absence of 
 claimants, they were transferred to the treasury 
 (fisci viribus vindicentur). But the savage law 
 of Valentinian, referred to above, shows to what 
 lengths such a system was pushed. Early in
 
 98 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 its history the annona civica attracted many 
 to Rome in the hope of living there without 
 working. For the 400 years since the lex 
 Clodia was enacted constant injury had been 
 done by it, and now (A.D. 364) people had to 
 be kept off the civic bounty as if they were 
 birds of prey, and the very poor man (pau- 
 perrimus) who had no civic title to the food, 
 if he obtained it by fraud, was enslaved. Thus, 
 in spite of the abundant state relief, there 
 had grown up a class of the very poor, the 
 Gentiles of the state, who were outside the 
 sphere of its ministrations. The annona civica 
 was introduced not only into Constantinople, 
 but also into Alexandria, with baleful results, 
 and into Antioch. When Constantinople was 
 founded the corn-ships of Africa sailed there 
 instead of to Rome. On charitable relief, as 
 we shall see, the annona has had a long- 
 continued and fatal influence. 
 
 The method suggests these considerations : 
 1. If the Government holds itself respon- 
 sible for provisioning the people it must fix 
 the price of necessaries, and to meet distress 
 or popular clamour it will lower the price. It 
 becomes thus a large relief society for the supply 
 of corn. In a time of distress, when the corn 
 laws were a matter of moment in England, a
 
 THE ANNONA CIVICA 99 
 
 similar system was adopted in the well-known 
 Speenhamland scale (1795), by which a larger 
 or lesser allowance was given to a family 
 according to its size and the prevailing price 
 of corn. A maintenance was thus provided for 
 the able-bodied and their families, at least 
 in part, without any equivalent in labour ; 
 though in England labour was demanded of the 
 applicant, and work was done more or less 
 perfunctorily. In amount the Roman dole 
 seems to have been equivalent to the allowance 
 provided for a slave, but the citizen received 
 it without having to do any labour task. He 
 received it as a statutory right. There could 
 hardly be a more effective method for degrading 
 his manhood and denaturalizing his family. He 
 was also a voter, and the alms appealed to 
 his weakness and indolence ; and the fear of 
 displeasing him and losing his vote kept him, 
 socially, master of the situation, to his own 
 ruin. If in England now relief were given 
 to able-bodied persons who retained their votes, 
 this evil would also attach to it. 
 
 2. The system obliged the hardworking to 
 maintain the idlers, while it continually increased 
 their number. The needy teacher in Juvenal, 
 instead of a fee, is put off with a tessera, to 
 which, not being a citizen, he has no right.
 
 100 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 "The foreign reapers," it was said, "filled 
 Rome's belly and left Rome free for the stage 
 and the circus." The freeman had become a 
 slave "stupid and drowsy, to whom days 
 of ease had become habitual, the games, the 
 circus, the theatre, dice, eating-houses, and 
 brothels." Here are all the marks of a degraded 
 pauperism. 
 
 3. The system led the way to an ever more 
 extensive slavery. The man who could not 
 live on his dole and other scrapings had the 
 alternative of becoming a slave. " Better have 
 a good master than live so distressfully " ; and 
 "If I were free I should live at my own risk; 
 now I live at yours," are expressions sugges- 
 tive of the natural temptations of slavery in 
 these conditions. The escaped slaves returned to 
 'their manger.' The annona did not prevent 
 destitution. It was a half-way house to slavery. 
 
 4. Conquest was a way of obtaining food for 
 the people. To open out the granaries of con- 
 quered lands was to ensure the supply of food for 
 the urban populations of the large cities. Still, 
 so far as the home supplies of corn went, or 
 might have been extended, the effect on agricul- 
 ture, and proportionally on commerce generally, 
 must have been very injurious, if not ruinous. 
 The largest corn-market, Rome, was withdrawn
 
 THE ANNONA CIVICA 101 
 
 from the trade the market to which all the 
 necessaries of life would naturally have gravi- 
 tated ; and the supply of corn was placed in 
 the hands of producers at a few centres where 
 it could be grown most cheaply Sicily, Spain, 
 and Africa. The Italian farmer had to turn 
 his attention to other produce the cultivation 
 of the olive and the vine, and cattle and pig 
 rearing. The greater the extension of the 
 system the more impossible was the regeneration 
 of Rome. 
 
 5. The method was the outcome of distress 
 and political hopelessness. Yet the rich also 
 adopted it in distributing their private largess. 
 Cicero (de Off. ii. 16) writes as though he 
 recognized its evil ; but though he expresses 
 his disapprobation of the popular shows upon 
 which the aediles spent large sums, he argues 
 that something must be done, " if the people 
 demand it, and if good men, though they do not 
 wish it, assent to it." Thus in a guarded manner 
 he approves a distribution of food -a free break- 
 fast in the streets of Rome. One bad result of 
 the annona was that it encouraged a special 
 and ruinous form of charitable munificence. 
 
 A note of one or two references to occurrences 
 during the rule of the earlier emperors throws 
 light on the difficulties of administration.
 
 102 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 Suetonius writes of Augustus : " Once at the 
 time of a great failure of crops, when it was 
 difficult to provide relief, Augustus ordered the 
 expulsion from the city of slaves who were 
 exposed for sale, of schools of fencing masters, 
 and of all foreign residents, except physicians 
 and teachers, and, above all, of domestic slaves, 
 so that at last the supply of corn became 
 cheaper. At that time he wrote that he was 
 inclined to abolish for ever the public distri- 
 bution of corn, for the people had come to rely 
 upon it and ceased to till the fields ; but he 
 had not proceeded further in the matter because 
 he was sure that, from a desire to please the 
 people, it would be revived at one time or 
 another. After that time he managed so that 
 as much consideration was given to farmers 
 and traders as to the multitude" (Suet. 
 Augustus, 42). 
 
 Tiberius (14-37 A. D.), as the people complained 
 of the cruel dearness of corn, fixed the price for 
 grain to be paid by the purchaser, promising 
 himself to add two sesterces (4d.) on every 
 peck for the traders (Tacitus, Annals, ii. 87, 
 cf. xv. 18 ; Church and Brodribb's trans.). 
 
 Caligula (37-41 A.D.) twice distributed to the 
 people 300 sesterces (50s.) a man (Suet. Cali- 
 gula, 17). Claudius (41-54 A.D.) was mobbed
 
 THE ANNONA CIVICA 103 
 
 in the forum during a time of long-continued 
 scarcity, assailed with abuse and pelted with 
 pieces of bread, and could hardly escape by a 
 back-door to his palace. This led to his adopt- 
 ing every contrivance to ensure the importation 
 of supplies even in the winter-time ; and accord- 
 ingly he agreed to indemnify any merchants in 
 the corn trade who suffered owing to storms, 
 and to bear the loss himself; and he undertook, 
 according to the circumstances of each, to grant 
 important advantages to those who built trading 
 vessels (Suet. Claudius, 18, 21). He often 
 distributed largesses of corn and money. So 
 of Vespasian (69-79 A.D.) it is said that his 
 liberality to all ranks of people was extreme 
 (Suet. Vespasian, 17, 18). Public employment 
 was apparently then (and at other times) in part 
 a means of relief. Vespasian would not adopt 
 a mechanical contrivance for carrying some 
 immense columns into the Capitol at a small 
 expense. He rewarded the inventor but refused 
 his services, explaining that he took it upon 
 himself to maintain the rabble. 
 
 Thus in spite of the annona there was per- 
 petual difficulty in providing for the people, 
 and measures of all kinds were adopted to 
 prevent destitution.
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 THE SPORTULA: THE COLLEGIA AND THEIR 
 ENSLAVEMENT; THE PUERI ALIMENTARII. 
 
 THE sportula was a form of charity corre- 
 sponding to the annona civica. Charity arid 
 poor relief run on parallel lines, and when the 
 one is administered without discrimination, little 
 discrimination will usually be exercised in the 
 other. It was the charity of the patron of 
 the chiefs of the clan-families to their clients. 
 Between them it was natural that a relation, 
 partly hospitable, partly charitable, should grow 
 up. The clients who attended the patron at 
 his house were invited to dine at his table. 
 The patron, as Juvenal describes him, dined 
 luxuriously and in solitary grandeur, while the 
 guests put up with what they could get ; or, 
 as was usual under the empire, instead of the 
 dinner (caena recta) a present of food was given 
 at the outer vestibule of the house to clients 
 who brought with them baskets (sportulce) to
 
 THE SPORTULA 105 
 
 carry off their food, or even charcoal stoves to 
 keep it warm. There was endless trickery. 
 The patron (or the almoner who acted for him) 
 tried to identify the applicant, fearing lest he 
 might get the dole under a false name ; and 
 at each mansion was kept a list of persons, 
 male and female, entitled to receive the allow- 
 ance. " The pilferer grabs the dole " (sportulam 
 furunculus captat} was a proverb. The spor- 
 tula was a charity sufficiently important for 
 state regulation. Nero (A.D. 54) reduced it to a 
 payment in money (100 quadrantes, about Is.). 
 Domitian (A.D. 81) restored the custom of 
 giving food. Subsequently both practices 
 gifts in money and in food appear to have 
 been continued. 
 
 In these conditions the Roman family steadily 
 decayed. Its ' old discipline ' was neglected ; 
 and Tacitus (A.D. 75), in his dialogue on 
 Oratory, wrote (c. xxviii.) what might be 
 called its epitaph. Of the general decline the 
 laws of Caesar and Augustus to encourage 
 marriage and to reward the parents of large 
 families are sufficient evidence. 
 
 The destruction of the working-class family 
 must have been finally achieved by the imperial 
 control of the collegia. 
 
 In old Rome there were corporations of
 
 106 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 craftsmen for common worship and for the 
 maintenance of the traditions of the craft. 
 These corporations were ruined by slave labour, 
 and becoming secret societies, in the time of 
 Augustus were suppressed. Subsequently they 
 were reorganized, and gave scope for much 
 friendliness. They often existed in connexion 
 with some great house, whose chief was their 
 patron and whose household gods they wor- 
 shipped. The guilds of the poor, or rather of 
 the lower orders (collegia tenuiorum), consisted 
 of artisans and others, and slaves also, who 
 paid monthly contributions to a common fund 
 to meet the expenses of worship, common meals, 
 and funerals. They were not in Italy, it would 
 seem (J. P. Waltzing, Etudes Histor. sur les 
 Corporations Professionelles chez les Romains 
 i. 145, 300), though they may have been in 
 Asia Minor and elsewhere, societies for mutual 
 help generally. They were chiefly funeral 
 benefit societies. Under Severus (A.D. 1 92) 
 the collegia were extended, and more closely 
 organized as industrial bodies. They were pro- 
 tected and controlled, as in England in the 
 15th century the municipalities affected the 
 cause of the craft guilds and ended by con- 
 trolling them. Industrial disorder was thus 
 prevented ; the Government were able to pro-
 
 THE COLLEGIA 107 
 
 vide the supplies required in Rome and the 
 large cities with less risk and uncertainty ; and 
 the workmen employed in trade, especially the 
 carrying trade, became almost slaves. They 
 became indeed the industrial staff of an admin- 
 istrative department of the Government. In the 
 second century, and until the invasions, there 
 were three groups of collegia : (l) those engaged 
 in various state manufactures ; (2) those engaged 
 in the provision trade ; and (3) the free trades, 
 which gradually lapsed into a kind of slavery. 
 If the members of these guilds fled they were 
 brought back by force. Parents had to keep 
 to the trade to which they belonged ; their 
 children had to succeed them in it. A slave 
 caste indeed had been formed of the once free 
 workmen. 
 
 As a charitable protest against the destruction 
 of children, in the midst of a broken family 
 life, and increasing dependence and poverty, 
 a special institution was founded (to use the 
 Scottish word) for the ' alimentation ' of the 
 children of citizens, at first by voluntary charity 
 and afterwards by imperial bounty. 
 
 Nerva and Trajan adopted the plan. Pliny 
 (Ep. vii. 18) refers to it. There was a desire 
 to give more lasting and certain help than an 
 allotment of food to parents. A list of children,
 
 108 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 whose names were on the relief tables at Rome, 
 was accordingly drawn up, and a special serr 
 vice for their maintenance established. Two 
 instances are recorded in inscriptions one at 
 Veleia, one at Beneventum. The emperor lent 
 money for the purpose at a low percentage 
 2 1 or 5 per cent, as against the usual 10 or 
 12. At Veleia the loan amounted to 1,044,000 
 sesterces about 8156, and 51 of the local 
 landed proprietors mortgaged land, valued at 
 13 or 14 million sesterces, as security for the 
 debt. The interest on the Emperor's money 
 at 5 per cent, was paid into the municipal 
 treasury, and out of it the children were 
 relieved. The figures seem small ; at Veleia 
 300 children were assisted, of whom 36 were 
 girls. The annual interest at 5 per cent, 
 amounted to nearly 408, which divided among 
 300 gives about 27s. a head. The figures sug- 
 gest that the money served as a charitable 
 supplementation of the citizens' relief in direct 
 aid of the children. Apparently the scheme 
 was widely adopted. Curators of high position 
 were the patrons ; procurators acted as inspec- 
 tors over large areas ; and quaestores alimentarii 
 undertook the local management. Antoninus 
 Pius (A.D. 138), and Marcus Aurelius (A.D. 160), 
 and subsequently Severus (A.D. 192) established
 
 PUERI ALIMENTARII 109 
 
 these bursaries for children in the names of their 
 wives. In the third century the system fell into 
 disorder. There were large arrears of pay- 
 ments, and in the military anarchy that ensued 
 it came to an end. It is of special interest, 
 as indicating a new feeling of responsibility 
 towards children akin to the humane Stoicism 
 of the Antonines, and an attempt to found, 
 apart from temples or collegia, what was in 
 the nature of a public endowed charity.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE LEAVEN OF PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 BEFORE proceeding to consider the next stage in 
 the development of thought in relation to social 
 effort and charity it is well to take count of the 
 forces which strove against decadence. We have 
 referred to the leaven of religion. We have now 
 to refer to the leaven of philosophy and that of 
 religion at the later pre-Christian period. 
 
 The conquest of Carthage was the climacteric 
 of Roman greatness. After it the trade of the 
 world was open to Rome with hardly a com- 
 petitor. Riches came and slaves and a new 
 speculative commercialism with luxury and vice ; 
 the temper of the people was changing. The 
 old religion was losing its hold ; and the ' social 
 problem,' as we have seen, was pressing for some 
 solution. The grave import of the question was 
 acknowledged. A new spirit and new tendencies 
 had, if possible, to be controlled and directed. 
 The Roman had to be preserved in character and
 
 THE LEAVEN OF PHILOSOPHY 111 
 
 ability true Roman. In this difficulty one sug- 
 gestion was to save Rome by the philosophy of 
 Greece. So would self-restraint be won, and the 
 Roman be made strong enough to withstand the 
 temptations which his victories brought him. 
 To what else could men turn ? Rome had a 
 noble tradition of duty, of great men known and 
 unknown to fame, men who would rather die 
 than let their country suffer. If their own tradi- 
 tion failed them and their strength was wasted 
 in the mere pugnacity of the race, in deadly 
 partisan and personal conflicts, what remained, 
 unless it were some controlling philosophy, 
 religious in tone, that had within it elements 
 consistent with the old tradition and could give 
 to the soul a new discipline and a truer courage ? 
 Stoicism might bring to Romans a substitute for 
 the custom -controlled temper of mind which 
 they were losing, and might replace a tradition 
 of njasterdom by a philosophy of masterdom. 
 This was to rally against the endless ambitions 
 and desires of classes and persons a new pro- 
 testant and subjugating force, which could con- 
 quer only if it were supported by the noble self- 
 regard and the administrative talent of the nation. 
 If, in fact, ambition and desire were too strong, 
 and the self of the nation too weak, still the 
 struggle left behind it some great achievements.
 
 112 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 There followed from this rally much propa- 
 ganda, and in due course we find Cicero, when 
 the decadence had grown much greater, trying 
 to guide and reform his country even at the final 
 struggle, when at last the princedom of a 
 disguised monarchy was taking the place of the 
 republic. We may touch on this episode in 
 more detail, and on the philosophy and ideals 
 that were manifest in it. 
 
 In 54 B.C. Cicero published his Commonwealth, 
 which had a very wide circulation. The year 
 before Pompey and Crassus had been Consuls. 
 In 54 B.C. Crassus, the millionaire General, waged 
 his disastrous war with the Parthian, and Rome 
 was in a state of anarchy. In the Common- 
 wealth Scipio, the younger Africanus, is intro- 
 duced into the dialogue as the exponent of a 
 new constitution. He, the destroyer of Carthage 
 (148 B.C.), is fitly made the founder of a new 
 Commonwealth, for times are bad. His adoptive 
 nephew, Tiberius Gracchus, is represented as 
 having opened the floodgates of strife. "His 
 death, and even before, his whole conduct of 
 the Tribuneship (133 B.C.) had divided the one 
 people into two parties" (de Republica, i. 19). 
 He had at least wrought popular opposition to 
 the highest pitch, and had tried to give the 
 people a preponderating political position. Of
 
 THE LEAVEN OF PHILOSOPHY 113 
 
 his policy and tactics his uncle Scipio had never 
 approved ; and Cicero's great fear is Scipio's 
 fear, only in its most aggravated form the 
 collapse of all government in the entire lack 
 of unity in the State. Now, as a climax of 
 demagogy, the people had been controlled and 
 ' worked ' by Clodius systematically in the interest 
 of Caesar. Yet still "there should be a united 
 Senate and people. That can be brought about, 
 and grievous it will be, if it is not." 
 
 In the Commonwealth it is argued that a 
 mixed government is even then possible, and 
 that Roman precedents confirm this view. 
 There might be a ruler like Numa (ii. 2. 13 
 Yonge's trans.), a peace-loving statesman, whose 
 supremacy, like the kingship of Numa, might 
 be "the mother of law and religion." "As the 
 steward knows the nature of the field and the 
 scribe knows penmanship," so would he be a 
 master of jurisprudence and legislation, and 
 through them seek as his purpose practical 
 utility. He should employ himself in the actual 
 administration of government and become a kind 
 of steward of it. He would make the science 
 of politics subservient to the actual interests of 
 philanthropy and patriotism. By the force of 
 public opinion, the wise director of a government 
 would strengthen the natural instinct of shame
 
 114 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 with which nature has endowed men, which is 
 nothing else than a fear of deserved censure, 
 and he would perfect this instinct by education 
 and manners. He would be the "royal and pre- 
 eminent chief" (i. 45, ii. 29). "Another portion 
 of the power should be deposited in the hands 
 of the aristocracy, and certain things should be 
 reserved to the judgment and wish of the multi- 
 tude." Thus there would be a combination of 
 forces and stability. 
 
 Then (iii. 12, etc. 1 ) the hero of the day, the 
 Sulla or Lucullus, Pompey or Caesar, is sketched. 
 " Whoever has overthrown cities, subdued 
 nations, and by these means filled the treasury 
 with money, taken lands, and enriched his fellow 
 citizens, such a man is extolled to the skies; is 
 believed to be endowed with consummate and 
 perfect virtue ; and into this mistake have fallen 
 not only the populace and the ignorant, but the 
 philosophers, who have even given rules for 
 injustice, lest folly and wickedness should lack 
 the warrant of learning." The philosophers were 
 philosophizing falsely. And Cicero pleads for 
 justice against them. The antithesis which he 
 puts into the mouth of a disputant is the old 
 one, that of justice against the "wisdom," falsely 
 so called, of political ambition and personal 
 
 1 Cicero's Writings. Ed. Tuebner, Part iv., vol. ii.
 
 THE LEAVEN OF PHILOSOPHY 115 
 
 egotism. "Justice," he urges, " commands us to 
 have mercy on all men, to consult the interests 
 of the whole human race, to give to everyone 
 his due, and to injure no sacred, or public, or 
 foreign rights, and to forbear touching what does 
 not belong to us." "But if you obey the dictates 
 of 'wisdom/ riches, public offices, large resources, 
 public honours, the command of provinces, the 
 rule of kingdoms will accrue to all, to individuals 
 and to nations alike." The issue is that of the 
 temptation in the Christ story. The so-called 
 " wisdom " had in it no finality, and was socially 
 destructive. In justice lay the art of government 
 and social progress. 
 
 It is with this conception of social life that 
 the " Dream of Scipio " which follows is in 
 harmony. The elder Africanus appears to his 
 adopted son. 
 
 Man is endowed with a soul, he says, a soul 
 which is the portion of the eternal fires, which 
 you call stars and constellations. "It is your 
 duty, and that of all who have any veneration 
 for the Gods, to preserve the wonderful union 
 of soul and body ; nor without the express com- 
 mand of him who gave you a soul, should the 
 least thought be entertained of quitting human 
 life, lest you seem to desert the post assigned 
 you by God himself. But rather follow the
 
 116 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 examples of your grandfather here, and of me, 
 your father, in paying a strict regard to justice 
 and piety, which is due in a great degree to 
 parents and relations, but most of all to our 
 country. Such a life as this is the true way 
 to heaven, and to the company of those, who, 
 after having lived on earth and having escaped 
 from the body, inhabit the place which you now 
 behold. . . . Nothing on earth is more agree- 
 able to God (iii. 13), the supreme governor of 
 the Universe, than the assemblies and societies 
 of men united together by laws, which are called 
 States. It is from heaven their rulers and 
 preservers came, and thither they return. ... It 
 is not your outward form which constitutes your 
 being, but your mind, not that substance which 
 is palpable to the senses, but your spiritual 
 nature. Know then that you are a God for a 
 God it must be which is full of activity, and 
 feels, and recollects, and foresees, and governs, 
 regulates and moves the body over which it is 
 set, as the supreme Ruler does the world subject 
 to him. For as the Eternal Being moves what- 
 ever is mortal in this world, so the immortal 
 mind of men moves the frail body with which it 
 is connected." 
 
 This may be, as is said, a vision compounded 
 out of Cicero's multifarious knowledge and
 
 not in a sense original. But so to think of it 
 is to conceive it wrongly. It may be drawn 
 from Greek sources, but it bears a Roman stamp. 
 It holds together and completes a consistent 
 series of thoughts, a mixed and established 
 government, a steward kingship, patriotism, the 
 infinite reward of public duty, the new and 
 catholic liberty and humanity of justice, a whole- 
 hearted acceptance of duty towards parents, 
 friends and neighbours, and finally a recognition 
 of the God-like nature of man, towards which 
 in other ways and in other classes, the new 
 popular religions, as we have seen, were working. 
 Clearly in the spirit of charity and in the con- 
 ception of social duty a great advance has been 
 made. They have, for the Roman world, been 
 once more linked to religion, and they have 
 been associated with an after life. 
 
 The de Officiis of Cicero, 1 his book on moral 
 obligation, states once more the social problem 
 as Cicero finally saw it in the restless anxious 
 days that followed the murder of Caesar. It too 
 may be taken as a compilation from Greek 
 authors ; but, if it be that in part, it must none 
 
 1 Cf . Cicero's letters, 792 and 796, and the de Officiis itself, iii. 
 2, 3, 7. In the first two books Cicero based his argument on 
 Panoetius. The third book he compiled, he writes, " with no 
 help, but, as it is said, with my own forces." Throughout he 
 has regard to Roman history and Roman examples.
 
 118 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 the less be read in relation to its time. Cicero 
 as he writes has Rome constantly in his 
 thoughts. 
 
 The number of effective competitors for the 
 chief power in the State was dwindling. Pompey 
 was defeated at Pharsalia by Caesar (B.C. 48), 
 and murdered as he stepped on shore in Egypt. 
 Caesar was assassinated (44 B.C.) in the Senate 
 House. Lepidus, Marc Antony and Augustus 
 remained in the field. They placed Cicero's 
 name on the list of the proscribed, and a little 
 later (B.C. 43) Cicero was murdered The book 
 was written in B.c 44, after the death of Caesar 
 and before Cicero's own death the next year. It 
 had a very wide circulation. 
 
 Cicero had realized how absolute and invincible 
 for the time was the supremacy of the able, 
 strong, and unscrupulous partisan leaders, who 
 in turn dominated Rome. They ruled in their 
 own interest. They wasted the wealth of the 
 country by war and by a profuse expenditure. 
 Their civil wars were as destructive of life as 
 famine or pestilence. They spoilt the temper of 
 the people and broke its spirit both in the higher 
 ranks and in the lower. And the result was that 
 when Augustus remained the sole survivor and 
 became the single ruler of the empire, he took 
 charge of a country which was disordered by
 
 THE LEAVEN OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 revolutions, unable to manage its representatives 
 in its dependencies, provided with no proper 
 administrative control over its exchequer, short 
 of troops and hampered by want of means, whose 
 citizens had lost their ambition for the duties 
 and responsibilities of office, whose people had 
 become restless and weak and nervous, full of 
 vainglorious hopes and expectations, a people to 
 be treated like spoilt children, pleased and paci- 
 fied, not like citizens worthy of the great tradi- 
 tions of Rome. This climax was reached after 
 Cicero's death. In the feeling that the cause of 
 the republic was virtually lost, and that no 
 effectual combination of political allies was any 
 longer possible, he wrote his book as a consola- 
 tion while he lived in anxious retirement in the 
 country. 
 
 The book thus written is distinctive (cf. 
 Grandeur et Decadence de Rome ; Ferrero, 
 p. 135, vol. ii.). It is in part a philosophical 
 treatise, in part a political tractate, in part a 
 manual on manners. It is addressed to his son, 
 and it is an Epistle to the Romans, especially 
 to the younger Romans. It set before them in 
 outline a very different society to that in which 
 Cicero himself had lived, a society to be guided 
 by other hopes and by other ideals. It was also 
 in the nature of a religious manifesto, if stoicism
 
 120 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 be considered not merely as a series of philo- 
 sophical dicta, but as it became more completely 
 perhaps, later on, almost a religious rule of life. 
 It was a forerunner of the puritan revival in 
 Rome, which renewed in a younger generation 
 the lustre of old Roman heroes, of old rites, of 
 the old simplicity, and of the old singleness of 
 mind, that would trample underfoot the vice and 
 effeminacy of the towns, their luxury and their 
 vanity, that would bring back the souls of a new 
 generation to a new reality of life, that would 
 find in the very Hades of Virgil how justice 
 was just, and ruled all the world, here above, if 
 we divined the truth, there below, if we knew 
 the end. 1 Thus Cicero passes on to younger 
 generations his doctrines which were, in great 
 part, those of stoicism. Stoicism was already an 
 influential force in Rome, and it was widespread. 
 In Pauline thought we probably find the 
 influence of it. It is an important link in the 
 development of thought from what people call 
 ' paganism ' to Christianity. Naturally, then, 
 in this epistle to his son, we find a Roman Credo 
 built in part out of Greek thought, and, in 
 relation to charity, some note of the works that 
 come of that faith. 
 
 There are some leading conceptions, which we 
 
 1 Cf. Professor Glover's Studies in Virgil.
 
 THE LEAVEN OF PHILOSOPHY 121 
 
 must revive if we are to follow in our imagina- 
 tion the thoughts and illustrations of the writer. 
 
 First there is Nature ; and Nature is law 
 working in us and in the world. The appeal to 
 Nature as a guide and justification, is an appeal 
 to Nature as gradually developing to a higher 
 and more complete standard. It is not an appeal 
 to Nature as a mass of mere unregulated 
 impulses ; for these, the stronger instincts, it is 
 felt, are not Nature but elements in Nature. 
 Nature is larger and more complete. It is the 
 whole and sums the whole. Justice is the single 
 word for the ordered social life : the appeal to 
 Nature is an appeal to the justice without the 
 man, in support of the reason and faith of the 
 justice, for which he is striving in his inner life, 
 the justice within him. And society or social 
 life is itself natural, an organic part of the whole, 
 and thus it too is established in justice. 
 
 One word, the counterpart of a Greek word, 
 defines the good life, the word honestus, honour- 
 able. It associates itself with the goodness that 
 is akin to responsible care and duty. It repre- 
 sents the state of mind that is to be desired 
 the thing that we, that every man at arms, 
 would wish to be the moral goal to which we 
 would aspire. It is the outcome of four qualities 
 in our being, brought into accord and raised into
 
 122 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 a kind of supremacy. The first is the perception 
 and intelligent appreciation of what is true a 
 power of insight, observation, and reconsidera- 
 tion, in a word the power of thinking well and 
 truly. The second quality is that of safeguard- 
 ing social life by granting to each his due, and 
 as Cicero may have been tempted to add in 
 view of his experiences of life by the observance 
 of contracts. The third quality is the greatness 
 and strength of a high and unconquerable soul. 
 The fourth quality is order and measure in all 
 that is done or said for in that lies moderation 
 and temperance. 
 
 The safeguarding of social life depends on the 
 domination of two thoughts or habits of mind- 
 one of which is called justice, the other benefi- 
 cence. Justice requires that no man injure 
 another ; but if he be stirred to it by suffering 
 wrong, justice steps in to stay his anger and to 
 guide his reason ; and justice protects property, 
 the property of the State, and the property of 
 the private individual another question of sur- 
 passing importance when the goods of defeated 
 citizens were sold by auction and it was a kind 
 of generosity to give to one the property taken, 
 from another. It insists that faith be kept. 
 And, says Cicero, with a feeling of commiseration 
 and a hatred for the brutality of war, " I am
 
 THE LEAVEN OF PHILOSOPHY 123 
 
 not certain whether it is not sufficient for the 
 person who has injured you to repent of the 
 wrong done, so that he may never be guilty 
 of the like in future, and that others may not 
 be so forward to offend in the same manner." 
 An old Roman law is pressed into his service- 
 that " no war is just unless it is undertaken to 
 reclaim property, or unless it is solemnly 
 denounced and proclaimed beforehand." The 
 spirit is new and pleads for civilizing measures. 
 The spirit which it opposes is that of the restless 
 military chiefs of his own generation ; and he 
 quotes the saying of M. Crassus, that no man 
 who wanted .to have a direction in the govern- 
 ment had money enough, unless on the interest 
 of it he could maintain an army. 
 
 For the safeguarding of social life, there is 
 besides justice, beneficence. Beneficence stands 
 for all kinds of good doing outside the sphere of 
 justice or definite interdependent obligations. 
 "Justice is due even to the lowest of mankind; 
 and nothing can be lower than the condition and 
 fortune of a slave. And yet those prescribe 
 wisely who enjoin us to put them upon the same 
 footing as hired labourers, obliging them to do 
 their work, but giving them their dues." But 
 bene6cence is a service rendered for the sake of 
 the person to whom it is rendered. For it these
 
 124 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 rules are laid down. Our generosity must be 
 really serviceable. It should hurt " neither those 
 whom it is meant to assist, nor others." " It 
 ought not to exceed our abilities ; and it ought 
 to be rendered to each in proportion to his worth, 
 for that is "the foundation of justice, to which 
 all these matters are to be referred." Thus there 
 should be circumspection, a regard to worth. 
 And such elements as the following are taken 
 together : the examination of the character of 
 the person to whom we are generous : the extent 
 to which he may have promoted our interests : 
 his disposition towards us ; and what the general 
 good of society requires. In fact there are 
 gradations of beneficence. " Our country and 
 parents bind us to them by the greatest services, 
 next our children and our whole household, for 
 they look to us alone and can have no other 
 place of refuge ; and next relatives with whom 
 we get on well and with whom generally even 
 our ill fortune is shared." 
 
 But beneficence is an art. It requires ex- 
 perience and practice. Precepts do not suffice. 
 In other words, the duty to your neighbour in 
 part consists of justice, in part of active bene- 
 ficence. And in relation to it in thought at least, 
 the people are conceived of as a whole, without 
 any limitation of class. They are the community
 
 THE LEAVEN OF PHILOSOPHY 125 
 
 bound together by common rights and mutual 
 benefits (cf. i. 25). The field of neighbourliness 
 is large. 
 
 Then as to the high and unconquerable soul. 
 Cicero rejects Epicureanism at the outset as 
 hateful. The question of life is not that of 
 calculating pains and pleasures. It is judged 
 by other standards : it depends not on sensation 
 but on worth. ' ' In truth in no wise can he 
 be brave who thinks pain to be the greatest 
 evil, and declares pleasure to be the greatest 
 good." Setting this aside then he looks for 
 his honourable man among the ranks of civil 
 life. The glories of war and the ruthlessness of 
 public ambition he sets aside. " The honestum," 
 the state of being to which we should attain, and 
 " which is nature's chief aim, consists in realities 
 and not in mere glory, and rather chooses to be 
 than to seem pre-eminent." It is to be sought for 
 in the duties of the civil life. There is oppor- 
 tunity for it in all government, for government 
 is a guardianship, a trusteeship, held on behalf 
 of the whole people. The active life is better 
 than the contemplative or studious life. In it 
 is ample scope for men of high capacity. So he 
 would dissuade man from the disordered life of 
 ambition and he would bring him back to the 
 antique spirit of State- service and patriotism.
 
 126 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 But this hanestum, the flower of the honour- 
 able existence, is also a kind of grace (decorum). 
 There is a seemliness and beauty inherent in it. 
 In relation to others it is justice, but justice 
 refined to something more delicate, to a delicate 
 appreciation of the feelings of others (verecun- 
 dia). Justice would not injure men. This 
 verecundia or sympathetic modesty would not 
 displease them ; and in that most of all the power 
 of a seemly grace of manner lies. 
 
 So we pass to our fourth quality, in which 
 this seemliness is found. It is found in the 
 observation of order and measure in all that 
 is done or said, for in that lies moderation and 
 temperance. It represents a self-control which 
 expresses itself in the fulfilment of one's best 
 nature, that pleads, for instance, for energy as 
 against luxury, straightforwardness against 
 bribery, honesty as against foul play. Thus 
 quoting Chrysippus, Cicero says that the young 
 man should serve his own interest, only so far 
 as this is possible without injustice to another. 
 "He who runs a race should exert himself and 
 strive as much as he can to be the winner, but he 
 must not trip up his adversary or pull him back." 
 
 This same ' order and measure ' indeed should 
 pass into the whole man. It should give free 
 play to his individual genius. No less should it
 
 THE LEAVEN OF PHILOSOPHY 127 
 
 govern his whole manner. " We should follow 
 nature and flee from everything that eyes or 
 ears shrink to approve. Standing or moving, 
 sitting or lying, the regard of our eyes, the 
 movement of our hands, should all keep that 
 seemly grace." Thus justice passes into our 
 very persons and transforms our being, and 
 finds its expression in an individual charm, a 
 kind of characteristic grace. It affects also our 
 choice of time and place. We set things in 
 convenient order ; we do things at the right 
 moment. We choose our profession well. De- 
 sirous of being just, we will not be tax-gatherers 
 and usurers. Their gains are hateful to men. 
 Nor will we be hired labourers, who sell their 
 labour and not their skill ; their hire is the 
 consideration paid them for their enslavement. 
 Nor will we be retail dealers ; to make profit 
 we shall have to tell lies. Nor will we be 
 handicraftsmen. Their gains are sordid. Good 
 breeding scorns the workshop. Nor will we be 
 fishmongers, cooks, and the rest ; these and 
 others are trades that cater to our pleasures. 
 We will be physicians or architects, or the 
 teachers of ' honourable ' things. These arts 
 require more intelligence and have a large 
 utility. They are honourable to those whose 
 station in life they suit. So your merchant
 
 128 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 who has made profits enough may make a har- 
 bour, or take an estate and become farmer. 
 What is better or more delightful or more 
 worthy of men of independent means? 
 
 Thus, guided by the dictates of justice, or 
 (we must confess) in some measure moved by 
 prejudice, or led by a recognition of the dif- 
 ferences in capacity which generally follow 
 differences in employment and upbringing, we 
 pass to a classification of occupations. Some 
 of them are honourable and consistent with our 
 standard, with the state of life and thought, 
 that we would wish to reach, and some, as it 
 is judged, inconsistent with it. So Plato had 
 his excluded professions ; and so later the 
 Church. Socially the old professional distinc- 
 tions remain even now. Politically they have 
 disappeared. Religiously they have disappeared 
 in what is, or what should be, a common ecclesia 
 or assembly of the faithful. But such statements 
 hardly indicate the length and breadth of the 
 change that has taken place in this regard. 
 There is now a recognition of the honourable 
 life, apart from the narrowness of individual 
 occupations and their inferiority as sordid or 
 less attractive. There is a greater unity of 
 social spirit. There is a general care for those 
 who are poor and in distress, apart from all
 
 THE LEAVEN OF PHILOSOPHY 129 
 
 distinctions of labour or trade or craftsmanship. 
 There is a general desire to raise the standard 
 of life and independence among the people. 
 We resent the enslavement of the labourer. We 
 are not critical of trades and occupations by 
 which men make an honest living. We do not 
 believe that retail trade is a kind of cheating. 
 We understand the economics of the question, 
 and find the levels of price vary with demand 
 and with district. So in itself not even is retail 
 trade dishonourable in our eyes. 
 
 To turn to another point. The claims of 
 a large generosity in promoting objects of 
 public advantage are pressed home by Cicero (ii. 
 17, 60). In his second book he deals with the 
 duties of young men ; and by steps he passes 
 to this question, and reverts to beneficence. 
 Beneficence he says, may consist of helping 
 the needy by our own exertions or by money. 
 The former is the better. As for money our 
 private means according to the old saying 
 "bounty has no bottom" (ii. 15, 55), there's no 
 end of giving, and " what limit can there be, 
 when those who have been accustomed to receive 
 it, and others who have not yet become accus- 
 tomed to do so, yearn for it both alike ? " In 
 these circumstances the limitation of one's means 
 is the only limitation of one's bounty. The
 
 130 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 whole method of public largesse is bad whatever 
 form it take. There are occasions, however, 
 when by usage it is considered necessary, but, 
 even then, whatever form it take, it should be kept 
 within limits out of regard both to the extent of 
 our means and to our sense of proportion. Our 
 liberality (benignitas) should rather be directed 
 towards individuals in distress (calamitosi) unless 
 perchance their distress is deserved. Those who 
 ask our help in order that they may improve 
 their position in life must be discreetly selected. 
 " Bona facta male locata male facta arbitror." 
 The benevolence of a man of the highest rank 
 is for all men a kind of refuge. His liberality 
 is of service even to the State if he redeems 
 captives from slavery or enriches the poor. It 
 used to be the custom that men of senatorial 
 rank should do such things as these. This 
 
 O 
 
 customary liberality is of far greater value than 
 the provision of public entertainments. It is 
 worthy of serious and high-minded men. The 
 other is to pander to the frivolity of the people. 
 The same spirit of kindness should show itself 
 in the transactions of life, buying and selling, 
 hiring and letting. There must be a certain 
 neighbourliness in these matters. But there is also 
 great scope for a large and splendid munificence 
 in the building of city walls, or dockyards, or
 
 THE LEAVEN OF PHILOSOPHY 131 
 
 aqueducts, and in the advancement of many things 
 that are to the advantage of the State. Thus 
 what later (see p. 250) came under the head of 
 " charity " here finds its place under the head 
 of liberal giving (largitio) coupled with the 
 conclusion that " the motive for liberal giving 
 is that it is either necessary or useful." 
 
 Of expediency Cicero says much, but his 
 discussion of it is uncompromising. No expedi- 
 ency inconsistent with what is ' honourable,' the 
 recognized standard of the good life, is to be 
 tolerated. Thus he would leave behind him 
 a Roman lesson. He would transfer the warfare 
 against flesh and blood to a warfare against princi- 
 palities and powers of darkness in high places : 
 and like Virgil he hopes for the advent of a 
 Roman youth endowed with a purer life, less 
 greedy of power, more devoted to duty, staunch 
 and truthful, and nobly mannered. Among 
 these would spring up the true beneficence, the 
 large charity of life. 
 
 St. Augustine, it should be added, used and 
 praised Cicero's de Republica, and made it a 
 stepping-stone to other thoughts in his Civitas 
 Dei. Cicero's de Officiis has been of constant 
 service in moulding the thought of the middle 
 ages. Nor in these modern days has its useful- 
 ness passed away.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 A CENTURY LATER. 
 
 WE next pass to Seneca (3 B.C. to 65 A.D.), and 
 then to Epictetus. 
 
 The main thoughts of Seneca's essay on Benefits 
 should be set down. He is impressed with the 
 obligation of doing good, and not less with the 
 evil of faulty and inconsiderate giving. Among 
 people who live heedlessly and without plan, 
 nothing, he says, is more intolerable than their 
 lack of the knowledge how to give and how to 
 receive benefits. There is no more common fault 
 than ingratitude ; and the reason for it is that we 
 do not choose worthy persons on whom to bestow 
 our bounty. Were we lending money, we 
 should inquire into the means of our debtor and 
 his mode of life ; but our benefits we scatter 
 without any discrimination. True, a benefit is 
 not a debt. We do not give in order to be 
 repaid. It is a loan only in the sense that so 
 much of it may be received by the donor as
 
 A CENTURY LATER 133 
 
 may be voluntarily returned to him. The repay- 
 ment of a benefit is a payment of thanks (reddit 
 enim beneficium qui libentur debet"). Another 
 cause of ingratitude is the manner in which the 
 benefit is conferred. There is ungraciousness or 
 delay. A benefit is received in the mood in 
 which it is given. It should not, therefore, be 
 given carelessly, for a man thanks himself and 
 not the donor for what he accepts from one who 
 does not know the facts. Yet the ingratitude of 
 men should not put us off. The sun shines on 
 the just and on the unjust. It is the distinction 
 of a great and good mind, that, in doing good, 
 it seeks no profit at all, but only to do good 
 deeds. The book-keeping of good deeds is 
 simple : so much is laid out. If anything is 
 paid back it is a profit ; if nothing, there is no 
 loss. Do not stop, do your work thoroughly, 
 fulfil the duties of a good man. Help one man 
 with money, another by your credit, another by 
 your favour ; help one with advice, another with 
 sound injunctions (de Beneficiis, i. 102). 
 
 A good deed, a benefit, is not a material thing 
 (i. 5). The act or the gift is the outward sign. 
 The benefit itself one cannot touch : it exists 
 only in the mind. The benefit is the very will 
 of him who bestows it (ipsa tribuentis voluntas). 
 Ignorant people only notice what is material,
 
 134 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 and value only that ; but what we see and 
 touch that to which our consciousness clings 
 is transitory. Those who receive a kindness 
 may pass away. The kindness, and those 
 material things, therefore, which assume the 
 name of " benefit " improperly, represent, in 
 fact, services through which the friendly will 
 manifests itself. They are not the kindness, the 
 goodwill, itself. 
 
 What then is a good deed (beneficium) ? It 
 is a friendly action which imparts a reasonable 
 gladness, and in imparting it receives it, and 
 what it does, it does with hearty readiness and 
 of its own accord. 
 
 Next, what kind of benefits are to be given, 
 and how ? First (i. 11), let us give what is neces- 
 sary; then what is useful; then what is pleasant, 
 provided that it be of lasting service. What is 
 necessary comes first. It represents things 
 without which we cannot live, things without 
 which we ought not to live, things without 
 which we would not care to live. The preserva- 
 tion of life, of honour, of family ; benefits that 
 preserve such things as these provide us with 
 what are necessaries. 
 
 Then follow benefits that are useful. They 
 are a wide and varied class. Money, or public 
 office, or advancement in office : these are benefits
 
 A CENTURY LATER 135 
 
 that are useful for nothing can be of greater 
 service to a man than to enable him to promote 
 his own interest (quam sibi utilem fieri). To do 
 more than this is to do what is superfluous, and 
 it will spoil the recipient. 1 
 
 As to benefits that are done to cause pleasure, 
 if we have a free choice, let us choose gifts that 
 are lasting and will endure. They should be 
 things that will be always before the eyes of 
 those to whom they are given, and will keep alive 
 their memory of you. So we should give rather 
 a service of plate than a present of money. 
 
 The moral of all this is : a benefit bestowed 
 on people just as it pleases you, will give 
 pleasure to no one. What any one may get, no 
 one will treasure. Use your discretion, for what 
 is given casually and heedlessly can touch no 
 one's heart. 
 
 The good of the recipient too must be con- 
 sidered (ii. 14). What does harm we may not 
 give to those that ask it. We must think of 
 what is useful to them rather than of what 
 they wish. We ought to consider the outcome 
 of what we do to help them as well as the 
 beginning of it, to give not only what they are 
 glad to receive, but what they will be glad to 
 have received. Never let us bestow what will 
 
 1 Cf. the argument of St. Thomas Aquinas, p. 261.
 
 136 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 recoil on us to our shame. Since the sum of 
 friendship consists in making our friends equal 
 to ourselves, we must consider the interest of 
 both parties alike. I will give to a man who 
 is in want, yet so that I do not want myself. 
 I will help the perishing, yet so that I do not 
 perish myself, unless by perishing I be the price 
 paid for saving a great man or a great cause. 
 
 But of the receivers of benefits, how should 
 they behave ? Every function that is performed 
 by two persons makes equal demands on both. 
 So with father and son, husband and wife. 
 Each gives and takes equally, and each requires 
 a similar rule of life for the fulfilment of which 
 each is answerable. Such a rule is hard to 
 follow. For the giving and receiving of benefits 
 is like a game at ball. If either the thrower 
 or the catcher misses, the ball falls to a certainty. 
 It only keeps up when it passes to and from 
 their hands, deftly thrown and deftly caught. 
 According to your partner's skill you send a 
 long or a short throw. So it is with a benefit. 
 Unless the ball is deftly thrown by each to each, 
 it will neither pass from the one nor reach the 
 other as it ought. To your skilled player you 
 may throw a hard ball ; to your novice you will 
 throw it gently, guiding it into his hands, and 
 running to meet it when he throws. This is
 
 A CENTURY LATER 137 
 
 what we should do in confirming benefits. Let 
 us teach a certain number to do so, and be 
 satisfied if they make the attempt, and if they 
 have the courage and the will (ii. 17, 18). For 
 goodness (honestum) is ever on the steeps of life, 
 and not sheer goodness only, but what is near to 
 goodness goodness-like. We have not only to 
 do good, but to do good on principle (ratione). 
 All through life this must be our guide. Accord- 
 ing to its dictates we must do all things, the 
 least and the greatest : as it prompts us, we 
 must give. 
 
 Two questions follow, and a moral. The first 
 is ; if there is, alike for the least and the 
 greatest, equal responsibility to do good, do 
 not class distinctions from this point of view 
 disappear ? The answer can only be in the 
 affirmative. The member of one class may do 
 a benefit to the member of another ; the slave 
 may help his master, no less than the master 
 his slave. Thus the division between master 
 and slave disappears in this spirit of mutual 
 responsibility. 
 
 For "it is a mistake to think that slavery 
 pervades the whole being of a man. His better 
 part is exempt from it. Bodies are subject to 
 masters and enrolled as their property. The 
 mind is independent (sui juris). So free and
 
 138 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 spontaneous is it, that not even by this prison 
 house of the body, in which it is confined, can it be 
 held back ; but on its own impulse it acts, follows 
 vast designs in thought, and passes out into the 
 infinite, companion of the heavenly powers. 
 Thus the body only does misfortune transfer 
 to a master. This he buys and sells. That 
 inner part cannot become another's property. 
 Whatever comes of it is free ; for we are not 
 allowed to order our slaves to do any thing 
 we please, nor are our slaves compelled to do 
 it. What is bidden them contrary to the 
 commonweal they will not do, nor will they 
 put their hand to crime." 
 
 And then, what is independence ? " Your 
 pleasure," Seneca says to his opponent (iv. 12), 
 "is to enjoy a kind of torpid sleepy aestheti- 
 cism, to dream and eat and drink in the shade 
 of your gardens. This you call tranquillity. Our 
 pleasure is to bestow benefits, even those that 
 cost much trouble, if only they lighten the 
 hardships of others even those that expose us 
 to dangers, if only they save others from danger 
 even those that imperil our interests, if only 
 they lessen the straits and necessities of others. 
 What difference does it make to me if I receive 
 benefits as well as bestow them. Even if I 
 receive them, it is still my duty to bestow
 
 A CENTURY LATER 139 
 
 them." We receive and we bestow, but what 
 do we mean by possession ? There is a pos- 
 session by the act and use of the mind ; and 
 there is a possession that is by ownership. The 
 wise man is a possessor of the former kind. He 
 has rightly appraised the riches of life. " I 
 know the kingdom of wisdom, its greatness and 
 security (vii. 4 : vii. 10). I possess all things, 
 yet so that they still belong to all men." In- 
 dependence lies in that manner of thought. " It 
 makes a great difference whether we estimate 
 what a man owns by the greatness of his mind, 
 or by the public register." Thus two things are 
 brought together : life as a doing of benefits 
 and an acceptance of them ; and life as a form 
 of understanding. To give benefits is not to 
 give a thing only, but a thought. To under- 
 stand the world is to possess the world. Who 
 understands the world best is the greatest bene- 
 factor. What he gives always carries the thought 
 with it. What he possesses, he shares with all, 
 for in the sphere of the understanding friends 
 have all things in common. Independence thus 
 is to be one's own master (sui juris), able to 
 give and receive as for oneself, and to be a 
 great possessor, by right, not of ownership, but 
 of understanding. 
 
 The last words of Seneca's book sum up the
 
 140 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 moral. " Suppose a man is not grateful, he does 
 not injure me, but himself. I had the enjoy- 
 ment of doing a kindness. Therefore I will not 
 be more slow to do a kindness again, but more 
 careful. What I have lost by this man I shall 
 receive from others. But this very man I shall 
 assist again, and like a good husbandman, by 
 care and culture, I will overcome the barrenness 
 of the soil. I may lose what my charity has 
 cost me ; but, if I do not succeed, he is lost, lost 
 to all mankind. A man of spirit and intelligence 
 would not spend his kindness and let the good 
 of it be lost. He would admit the loss, but 
 spend again." 
 
 It is said that the Stoics talked finely but did 
 not care about the lot of the poor or the distress 
 of the individual. We can hardly think that 
 Seneca and many others who wrote upon this 
 question of " benefits " wrote out of an assump- 
 tion of knowledge, and not out of experience. 
 On the contrary, may we not conclude that, 
 though their lives may have been passed at a 
 lower standard of endeavour than they propose 
 to their readers, they wrote because the problem 
 of giving and helping interested many of their 
 own generation, and because many were actively 
 engaged in the task of trying to assist people in 
 distress.
 
 A CENTURY LATER 141 
 
 The similarity of phrase in Seneca and St. 
 Paul is very marked (see Lightfoot's St. Paul's 
 Epistle to the Philippians, p. 268, etc.). So it 
 is in Epictetus. Why should we not in these 
 authors find a point of fusion between Stoic 
 philosophy and Christian or especially Pauline 
 thought ? After all is said, the arguments on 
 the question seem to leave that as a still 
 remaining solution of the undeniable similarity. 
 It is good to remember that Seneca, the con- 
 temporary of St. Paul, continued to live with 
 him side by side in the thought of the middle 
 ages. 
 
 In relation to mediaeval thought one para- 
 graph of Seneca s may be quoted (de Benejiciis, 
 iv. 29). It is significant as a kind of justification 
 of indiscriminate almsgiving. 
 
 " A benefit is a useful service, yet all useful 
 service is not a benefit : for some are so trifling 
 as not to claim the title of benefits. To produce 
 a benefit two conditions must concur. First, the 
 importance of the thing given : for some things 
 fall short of the dignity of a benefit. Whoever 
 called a hunch of bread a benefit, or a farthing 
 dole tossed to a beggar, or the means of lighting 
 a fire ? Yet sometimes these are of more value 
 than the most costly benefits : still their cheap- 
 ness detracts from their value, even when, by
 
 142 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 the exigency of time, they are rendered essential. 
 The next condition, which is the most important 
 of all, must necessarily be present, namely, that 
 I should confer the benefit for the sake of him 
 whom I wish to receive it, that I should judge 
 him worthy of it, bestow it of my own free 
 will, and receive pleasure from my gift. None 
 of these conditions are present in the cases of 
 which we have just now spoken. What we give 
 in these cases we do not bestow upon people 
 because they are worthy or deserving, but we 
 give it carelessly as a trifle. We give it, not so 
 much to a man as to humanity " (Seneca, de 
 Beneficiis, iv. 29 : Stewart's trans.). 
 
 The argument would apply to much mediaeval 
 and not a little present giving. There are two 
 kinds of gift one might say. One kind is an 
 alms. The recipient is anyone. The gift is 
 impersonal ; it is a casual transaction with one 
 knows not who. It is too trifling to make a 
 knowledge of facts or of the worthiness of the 
 recipient an element in deciding whether and 
 how it should be given. It is given to humanity. 
 There is another kind of gift which involves 
 personal considerations. Progress in thought lay 
 in making this kind of gift and method the 
 rule, the other the exception. Unfortunately 
 the reverse has often taken place. The gift
 
 A CENTURY LATER 143 
 
 and help that should be personal have often 
 been made an impersonal alms, and the alms 
 itself has degenerated into a purposeless 
 bounty. 
 
 We pass to a contemporary of Seneca's, a 
 much greater man than he, we venture to think. 
 There were many Stoic teachers in Rome. Of 
 the lectures of one, Epictetus, we possess notes, 
 taken down by a pupil. Epictetus had been the 
 slave of Epaminondas, a friend of Nero's (54 
 A.D.), and his lectures are full of references to 
 his times, to slaves, to arbitrary imperial power, 
 to unjust sentences of death and banishment, to 
 the anxieties of the nervous Roman and his way 
 of life, to the philosophical views of the day, to 
 personal ambitions, and common vices. In the 
 midst of all of this, he believes that there is a 
 way of escape and of progress for the individual 
 soul. His discourse is like a torrent of argu- 
 ment a quick conversation with an imaginary 
 objector, a sharp and absolute summing up, and 
 a conclusion that is almost a scourging of the 
 feeble-hearted and unrepentant. He will drive 
 his hearers to take thought of nobler cares and 
 would leave them no chance for evading the 
 fulfilment of higher endeavour. But sometimes, 
 too, he takes another tone. He most earnestly 
 beseeches them and entreats them. The time
 
 144 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 is critical the state of things is like that of 
 " an army placed in battle order " (Epictetus iii. 
 23 ; Long's trans.), when the cynic, the apostle, 
 the " man sent by God to show you what is 
 possible" should "without distraction be employed 
 only on the ministration of God, able to go 
 about among men, not tied down to the common 
 duties of mankind, not entangled in the ordinary 
 relations of life." 
 
 His tenets are simple. In large part they had 
 been formulated by his predecessors in philosophy. 
 Man is the offspring of God. There is in him 
 some part of the divine nature. This is his 
 justification, and suggests his standard of life. 
 Nature lies in God and is ordered to his purposes. 
 So does man, and so should man be ordered. In 
 nature thus conceived man finds a measure for 
 himself. What is the purpose of my life, he 
 asks, considered as a part of this whole ? He 
 accepts the obligations of social life, the duty of 
 taking part in its administration, the duty of 
 marriage, the careful nurture of children, the 
 duty of parents to children. There is in each 
 case a pattern what the mind conceives to be 
 the ordered or natural fulfilment of the par- 
 ticular duty. The answer is ready, if the 
 questions be truly asked. Thus, in the case of 
 a parent, what goes to make a parent? What
 
 A CENTURY LATER 145 
 
 is he for ? What is his purpose ? What then 
 is his duty ? 
 
 And for the method of discernment of duty 
 he urges this. We have, he says, a reasoning 
 spirit (logike psyche) a property of self-leadership 
 or a ' ruling faculty,' as formerly it would have 
 been called. By this means the mind rules : and 
 the mind is free. We have also in regard to all 
 matters that come before the mind certain pre- 
 conceptions (prolepseis), ' preconceived notions,' 
 as people say. When we would do or not do a 
 thing or affirm or reject an opinion, we have 
 to consider what comes before us. What come 
 before us are the appearances of things or 
 impressions (phantasiai). We view them in the 
 light of these preconceptions, and we judge, 
 check, and modify our preconceptions of them 
 by the standard of nature and by the guidance 
 of our master faculty. This process is selection 
 or willing (proairesis). 
 
 The condition of the good life thus considered 
 is a power to choose, a kind of judgment or 
 willing; and the choice or judgment is not super- 
 ficial and a matter of words or argument only, 
 it is real, and by its power to produce actions 
 and habits transforms the choice or judgment 
 into a way of acting and living. Philosophy is 
 the training of this judgment into a right will
 
 146 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 by education and discipline. One's life, rightly 
 understood, depends thus on the will. " The 
 being or existence of the good is in a certain 
 will ; the being of the bad is a certain kind of 
 will " (i. 29). Equally it may be said that, as 
 the will depends on the ruling ' faculty,' and is 
 indeed the expression of it, so the state of this 
 ' faculty ' of the mind is no less an indication 
 of moral health and sanity. 
 
 To sum up, Epictetus lays stress on three 
 points of training for one who intends to be a 
 good man (iii. 2). " The first concerns desires 
 and avoidances, that he may not fail of his desire 
 nor encounter what he avoids. The second is 
 about desire of good and aversion to bad, and 
 is a word about duty, that his action may be 
 orderly, reasonable, careful. And the third has 
 to do with security against deception, and with 
 discretion, and with a right assent to his per- 
 ceptions." 
 
 " Of these the most important and most 
 pressing is the first desire and avoidance. It 
 affects our emotions : for we suffer from the 
 perturbation of our emotions only when we fail 
 in our desire or when we are upset by our 
 avoidance of what we might have done. It 
 is this that brings distractions, confusions, ill- 
 fortunes, disasters, that produces jealous and
 
 A CENTURY LATER 147 
 
 envious men all of which things prevent us 
 from even hearing the voice of reason." 
 
 "Next comes the second point, that about 
 duty : for my freedom from perturbation must 
 not be like that of a statue, but I must keep in 
 view my states of being, both those which are 
 mine by nature and those which I assume in the 
 several capacities of a religious man, or as a son, 
 as a brother, as a father, as a citizen." 
 
 " The third matter is one which begins to be 
 incumbent on those who are in a degree of 
 forwardness in philosophy. It refers to your 
 state of security in these matters your security 
 against deception, your discretion, and the right- 
 ness of your assent to perceptions to the end 
 that not even in sleep should any uncriticised 
 fancy pass your guard, nor in drink, nor in 
 any morbid state of mind." 
 
 Lastly, some things are in our own power, 
 some are not (Encheiridion., i.). Our opinion and 
 our own acts doing and avoiding to do anything 
 are in our power. Not in our power is the 
 body, the avoidance of sickness or of the physical 
 compulsion which may lead to imprisonment, 
 banishment, or death. Not in our power is the 
 gaining or losing of property by the confiscation 
 of an authority such as the Emperor, or by the 
 chances of life. Nor is the winning or the losing
 
 148 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 of a reputation in our power: nor success nor 
 failure in election or appointment to magisterial 
 offices. Whichever way these things may go, as 
 to them there should be neither fear nor dis- 
 appointment. They are not in our power. With 
 this gospel comes tranquillity. Fear is cast out. 
 Death itself loses its torment. What one does 
 or thinks in the presence of death, that alone is 
 of consequence. Heroes and good men have set 
 us the example of tranquillity. In Socrates we 
 find an ideal. He cast out fear. He knew the 
 true purpose of life (iv. 1). In prison he wrote 
 a hymn to Apollo. He would not avoid death 
 by escape ; and by his death he served mankind, 
 by the remembrance of what he did and said 
 when he was alive. 
 
 Such a succinct system of dogma as this, 
 easily stated and often repeated, gave a Roman 
 firmness to those who accepted it, as Epictetus 
 shows by examples. A kind of martyrdom is 
 borne by them unflinchingly. The man com- 
 pelled to go a mile goes twain (cf. iv. 1), the 
 sick man must not murmur ; the loss of wife or 
 children must be taken as in the order of things. 
 There is in his teaching the ascetic sternness 
 of some of the sayings of Christ, and the words 
 and phrases remind the reader of the phrase- 
 ology of the Gospels. The tone is religious.
 
 A CENTURY LATER 149 
 
 The will is enforced, on the side of right assent 
 and action or on the side of right dissent and 
 inaction, by the thought of God. "Your talk 
 of God is to be renewed every day rather than 
 your food " ; and " You are to think of God 
 more frequently than you breathe." So nature 
 the standard of nature is within and may be 
 habitually applied. And for the exertion of 
 the will and its victory over desire (ii. 23) 
 reliance is placed on the enforcement of the 
 right decision by the dominance of the whole 
 self on that side. " If a man put in one and 
 the same place his interest, sanctity, goodness, 
 and country, and parents and friends, all these 
 are secured : but if he puts in one place his 
 interest, in another his friends, and his country 
 and his kinsmen and justice itself, all these 
 give way, being borne down by the weight of 
 interest. For where the I and the Mine are 
 placed, to that place of necessity the animal 
 inclines ; if it be in the flesh, there is the ruling 
 power ; if it be in the will, it is there ; and if it 
 be in externals, it is there. If I am there where 
 my will is, then and then only shall I be a 
 friend such as I ought to be, and son, and 
 father ; for this will be my interest, to maintain 
 the character of fidelity, of modesty, of patience, 
 of abstinence, of active co-operation, of observing
 
 150 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 my relations (towards all)." The plea is a plea 
 for the stringency of social claims, for the 
 fundamental conditions of social life and charity, 
 without which no administration can be effectual 
 and no relief adequate. 
 
 Two examples may be given. Of friendship 
 he has the hard saying : "To love is only in 
 the power of the wise." Between men who 
 seem to be closest friends may come many 
 causes of difference, a Helen and war, the 
 question of an estate or some such ground for 
 alienation. But love is not love till it reaches 
 a higher plane. At the lower plane it is misled 
 by appearances. The Helen or the estate are 
 misvalued. The man who judges wisely will 
 avoid the tortures of jealousy or avarice. He 
 will be to "another who is like himself" "alto- 
 gether and completely a friend." " But he 
 will bear with the man who is unlike himself; 
 he will be kind to him, gentle, ready to pardon 
 on account of ignorance, on account of his 
 being mistaken in things of the greatest im- 
 portance ; but he will be harsh to no man, 
 being well convinced of Plato's doctrine that 
 every mind is deprived of truth unwillingly." 
 Thus we come to the mood of charity. 
 
 Then as to " those who fear want " (iii. 26). 
 Slaves run away from their masters. How do
 
 A CENTURY LATER lol 
 
 they fare ? You run away from doing wrong, 
 will you fare worse ? " Do not the slaves, after 
 stealing a little which is enough for the first 
 days, then afterwards move on through land 
 or sea, contriving one method after another for 
 maintaining their lives ? And what fugitive 
 slave ever died of hunger?" Can't you get 
 some situation, take care of children, or be a 
 watchman at another person's door ? There is 
 no shame in that. Don't mind plain fare and 
 a hard bed. The righteous are never forsaken. 
 It is better to have a free mind than heaps of 
 food with cowardice. 
 
 There is no practical solution of the social 
 question here, some would say. No : there is 
 none, but there is more. Life is understood. 
 The will that has the force to decide rightly will 
 support a life which is consistent with the 
 decision. The future will justify the past. It is 
 ' in the nature of things ' that it should do so. 
 
 For the rest, social life and it is always from 
 the social life Epictetus argues demands clean- 
 liness, not finery in dress (iii. 1). Purity is 
 (iv. 9) of the soul. " The purification of the 
 soul is the planting in it of proper opinions." 
 There is no doctrine of an after- world (iii. 13). 
 In death you go to "nothing terrible, but to 
 the place from which you came, to your friends
 
 152 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 and kinsmen, to elements. What there was in 
 you of fire goes to fire ; of earth to earth ; of 
 spirit to air ; of water to water ; no Hades, no 
 Acheron, no Cocytus, no Pyriphlegethon, but 
 all is full of Gods and Demons" the spiritual 
 existences of an elemental life. The exit is 
 Ariel's. " To the elements be free ; and fare 
 thou well." 
 
 Our psychology is different now. A know- 
 ledge of development and evolution has altered 
 our standpoint. 1 We recognise the more suffi- 
 cient genesis of 'preconceptions' by primary 
 instincts and emotions, and the commingling of 
 instincts with instincts -and their adaptation, 
 and their modification by sentiments and dis- 
 position (cf. McDougall, Social Psychology}. 
 It is enough for us that we recognise the will 
 only. By itself it serves for ' ruling faculty ' 
 or reasoning spirit. But the tussle of will with 
 desire remains, and the explanation of its 
 victory, when it is victorious, is not very differ- 
 ently explained. 
 
 But Stoicism failed, it may be said. Hardly 
 so, it served and serves its purpose. It was 
 in religious worship conservative and tolerant, 
 
 1 Perhaps not so much as is frequently thought. Cf. Pro- 
 fessor Bosanquet's Companion to Plato's Republic (x. 597), 
 p. 384.
 
 A CENTURY LATER 153 
 
 not inclined to innovation. It did not concern 
 itself with a judgment day and a revision of 
 life according to a yet diviner justice than 
 prevailed upon the earth. It could not there- 
 fore be popular among the worshippers, whose 
 language was largely the language of symbol and 
 ritual, and whose hopes rested in a personal after- 
 life. It quarrelled (ii. 20) with Epicurus, and 
 may be in part misunderstood him. In its eyes 
 he seemed to make enjoyment the end of life 
 and would destroy " the natural fellowship of 
 mankind " by the gratification of individual tastes 
 and desires. But on the other hand it ran a risk 
 of becoming too introspective, and thus unsympa- 
 thetic, and almost fatalist in the abandonment 
 of things "not in our power," or assumed to be 
 " not in our power." It sometimes lacked dis- 
 cernment. All grief is not alike and equally 
 to be disciplined away. We can neither love 
 a wife nor grieve over her loss as we would 
 love or grieve over the loss of an " earthen 
 vessel," as if they could be in the same category 
 (Encheir. iii.). Nature would have it otherwise. 
 The sorrow must be according to the true loss. 
 Yet, after all, we think of Stoicism and of its 
 place in a vast literature, philosophic and 
 poetic, as the source of help to men who were 
 finding their way in a great crisis, when the
 
 154 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 old religions were being transformed and social 
 life had to be rebuilt. Are not, indeed, the 
 thoughts of Stoicism, its staunch self-discipline 
 and its glowing sense of duty part of the gospel 
 according to St. Paul, Epictetus' contemporary ?
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 PRECHRISTIAN RELIGION. 
 
 BY ' prechristian ' here we mean before the 
 official recognition of Christianity as the religion 
 of the State. Two religions competed with 
 Christianity, the worship of Isis and the worship 
 of Mithra. Plutarch (about 50 to 117 A.D.) 
 tells us of both. He is a kindly, learned, 
 inquisitive, tolerant soul. He does not approve 
 of atheism, a term which he applies to the 
 Christians (Isis, 33), and by which he means 
 " insensibility to what is Divine " (On Super- 
 stition, 2). He would say that many more or 
 less unintelligible rites and customs have a 
 kind of reason in them, though the reason might 
 be obscure and the truth about them forgotten. 
 In religious thought, as his own essays show, 
 there was a confusion of disordered observation 
 and ill-understood introspection. Analogies were 
 applied without any conception of the logical 
 unity that should underlie them. Thoughts were 
 illustrated by numbers and geometrical forms, as
 
 156 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 though the numbers and forms had a spiritual 
 nature or implied some kind of logical sequence. 
 Symbolism and cyphers ran wild. As we have 
 seen, religion, as it has developed, has tended to 
 satisfy several deeply-felt desires or longings of 
 the human heart. It must, we have found, be 
 cosmic : in some way it must explain the 
 Universe to man. It must recognise man's sense 
 of some paramount divine authority. It must 
 bring the individual into relation with the 
 Universe, and with the God that seems to 
 stand over against him. By reason of the 
 nature of this God it must be able to appeal 
 to sympathy with individual suffering and dis- 
 tress. It must be the guardian and promoter 
 of some kind of moral code, though only slowly 
 does the life of ' true marriage ' and of chastity 
 assert itself as an indispensable condition of true 
 religion. 1 As the appreciation of justice and 
 morality advances, it must create for itself an 
 after-world, in which its moral standards are 
 reflected and wickedness is punished or purged 
 away. 
 
 1 Animalism and impurity accompanied the ritual of much 
 pagan religion. (Cf. e.g. St. Augustine, Civitas Dei, ii. 5.) But 
 it would be wrong to judge religion in its earlier stages by that 
 only. The lofty is found in strange proximity to the low. The 
 purging of social life is a long process. Christianity itself is 
 evidence of this.
 
 PRECHRISTIAN RELIGION 157 
 
 The contradictions of thought and of observa- 
 tion are the puzzle of religion ; the antithesis 
 between the individual and the universe, the 
 self and the object ; and the endeavour to find 
 a unity in which these apparent opposites become 
 harmonized in some way. ' Principles ' or tran- 
 scendent formative intelligences, it is felt, must 
 make the world of our thought. These Prin- 
 ciples are conceived as opposite, and yet the 
 opposition, it is argued, must be subject to some 
 kind of unity. Plato, Plutarch says, calls them 
 "the one" and "the other," which to him is 
 simply puzzling. When Plato wrote the Laws, 
 he says, he dropped these terms and was more 
 easy to understand. (Isis, 48, King's trans.) 
 He then wrote : " Not by one soul was the 
 universe set in motion, but by several perhaps, 
 at all events by not less than two, whereof 
 the one is beneficial, and the other antagonistic 
 to this, and the creator of opposite effects ; and 
 there is room for a third Principle to exist, one 
 intermediate between the two which is neither 
 destitute of soul, nor of reason, nor of impulse 
 from within (as some suppose), but subordinate 
 to these two principles, ever seeking after the 
 better one, and desiring and following after it." 
 In 'this Plutarch seems to find the key to the 
 worship of Osiris and Isis.
 
 158 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 But Plato's " the one" and " the other " repre- 
 sented a substantial issue. They touched the 
 question of identity and difference what became 
 ultimately the Nicsean question, the resolution of 
 the idea of God into an identity of being (ousia), 
 " the same," and yet also into a difference of 
 function or purpose, into "the other," into a 
 difference of persons. 
 
 The worship of Isis and Osiris is founded, it 
 appears, upon the great antithesis of nature, like 
 the worship of Demeter the antithesis of winter 
 and summer, of darkness and light, of death and 
 resurrection, of the obstruction of good and the 
 promotion of good, of sorrow and joy. In the 
 myth of Demeter, there is Demeter the mother, 
 and Persephone the maid, rapt into the under- 
 world to Hades, the concealer ; and Demeter 
 travails to find her daughter. In the myth of 
 Osiris, Isis is the companion sister and mate of 
 Osiris the Sun. Typhon the mangier, hider and 
 destroyer, coffins him, tears him in pieces, and 
 scatters him in pieces the world over ; and Isis 
 goes in sorrow in search of him, and ever brings 
 together the scattered life of the God. Osiris 
 is first a God of the under- world (Wallis Budge, 
 The Book of the Dead, p. Ixxx), but he becomes 
 also the Sun, whose generative beams are scat- 
 tered to fertilize the earth, and, as the Sun (Isis,
 
 PRECHR1STIAN RELIGION 159 
 
 51), he is also " the body of the good Principle," 
 the visible form of the Intelligible Being. He is 
 the ' word ' (54) who exists by himself free from 
 admixture and from passion. He is " eternal 
 and incorruptible." He is the civilizer. As the 
 Sun, and more than the Sun, he has travelled 
 over the whole earth, civilizing it. He has 
 " made the Egyptians reform their destitute and 
 bestial mode of living, taught them the art of 
 cultivation, given them laws and learned them 
 to worship the Gods." He has tamed mankind 
 by persuasion and reasoning and by song of 
 all kinds and by music. As the eternal word he 
 is scattered and hidden in the minds of man, 
 and from this springs the divine knowledge. 
 Typhon obstructs both, would prevent the Sun 
 by slaying it, and the word by seizing it. 
 
 As Mediator between the world and the Osiris, 
 the Intelligible and the God, there is Horus the 
 son of Isis (Origen's name came from Horus ; 
 he was named the Horus-born) who is the Word, 
 with the admixture of matter, " bearing witness 
 and proving how that nature changing her form 
 after the model of the Intelligible, produces 
 the World." The Great Osiris requires some 
 mediating agent between himself, so remote, and 
 the world, as alien to him as matter is to spirit. 
 But the thought in which the feeling of the
 
 160 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 worshipper, finds its centre and satisfaction is that 
 of Isis, the sorrowing, and Osiris the supreme, 
 the kindly and wise. Osiris the good and supreme, 
 the eternal and incorruptible, is ever scattering 
 himself in seedlike words to give life and peace. 
 Typhon is ever furious, and confounds and 
 obstructs. " But the avenger of Osiris, his sister 
 and wife, who extinguished and put a stop to 
 the madness and fury of Typhon, did not forget 
 the contests and struggles she had gone through, 
 nor yet her own wanderings, nor did she suffer 
 oblivion and silence to envelop her many deeds 
 of wisdom, many feats of courage, but by in- 
 termingling with the most sacred ceremonies, 
 images, hints and representations of her sufferings 
 of yore, she consecrated at one and the same 
 time both lessons of piety and consolation in 
 suffering for men and women overtaken by mis- 
 fortune. And she, together with Osiris, having 
 been translated from the rank of good demons 
 up to Gods by means of their virtue . . . receive 
 not inappropriately the united honours of Gods 
 and demons everywhere" (27). 
 
 Hence mysteries to show the inner meaning of 
 the religion, hymns, a priesthood, and a discipline. 
 " ' Typhon ' the enemy of Isis, for he is ' puffed 
 up ' by want of knowledge and falsehood, tears 
 to pieces and puts out of sight the sacred word
 
 PRECHRISTIAN RELIGION 161 
 
 that the Goddess again gathers up and puts 
 together and gives into the charge of those 
 initiated into the religion ; whilst by means of 
 a perpetually sober life, by abstinence from many 
 kinds of food and from unchastity, she checks 
 intemperance and love of pleasure, accustoming 
 people to endure her service with bowels not 
 enervated by luxury, but hardy and vigorous 
 the object of all which is knowledge of the First, 
 the Supreme, the Intelligible, whom the Goddess 
 exhorts you to seek after, for he is both by her 
 side, and united with you" (2). 
 
 Thus, like great Cosmic personages, Isis and 
 Osiris loom before the believer. They are the 
 givers of the knowledge of eternal life. Their 
 history of eternal warfare with destruction and 
 darkness is holy warfare : and the brave perplexed 
 Goddess who has borne her task, out of veneration 
 for her husband God, ever seeking him who is 
 divine knowledge, and by her love keeping him 
 who is all knowledge one and complete, becomes 
 a heavenly guide to those who like herself have 
 had trouble and misfortune. And she appeals 
 to the best : requires self-restraint and dis- 
 cipline ; would make a vigorous people, would ask 
 of her worshippers a life consistent with their 
 aspirations for purity and the knowledge that 
 explains and consoles. Viewed, as Plutarch
 
 162 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 viewed it, this religion is not enervating. But it 
 would touch a chord of pity and sympathy which 
 seekers after religion might wish to find in some 
 new belief. Thus it too would lead the way to 
 reform. It was not an imposed or official religion. 
 It was popular and was welcomed by masses of 
 the people. It was evidence of their thought 
 and their effort in regard to their individual 
 needs and the progress of social life. 
 
 Thus the religion o*f Osiris and Isis in spite of 
 its strange and deterrent overgrowth of fantastic 
 symbol and imagination, met many of the cravings 
 of religious feeling. In a manner it seemed to 
 explain the world to man, to give him a moral 
 standard, to touch his heart, and to lead the way 
 to an after-world. 
 
 The dominant key of the religion indeed was 
 this belief in a resurrection, a judgment, and 
 an after- world. " The ancient Egyptian believed 
 (Wallis Budge, p. Ixxxii) that there was some very 
 definite connexion between the resurrection of 
 Osiris and of himself and also that " the god was 
 able to raise him up and to give him everlasting 
 life, because he himself had conquered death 
 and risen, and had become the master of ever- 
 lasting life." The conception of the after- world 
 varied according to the age and generation. The 
 rudest conception of it was one of Elysian
 
 PRECHRISTIAN RELIGION 163 
 
 fields, where the land was flat, fertile and 
 Egypt-like, where the food was plentiful and 
 the old farming life of Egypt could be followed 
 once more, or the combative life of the hunts- 
 man or warrior. The land of the after-world 
 was thought to be not a very long ladder's 
 length above this. But as life and thought 
 matured, there was the same desire, as in the 
 Orphic thought, for purity (p. cxxxvii) ; and 
 purity opens the gates of heaven : and the 
 purity is moral purity (p. 190), in which charity 
 has a large place. 
 
 The following is one of the confessions of the 
 faithful : The deceased and his wife are repre- 
 sented as standing with both hands raised in 
 adoration. He is the overseer of the palace, the 
 chancellor in chief. He comes into the hall of 
 double Maati twin sisters, who live as warders 
 of sinners and who feed upon their blood on the 
 day when the lives of men are taken into 
 account. And he says, " Homage to thee, 
 great God (Osiris), thou Lord of the double 
 Maati. I have come to thee, my Lord, and 
 I have brought myself hither, that I may behold 
 thy beauties. ... In truth I have come to 
 thee and I have brought Maati (i.e. right and 
 truth) to thee, and I have destroyed wickedness 
 for thee. [I have not done evil to] mankind.
 
 164 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 I have not oppressed the members of my family. 
 I have not wrought evil in the place of right 
 and truth. I have had no knowledge of worth- 
 less men. I have not wrought evil. I have 
 not made to be the first [consideration] of each 
 day that excessive labour should be performed 
 for me. [I have] not brought forward my name 
 for [exaltation to] honours. I have not ill- 
 treated my servants. [I have not thought scorn 
 of God.] I have not defrauded the oppressed 
 one of his property. I have not done that 
 which is an abomination to the Lord. I have 
 not caused harm to be done to the servant by 
 his chief. I have not caused pain. I have 
 made no man to suffer hunger. I have made 
 no one to weep. I have done no murder. I 
 have not given the order for murder to be done 
 for me. I have not inflicted pain upon man- 
 kind. I have not defrauded the temples of their 
 oblations. I have not purloined the cakes of the 
 gods. I have not carried off the cakes offered 
 to the khus (the shining forms). I have not 
 committed fornication. I have not polluted 
 myself [in the holy places of the God of my 
 city] nor diminished from the Bushel. I have 
 neither added to nor filched away land. I have 
 not encroached upon the fields [of others]. I 
 have not added to the weights of the scales [to
 
 PRECHR1STIAN RELIGION 165 
 
 cheat the seller]. I have not misread the points 
 of the scales [to cheat the buyer]. I have not 
 carried away the milk from the mouths of 
 children. I have not driven away the cattle 
 which were upon their pastures. I have not 
 speared the feathered fowl that were upon the 
 preserves of the Gods. I have not caught fish 
 [with bait made of] fish of their kind. I have 
 not turned back the water at the time [when it 
 should flow]. I have not cut a cutting in a 
 canal of running water. I have not extinguished 
 a fire (or light) when it should burn. I have 
 not violated the times [of offering] the chosen 
 meat offerings. I have not driven off the cattle 
 from the property of the Gods. I have not 
 repulsed God in his manifestations. I am pure, 
 I am pure, I am pure." . . . 
 
 Thus the religion of Osiris and Isis, which 
 won for itself very many worshippers in Rome, 
 brought with it much to leaven the general 
 thought and to add duty and charity to social 
 life. 
 
 Mithraism insists on the same antithesis as 
 that of Osiris and Typhon two Gods, as it 
 were, " of opposite trades" (Plutarch, Isis, 46), 
 Oromazes and Arimanios, one the creator of good, 
 the other of bad things, one resembling Light, 
 one Darkness and Ignorance ; they wage war
 
 166 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 with one another and Mithras is the mediator. 
 The warfare is life. It lasts for ages on ages. 
 Eventually there will be one life and government 
 of man, all happy and of one language. The 
 sacred sacrifice of the bull reappears in this re- 
 ligion ; and there is an elaborate after- world with 
 many heavens, as it seems to us, fantastically 
 named, according to types of character, named 
 from animals. 1 
 
 So the record closes. Christianity is affecting 
 other religions. They too probably affect Chris- 
 tianity. This obviously would seem to be the 
 case in the religion of Osiris and Isis ; and the 
 Orphic or Pythagorean element also finds affinity 
 with Christianity. Eusebius (iv. 13), who sought 
 for evidence of the religious thought which was 
 a "preparation for the Gospel," quotes the fol- 
 lowing statement of the views of that school as 
 set forth by Apollonius (d. about 98 A.D.) : 
 
 " If a man wishes to pay fitting service to the 
 Deity, and by that means to be singled out as an 
 object of divine grace and goodness, he must 
 offer to that God whom we called the first, who is 
 One and above all, after whom only can the other 
 deities be recognized, no sacrifice at all ; he must 
 kindle no fire, nor promise any earthly thing. 
 
 1 An idea of the spread of Mithraism audits character may 
 be obtained from Die Mysterien des Mithra, by Prof. Cumont 
 (1903).
 
 PRECHRISTIAN RELIGION 167 
 
 For God needs nothing, not even from beings 
 that are higher than we ; nor is there any plant, 
 any creature, produced or nourished (earth or air) 
 which is free from pollution. To him man must 
 offer only the better word, I mean that which 
 is not uttered by the lips, and ask good things 
 from the most beautiful of all, by the most 
 beautiful faculty that we possess, the faculty 
 of intelligence, which needs no organ. Therefore 
 to the great and supreme God no sacrifices at 
 all must be offered." l 
 
 So great an advance has been made in the 
 purification of worship ; so great an advance in 
 the simplification and clearness of the religious 
 thought, on which depended the larger conception 
 of charity that had already come into the world, 
 but had not yet been accepted. 
 
 1 Quoted from the late Prof. Brigg's Origins of Christianity, 
 307. The quotation is taken from a work " On Sacrifices," said 
 to be written by Apollonius, but of doubtful authenticity. 
 Apollonius' Life, which " can only be regarded as a romance," 
 " has a high interest as a semi-official religious manifesto, and 
 explains, better than any other book, that neo-paganism which 
 was supplanting the barren old popular beliefs." (Cf. Apollonius 
 de Tyane : A. Chassang, 1862 ; and Apollonius of Tyana : F. W. 
 Groves Campbell, 1908.)
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 CHANGES OF EELIGIOUS THOUGHT AND 
 ORGANIZATION. 
 
 To make clear the changes that took place in 
 regard to charity somewhat more should be said. 
 Christianity fulfilled the conditions of thought 
 and feeling required by religion, as we have 
 noted them, but with a difference. 
 
 First there stands before the worshipper the 
 figure or memory of Christ. He by his parables 
 tells how thought works in the world. He 
 explains the world of the human kind in relation 
 to thought, as a perpetual sowing and harvest- 
 ing, a silent unseen leavening, a seeking and a 
 finding ; and with a sower's hand he scatters 
 around short sayings, thoughts contained in 
 fewest words. Thus, without the parley of dis- 
 cussion and without preliminary, he marks out 
 the lines of a morality freshly conceived and 
 stated and gives the meaning of a new religion. 
 What is life, he asks, and gives the answer. He
 
 CHANGES OF RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 169 
 
 measures it by a new standard, or at least by a 
 standard applied in a new way : "Be ye there- 
 fore perfect as your father which is in Heaven is 
 perfect." " Father in heaven " takes the place of 
 " nature." Nature is not made the norm or 
 standard of life. The standard is a certain kind 
 of fatherhood-mind, realized in thought, in the 
 supremacy and eternity of thought, "in heaven." 
 The godlikeness of man is according to this a 
 kind of sonhood. The sonship of one, who 
 would be perfect, is realized also in a kind of 
 thought. Within him, as a corresponding 
 element, is the kingdom of heaven. So may 
 he strive, without futility, for perfection. A 
 kind of supremacy, of eternity, is his within 
 his reach. Thus the relation of man to the 
 Universe, or to nature, or to the thought of the 
 Universe or of nature is revised, reasserted, 
 simplified, and made very evident and real 
 
 The multiplicity of Gods, and of friendly 
 spirits such as demons and heroes, passes out of 
 sight ; though saints with their shrines in due 
 course take their place. The Gods belong to 
 another age of thought. One supreme God only 
 is left, as the thinkers so long have thought ; and 
 his nature is now expressed by an old word, even 
 in its religious application, as the Father. And 
 there is Christ, and the Spirit.
 
 170 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 In Christ, eventually, for the great mass of 
 the people, centre all the associations of religious 
 thought, all its yearnings for pardon and peace. 
 His crucifixion touches all sympathy. He is 
 offered up for sin. He is the Mediator. He is 
 the perfect man. His courage of self-sacrifice 
 enlarges the imagination. He gives of life and 
 thought in full overrunning measure, and what 
 he gives he counsels others to give in a like 
 absoluteness of spirit. He gives new currency 
 to the old saying to love one's neighbour as 
 oneself. He cares for children, for the weak, the 
 fallen, and the unhappy. He is the fulfiller of 
 the promise of the ages, the "servant" of the 
 prophets, who is led to the slaughter, that the 
 people may find a new freedom under a new 
 spiritual rule of righteousness and mercy. He 
 instituted baptism, a mystic birth, the uprising 
 of a purified spirit within the man, the ceremony 
 of admission to the assembly. As a perpetual 
 remembrance of him, he instituted the thanks- 
 giving feast of the last supper, in which many 
 thoughts come together, thoughts of the shared 
 sacrifice, of a brotherhood, of a perpetual pre- 
 sence, and of the refreshment of the soul. In 
 him is solved the mystery of the relation of man 
 to God, man made perfect, God now more clearly 
 understood as Father. He is of the same being
 
 CHANGES OF RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 171 
 
 (ousia), the same ideal reality, with God. He 
 is the Son. He dominates religious thought, as 
 the holy babe, pure and born of the pure, as the 
 Messiah, as the Mediator, as the sacrifice, as the 
 counsellor, as the ideal, as " the Lord." 
 
 All this he became, as religious thought and 
 feeling grew round him, as the central figure, 
 and found in him a new unity and an enlarged 
 sympathy. 
 
 There is also another conception, which is 
 formative and administrative, and is vital to 
 Christian thought. The Spirit (pneuma) pro- 
 ceeding from Father and Son and of their being 
 is the mover of souls, and thus the spiritual 
 architect of the Church. The " baptism of the 
 Holy Spirit (pneuma) " (Acts i. 5, ii. 2) fires 
 the apostolate. This is felt as a new power. 
 Christ leaves behind Him assemblies larger or 
 smaller, as may be. " Where two or three are 
 gathered together there am I in the midst of 
 you." There indeed is the church or assembly, a 
 part of the greater assembly which is conceived 
 as a general or universal church. The ana- 
 logies, especially in Pauline thought, are many. 
 Christ is the head : the Church is the body. 
 Where the assembly is there Christ presides. 
 He is not present to the eye, but ' in the spirit.' 
 Some one actually presides, sits in his seat, and
 
 172 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 physically takes his place. The assembly has 
 no laws. It has members and they have func- 
 tions. The function is shown again * in the 
 spirit' to teach, to minister, to exhort, to have 
 faith, to prophesy, to give, to heal and to work 
 wonders. These and other functions are gifts, 
 gifts of goodwill or graciousness (charismata), or 
 functions of service, or aptitudes forthcoming 
 according to the needs of the times ; and the 
 assembly of Christ is ' in the spirit,' a spiritual 
 body operating through the use of ' gifts.' The 
 progressiveness and adaptability of such an asso- 
 ciation is obvious. The apostles, the prophets, 
 and teachers have sustenance out of the contribu- 
 tions of the members of the assembly. Teaching 
 according to their several gifts is their ' sole 
 vocation.' The president teacher who excels by 
 his gifts and presides at the assembly becomes 
 the bishop. As the earlier order changes he 
 takes the place of the apostles and prophets. 
 He represents the Christ. Afterwards, by degrees, 
 the elder men, as presbyters or priests, become 
 president teachers of yet other assemblies, but 
 under the bishop. They subsequently take over 
 the duties of the stewardship of the means of 
 the assembly, which with the duties of manage- 
 ment and teaching were the bishop's duties 
 before. The gifts of the assembly are made to
 
 CHANGES OF RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 173 
 
 Christ. In his place he receives them for his 
 body, the assembly, the Church. All is for 
 use. Property in these earlier days is sold for 
 immediate purposes. The assembly meets in 
 private houses, from which the form of the 
 later church edifice is taken ; it has no specially 
 built churches or places of assembly (cf. TJie 
 Church and its Organisation in Primitive and 
 Catholic Times, an Interpretation of Rudolph 
 Sohm's Kirchenrecht, by Walter Lowrie, p. 147, 
 etc. ). 
 
 The Church or Assembly is regulated by 
 apostolic settlement, by a heritage of custom, by 
 the practice prevailing in other assemblies, and 
 by practices that are admissible in the humility 
 or subjection which underlies the whole principle 
 of order and the necessary tolerance of conscien- 
 tious membership. 
 
 Thus Christianity implies, or should imply, a 
 power of growth and adaptation 'in the spirit.' 
 On the one hand use and customary forms, on 
 the other hand freshness and spontaneity of 
 thought, the gifts (charismata) which are 
 possessed by members who can fulfil functions. 
 But above the charismata, the spiritual gifts, 
 there is "the more excellent way " of love or 
 charity (agape, caritas), the compound mood 
 of goodness, complete in the largeness of its
 
 174 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 sympathy, in the insight of its discernment, 
 and the infinity of its nature. This is the 
 disciplined and habitual mood of charity as 
 experienced and preached by St. Paul. 
 
 In another way Christianity touched the heart 
 of the people. The old more widely spread re- 
 ligions were all or many of them centred round 
 the thought of a resurrection, from darkness to 
 light, from winter to spring, from a dying or 
 sleeping to an awakening. Christ in Chris- 
 tianity suffers both death and resurrection. 
 The resurrection is cosmic. The Christ passes 
 into hell to release the souls of the dead ; and 
 he passes from earth to heaven. All the uni- 
 verse is thus in thought brought under one 
 spiritual rule and purgation. But individually 
 the same thought has its inward working. A 
 sharp, too sharp, distinction is made between 
 body and soul. The body is treated as being 
 relatively a kind of grave of the soul. Out of 
 it in goodness of life rises the soul within, 
 which awaits, in goodness and sober living, a 
 yet further resurrection to heaven, to a world 
 of souls. 
 
 The language in which the religion is preached 
 is Greek, the world language of the day. There 
 is at the service of the more educated who study 
 Christianity or become Christians a great reli-
 
 gious and philosophic literature. Christ may 
 have spoken Greek. The Greek and then the 
 Latin words pass into religious thought. Soter 
 Saviour or Preserver, in earlier pre-Christian 
 prayers, becomes Salvator and Saviour in the 
 Christian service. Salvation is a state of well- 
 being, of safety or security of the soul ; the 
 state of being salvus. The virtues of Plato 
 become the cardinal virtues of the Christian 
 moral theory. When at the end of the Con- 
 fession the worshippers say that they would 
 lead a " godly, righteous and sober life," they 
 would perhaps better understand the history of 
 the words which they used, if instead they 
 said the words "godlike, just and temperate 
 life," words not so satisfying to the ear as to 
 the mind, but more suggestive of the origin 
 from which have sprung the thoughts that lie 
 within them. 
 
 In the struggle for a better kind of life the 
 change is great. The moral demand of religion 
 is newly met. The God of the Christians is 
 the " Jehovah," the Jahveh of the Jews. The 
 substantial and well-established morality of the 
 Jews stands behind and strengthens the whole 
 movement. The credo does not impose it ; but 
 the commandments are repeated, or some vow 
 is made if we may judge from the passage
 
 176 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 in Pliny's letter to Trajan (xcvi). In Bithynia 
 and Pontica, where Pliny was propraetor (103-5 
 A.D.), it would seem that the Christians met 
 before daybreak, and in turn one with another, 
 in a set form of words, said a chant to Christ, 
 just as to God, and by solemn affirmation 
 bound themselves, not for any criminal pur- 
 pose, but in order that they might not commit 
 theft or robbery, or adultery, or break their 
 word, or when called upon deny what had been 
 entrusted to them. And later in the day they 
 met again to take food, simple food taken by 
 all without distinction. How far the solemn 
 obligation (sacramentum) went we may, as 
 thought developed, judge perhaps from the 
 Didaskalia (ch. iii.). 1 In that book there is 
 a kind of conversation, as of Apostles sitting 
 in council, and each of them takes up the word 
 in turn. 
 
 " Matthew said : All those things that thou 
 dost not wish to happen to thee, do thou not 
 also to others. That therefore which thou 
 hatest, that shalt thou not do to others. 
 our brother Peter, tell thou the doctrine of 
 these words. 
 
 " Peter said : Thou shalt not kill. Thou 
 
 1 Didaskalia Apostolorum : Gibson, trans, from Syriac, probably 
 in its present form the first half of the third century A.D.
 
 CHANGES OF RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 177 
 
 shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not 
 commit fornication. Thou shalt not corrupt 
 boys. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not 
 be a soothsayer. Thou shalt not use enchant- 
 ments. Thou shalt not kill a child at its birth, 
 not after he is born shalt thou kill him. Thou 
 shalt not covet what belongs to thy neighbour. 
 Thou shalt not transgress oaths. Thou shalt 
 not bear false witness. Thou shalt not say 
 anything wickedly. Thou shalt not keep anger 
 in thy heart. Thou shalt not be double-minded, 
 nor double-tongued, for doubleness of tongue is 
 the snare of death. Thy word shall not be vain 
 nor false. Thou shalt not be avaricious or 
 rapacious. Thou shalt not be a respecter of 
 persons, nor shalt thou receive evil about thy 
 neighbour ; neither shalt thou hate anyone, but 
 thou shalt reprove some, and have compassion 
 on others, pray for some, and love others more 
 than thyself." 
 
 So the religious demand for a higher morality 
 was met with a discipline not yet turned to 
 professional asceticism, and a charismatic unity 
 not yet turned to legality and institutionalism. 
 Legalism is a protection when faith tends to fail. 
 Yet like heavy armour it impedes and may 
 incapacitate the life it protects. 
 
 In practice by degrees a great change came. 
 M
 
 178 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 The judgment day of St. Matthew's Gospel 
 is a judgment day in which the tests of life 
 are charity and almsdeeds. With these are 
 associated the horror of eternal fire or the 
 hope of eternal life. Like other religions, but 
 with at the outset a greater simplicity, Chris- 
 tianity would use an after-world to weight the 
 balances left amiss in this. But it is noteworthy 
 that in this religion too the right and the 
 wrong of life are tested by acts of individual 
 charity. 
 
 The suggestion indeed goes further. Religious 
 thought finds the Christ in the poor man who is 
 in want or distress. The conception of Christ as 
 poor is associated with the conception of human 
 suffering at large. All poverty, in which help is 
 sought, becomes Christly. In the fervent ideal- 
 ism of religion a spiritual transformation takes 
 place. The Christ is materialized into the 
 claimant petitioner for help. The petitioner is 
 spiritualized into a claimant Christ. The process 
 is not reasoned : it is felt. In the ardour of the 
 thought, the heart is set on fire ; and so the first 
 step is gained to feel it as a paramount duty, 
 as a hot and inspiring affection, to love one's 
 neighbour. The ways and the means may still 
 remain to be sought. The promptings and a 
 heightened motive have been given. But, as in
 
 CHANGES OF RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 179 
 
 St. Francis's Canticle (iii.), something, it may be 
 shown, may yet be wanting the " order " which 
 gives to all things their purpose and value. So 
 to him the Christ says : 
 
 Ordina questo amore tu che m' ami : 
 Non e vertu senz' ordine trovata. . . . 
 A me amore voglio che tu chiami 
 La caritate, quale sia ordinata. 
 
 But doctrinally the conception went further 
 still. Everywhere are there rudiments of charity 
 (caritas : St. Augustine, Homilies on the First 
 Epistle of St. John, trans. Parker, 1849 : v. 7 ; 
 vi. 1 ; ix. 1). It is in the dumb and irrational 
 animals, and in the love we owe to our brother, 
 a love that is not weak and morbid, but strong, 
 and if need be disciplinary. " More accepted is 
 the blow of charity than the almsgiving of 
 pride " (viii. 9). " Here then hath this charity 
 its beginning : to give of one's superfluities to 
 him that hath need, to him that is in any 
 distress ; of one's temporal abundance to deliver 
 his brother from temporal tribulation. Here is 
 the first rise of charity." This is the test of the 
 religious life. Participation in service and cere- 
 monial of itself is no sufficient test. Only " they 
 that have charity are born of God ; they that 
 have it not, are not born of God." "God pre- 
 pare th us to be inhabited by charity " (ii. 8).
 
 180 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 And " charity is God," St. Augustine writes, con- 
 verting the sentence "God is love" (viii. 4, 6); 
 and he pleads for the acceptance of the Trinity, 
 as a Trinity whose being is Love. It is as though 
 the sequence of thought from the first step of 
 the ladder " Love their neighbour," led by a 
 process of religious analogy to the highest step, 
 where the being, the ousia, of God was found to 
 be not merely unqualified existence, but being 
 quite absolutely qualified and conceived as 
 " perfect love." 
 
 This thought may indeed be considered to be 
 the saving element in Christianity. When in- 
 tellectual degradation and coldness of feeling- 
 have crept into religion, and formalism has 
 mastered it, this thought has again and again 
 suggested the way of escape. " Let them all 
 sign themselves with the cross of Christ ; let 
 them all respond Amen ; let them all sing 
 Alleluia " (v. 7), ultimately the question is : 
 Whom do we serve ? And the answer is "Love. 
 Where that leads, we follow." 
 
 So in the same spirit as that of St. Augustine, 
 St. Bernard (Epistle xi., Opera omnia, 1719) 
 said that the persons of the Trinity were one 
 and united by the unstained (immaculate) law 
 of God charity (caritas]. Deus caritas est. 
 Dicitur ergo recte caritas, et Deus et Dei donum.
 
 CHANGES OF RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 181 
 
 Itaque caritas dat caritatem, substantia accident- 
 alem. God is charity. Therefore rightly is He 
 called charity, both God and God's gift. So 
 charity gives charity : the ' substance ' produces 
 the ' accident,' the being the act. 
 
 On the material side there is the same contin- 
 uity of thought. What am I bound to give ? 
 " My superfluity." And what is superfluity ? 
 This became a problem of casuistry. St. Thomas 
 Aquinas explains his view (p. 257). It implies 
 the use of large funds held privately, but for the 
 general good. It implies that charity is our 
 adjuster of social needs, that it may have large 
 aims, and, besides meeting individual claims, 
 may assume the characteristics of what in Roman 
 thought was called liberality ; and we find indeed 
 in "charity" in mediaeval times this larger 
 construction (p. 250). 
 
 The administrative basis of Christianity was 
 the assembly, the gifts of grace (charismata), a 
 fellowship (koinonia), gifts made for the aid of 
 the assemblies or churches, and love (agape, 
 caritas). In this is the beginning of that 
 change which for a long time made the pro- 
 vision of the poor the object of religion, so far 
 as social and political institutions, the tribe, 
 for instance, or the manor did not meet the 
 need. Though the task in detail and somewhat
 
 182 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 in purpose be different now, love or charity in 
 fact remains an essential part of Christianity. It 
 cannot be alienated from Christianity and leave 
 Christianity Christian. Christianity no doubt 
 has by accretion assumed very many growths of 
 human feeling and knowledge within that wide 
 range which stretches from folklore to phil- 
 osophy ; and in every complex of thought each 
 one takes his share and simplifies what is com- 
 plex according to his own mind and capacity. 
 But to omit from religion love or charity, which 
 both in consciousness and in action is the master 
 thought of the whole, is to make void, in a most 
 real sense, Christianity itself. 
 
 Not only within Christianity, however, but 
 also outside it, there is, as the development of 
 human thought makes clear, a like charity, the 
 mood of an enlightened and illuminated good- 
 ness, moved by sympathy with sorrow and 
 distress, seeking ever to express itself in the 
 fulfilment of duty and the endeavours of love. 
 To use the Pauline phrase, " God shewed it 
 unto " others also.
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN CHAEITY AND 
 THEIE FUSION. 
 
 WITH Christianity, as we have seen, two ele- 
 ments come into fusion, the Jewish and the 
 Greco-Roman. To trace this fusion and its 
 results it is necessary to describe the Jewish 
 system of charity, and to compare it with that 
 of the early Christian church, to note the theory 
 of love or friendship in Aristotle as representing 
 Greek thought, and of charity in St. Paul as 
 representing Christian thought, and to mark the 
 Roman influences which moulded the adminis- 
 tration of Ambrose and Gregory and Western 
 Christianity generally. 
 
 In the early history of the Hebrews we find 
 the family, clan-family, and tribe. With the 
 Exodus (probably about 1390 B.C.) comes the 
 law of Moses (cf. Kittle, Hist, of the Hebrews, 
 Eng. trans, i. 244), the central and permanent 
 element of Jewish thought. We may compare
 
 184 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 it to the ' commandments ' of Hesiod. There 
 is the recognition of the family and its obliga- 
 tions : " Honour thy father and mother " ; and 
 honour included help and support. There is 
 also the law essential to family unity : " Thou 
 shalt not commit adultery " ; and as to property 
 there is imposed the regulation of desire : 
 " Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house." 
 MaimOuides (A.D. 1135), true to the old con- 
 ception of the family (x. 16), calls the support 
 of adult children, " after one is exempt from 
 supporting them," and the support of a father 
 or mother by a child, " great acts of charity ; 
 since kindred are entitled to the first consider- 
 ation." To relief of the stranger the Decalogue 
 makes no reference, but in the Hebraic laws 
 it is constantly pressed ; and the Levitical law 
 (xix. 18) goes further. It first applies a new 
 standard to social life : " Thou shalt love thy 
 neighbour as thyself." This thought is the 
 outcome of a deep ethical fervour the element 
 which the Jews brought into the good life. 
 In Judges and Joshua, the ' Homeric ' books 
 of the Old Testament, the Hebrews appear as 
 a passionately fierce and cruel people. Sub- 
 sequently against their oppression of the poor 
 the prophets protested with a vehemence as 
 great as the evil was intense ; and their denun-
 
 JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN CHARITY 185 
 
 ciations remained part of the national literature, 
 a standing argument that life without charity 
 is nothing worth. Thus schooled, and after- 
 wards tutored into discipline by the tribulation 
 of the exile (587 B c.), they turned their fierce- 
 ness into a zeal which, as their literature shows, 
 was as fervent in ethics as it was in religion 
 and ceremonial. In the services at the syna- 
 gogues, which supplemented and afterwards took 
 the place of the Temple, the Commandments 
 were constantly repeated, and the Law and 
 the Prophets read ; and as the Jews of the 
 Dispersion increased in number, and especially 
 after the destruction of Jerusalem, the syna- 
 gogues became centres of social and charitable 
 co-operation. Thus rightly would a Jewish 
 Rabbi say, " On three things the world is 
 stayed : on the Thorah (or the law), and on 
 worship, and on the bestowal of kindness." Also 
 there was on the charitable side an indefinite 
 power of expansion. Rigid in its ceremonial, 
 there it was free. Within the nation, as the 
 Prophets, and after the exile, as the Psalms 
 show, there was the hope of a universal religion, 
 and with it of a universally recognized charity. 
 St. Paul accentuated the prohibitive side of 
 the law and protested against it ; but, even 
 while he was so doing, stimulated by the Jewish
 
 186 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 discipline, he was moving unfettered towards 
 new conceptions of charity and life charity 
 as the central word of the Christian life, and 
 life as a participation in a higher existence the 
 ' body of Christ.' 
 
 To mark the line of development, we would 
 compare the family among the Jews and in 
 the early Christian Church ; and then note the 
 sources of relief and the tithe, the treatment of 
 the poor and their aid, and the assistance of 
 special classes of poor ; the care of strangers ; 
 and, lastly, we would consider the theory of 
 alms-giving, friendship or love, and charity. 
 
 As elsewhere, property is the basis of the 
 family. Wife and children are the property 
 of the father. But the wife is held in high 
 respect. In the post-exilian period the virtuous 
 wife is represented as laborious as a Roman 
 matron, a ' lady bountiful ' to the poor, and to 
 her husband wife and friend alike. Monogamy 
 without concubinage is now the rule is taken 
 for granted as right. There is no ' exposure 
 of children.' The slaves are kindly treated, 
 as servants rather than slaves though in 
 Roman times the Jews were great slave-traders. 
 The household is not allowed to eat the bread 
 of idleness. "Six days," it was said, "must 
 [not mayest] thou work." " Labour, if poor ;
 
 JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN CHARITY 187 
 
 but find work, if rich." "Whoever does not 
 teach his son business or work, teaches him 
 robbery." In Job xxxi., a chapter which has 
 been called " an inventory of late Old Testament 
 morality," we find the family life developed 
 side by side with the life of charity. In turn 
 are mentioned the relief of the widow, the 
 fatherless, and the stranger the classification 
 of dependents in the Christian Church ; and the 
 whole chapter is a justification of the homely 
 charities of a good family. "The Jewish re- 
 ligion, more especially in the old and orthodox 
 form, is essentially a family religion" (C. Gr. 
 Montefiore, Religion of Ancient Hebrews). 
 
 In the early documents of the Church the 
 fifth commandment is made the basis of family 
 life (cf. Eph. vi. I ; Apostolical Constitutions, ii. 
 32, iv. 11 if we take the first six books of 
 the Apost. Const, as a composite production 
 before A.D. 300, representing Judaeo-Christian 
 or Eastern Church thought) . But two points are 
 prominent. Duties are insisted on as reciprocal 
 (cf. especially St. Paul's Epistles), as, for instance, 
 between husband and wife, parent and child, 
 master and servant. Charity is mutual ; the 
 family is a circle of reciprocal duties and charities. 
 This implies a principle of the greatest import- 
 ance in relation to the social utility of charity.
 
 188 
 
 Further reference will be made to it later. Next 
 the "thou shalt love thy neighbour" is translated 
 from its position as one amongst many sayings 
 to the chief place as a rule of life. In the. 
 Teaching of the Twelve Apostles (Jewish- 
 Christian, early first century A.D.) the first 
 commandment in ' the way of life ' is adapted 
 from St. Matthew's Gospel thus : " First, thou 
 shalt love God who made thee ; secondly, thy 
 neighbour as thyself; and all things whatsoever 
 thou wouldst not have done to thee, neither 
 do thou to another." A principle is thus applied 
 which touches all social relations in which the 
 'self can be made the standard of judgment. 
 Of this also later. To touch on other points 
 of comparison : the earlier documents seem to 
 ring with a reiterated cry for a purer family 
 life (cf. the second, the negative, group of 
 commandments in the Teaching, and the 
 judgment of the apocalyptic writings, such as 
 the Revelations of Peter, etc.) ; and sharing the 
 Jewish feeling, the riper conscience of the 
 Christian community formulates and accepts 
 the injunction to preserve infant life at every 
 stage. It advocates, indeed, the Jewish purity 
 of family life with a missionary fervour, and 
 it makes of it a condition of church membership. 
 The Jewish rule of labour is enforced (Ap.
 
 JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN CHARITY 189 
 
 Const, ii. 63). If a stranger settle (Teaching, 
 xii. 3) among the brotherhood, "let him work 
 and eat." And the father (Constit. iv. 11) is 
 to teach the children " such trades as are 
 agreeable and suitable to their need." And 
 the charities to the widow and the fatherless, 
 are organized on Jewish lines. 
 
 The sources of relief among the Jews were the 
 three gifts of corn : (l) the corners of the field 
 (cf. Lev. xix. etc.), amounting to a sixtieth 
 part of it; (2) the gleanings, a definite minimum 
 dropped in the process of reaping (Maimonides, 
 Laws of the Hebrews relating to the Poor, 
 iv. 1) ; (3) corn overlooked and left behind. 
 So it was with the grapes and with all crops 
 that were harvested, as opposed, e.g. to figs, 
 that were gathered from time to time. These 
 gifts were divisible three times in the day, so 
 as to suit the convenience of the poor (Maim, 
 ii. 17), and the poor had a right to them. 
 They are indeed a poor-rate paid in kind such 
 as in early times would naturally spring up 
 among an agricultural people. 
 
 Another gift ' out of the seed of the earth ' 
 is the tithe. In the post- exilian period the 
 septenniad was in force. Each year a fiftieth 
 part of the produce (Maim. vi. 2, and Deut. 
 xviii. 4) was given to the priests, the class
 
 190 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 which in the Jewish state was supported by the 
 community. Of the remainder one-tenth went 
 to the Levite, and one- tenth in three years of the 
 septennium was retained for pilgrimage to Jeru- 
 salem, and in two of it was given to the poor. In 
 the seventh year ' all things were in common.' 
 
 Supplementing these gifts were alms to all 
 who asked: "and he who gave less than a 
 tenth of his means was a man of evil eye" 
 (Maim. vii. 5). All were to give alms, even 
 the poor themselves who were in receipt of 
 relief. Refusal might be punished with stripes 
 at the hand of the Sanhedrim. At the Temple 
 alms for distribution to the worthy poor were 
 placed by worshippers in the cell of silence ; 
 and it is said that in Palestine at meal times 
 the table was open to all comers. 
 
 As the synagogues extended, and possibly 
 after the fall of Jerusalem (A.D. 70), the 
 collection of alms was further systematized. 
 There were two collections. In each city alms 
 of the box or chest (kupha) were collected for 
 the poor of the city on each Sabbath eve 
 (later, monthly or thrice a year) and distributed 
 in money or food for seven days. Two collected, 
 three distributed. Three others gathered and 
 distributed daily alms of the basket (tamchui). 
 These were for strangers and wayfarers casual
 
 JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN CHARITY 191 
 
 relief 'for the poor of the whole world.' In 
 the Jewish synagogue community from early 
 times the president (parnass) and treasurer 
 were elected annually with seven heads of the 
 congregation (see Abraham's Jewish Life in the 
 Middle Ages, p. 54), and sometimes special 
 officers for the care of the poor. A staff of 
 almoners was thus forthcoming. In addition 
 to these collections were the pruta given to 
 the poor before prayers (Maim. x. 15), and 
 moneys gathered to help particular cases (cf. 
 Jewish Life, p. 322) by circular letter. There 
 were also gifts at marriages and funerals ; and 
 fines imposed for breach of the communal 
 ordinances were reserved for the poor. The 
 distinctive feature of the Jewish charity was 
 the belief that 'the poor would not cease out 
 of the land,' and that therefore on charitable 
 grounds a permanent provision should be made 
 for them a poor-rate, in fact, subject to 
 stripes and distraint, if necessary. (Maim, vii: 
 10, and generally articles on 'Alms' and ' Charity' 
 in the Jewish Encyclopaedia.] 
 
 If we compare this system with that of the 
 early Church we find the following sources of 
 relief: (l) The Eucharistic offerings, some con- 
 sumed at the time, some carried home, some re- 
 served for the absent (see Hatch, Early Church,
 
 192 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 p. 40). The ministration, like the Eucharist, 
 was connected with the love feast, and was at 
 first daily (Acts ii. 42, vi. 1, and the Teaching). 
 (2) Freewill offerings and first fruits and 
 voluntary tithes (Ap. Con. ii. 25) brought to 
 the bishop and used for the poor orphans, 
 widows, the afflicted and strangers in distress, 
 and for the clergy, deaconesses, etc. (3) Col- 
 lections in churches on Sundays and week-days, 
 alms-boxes, and gifts to the poor by worshippers 
 as they entered church ; also collections for 
 special purposes, as, for instance, for Christians 
 at Jerusalem. Apart from 'the corners,' etc., the 
 sources of relief in the Christian and Jewish 
 Churches are the same. The separate Jewish 
 tithe for the poor, which (Maim. vi. 11, 13) 
 might be used in part by the donor as personal 
 charity, disappears. A voluntary tithe remains, 
 in part used for the poor. We do not hear of 
 stripes and distraint, but in both bodies there is 
 a penitential system and excommunication (cf. 
 Jeivish Life, p. 52), and in both a settlement 
 of disputes within the body (Clem. Horn. iii. 
 67). In both, too, there is the abundant alms 
 provided in the belief of the permanence of 
 poverty and the duty of giving to all who ask. 
 As to administration in the early Church (Acts 
 vi. 3), w r e find seven deacons, the number of
 
 JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN CHARITY 193 
 
 the local Jewish council ; and later there were 
 in Rome seven ecclesiastical relief districts, each 
 in charge of a deacon. The deacon acted as the 
 minister of the bishop (Ep. Clem, to Jam. xii.), 
 reporting to him and giving as he dictated 
 (Ap. Con. ii. 30, 31). He at first combined 
 disciplinary powers with charitable. The pres- 
 byters also (Polycarp Ad Phil 6 (A.D. 69-155) ), 
 forming (Hatch, p. 69) a kind of bishop's 
 council, visited the sick, etc. The bishop was 
 president and treasurer. The bishop was thus 
 the trustee of the poor. By reason of the 
 churches' care of orphans responsibilities of 
 trusteeship also devolved on him. The temples 
 were in pagan times depositories of money. 
 Probably the churches were also. 
 
 There must have been many variations in 
 detail. The bishop was the responsible head. 
 He thus himself distributed to everyone who was 
 in want, personally or by the instrumentality of 
 others. All gifts passed through his hands ; he 
 was accountable for them ; and had to distribute 
 them like a good steward. " God knoweth him 
 that giveth, even when he is not present"; and 
 when the bishop distributed he was to tell the 
 recipients the name of the giver, that they might 
 pray for him by his name (Didaskalia Aposto- 
 lorum, IIL, xiv). 
 
 N
 
 194 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 Great stress is laid by the Jews on the 
 duty of gentleness to the poor (Maim. x. 5). 
 The woman was to have first attention (Maim, 
 vi. 13). If the applicant was hungry he was 
 to be fed, and then examined to learn whether 
 he was a deceiver (Maim. vii. 6). Assistance 
 was to be given according to the want clothes, 
 household things, even a wife, or a husband and 
 according to the poor man's station in life. 
 For widows and orphans the ' gleanings ' were 
 left. Both are the recognized objects of charity 
 (Maim. x. 16, 17). "The poor and the orphan 
 were to be employed in domestic affairs in 
 preference to servants." The dower was a con- 
 stant form of help. The ransoming of slaves 
 took precedence of relief to the poor. The 
 highest degree of alms deed (Maim. x. 7) was 
 "to yield support to him who is cast down, 
 either by means of gifts, or by loan, or by 
 commerce, or by procuring for him traffic with 
 others. Thus his hand becometh strengthened, 
 exempt from the necessity of soliciting succour 
 from any created being." 
 
 If we compare the Christian methods we find 
 but slight difference. The absoluteness of " Give 
 to him that asketh " is in the Teaching checked 
 by the " Woe to him that receives : for if any 
 receives having need, he shall be guiltless, but
 
 JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN CHARITY 195 
 
 he that has no need shall give account, . . . and 
 coming into distress ... he shall not come 
 out thence till he hath paid the last farthing." 
 It is the duty of the bishop to know who is 
 most worthy of assistance (Ap. Con. ii. 3, 4) ; 
 and " if any one is in want by gluttony, drunken- 
 ness, or idleness, he does not deserve assistance, 
 nor is to be esteemed a member of the church." 
 The widow assumes the position not only of a 
 recipient of alms, but a church worker. Some 
 were a private charge, some were maintained 
 by the church. The recognized 'widow' was 
 maintained : she was to be sixty years of age 
 (cf. 1 Tim. v. 9 and Ap. Con. iii. 1), and was 
 sometimes tempted to become a bedeswoman 
 and gossipy pauper, if one may judge from the 
 texts. Remarriage was not approved. Orphans 
 were provided for by members of the churches. 
 The virgins formed another class, as, contrary 
 to the earlier feeling, marriage came to be held 
 a state of lesser sanctity. They too seem to 
 have been also, in part at least, church workers. 
 Thus round the churches grew up new groups 
 of recognized dependents ; but the older theory 
 of charity was broad and practical akin to 
 that of Maimonides. " Love all your brethren, 
 performing to orphans the part of parents, to 
 widows that of husbands, affording them sus-
 
 196 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 tenance with all kindliness, arranging marriages 
 for those who are in their prime, and for those 
 who are without a profession the means of 
 necessary support through employment : giving 
 work to the artificer and alms to the incapable " 
 (Ep. Clem, to James, viii.). 
 
 The Jews in pre-Christian and Talmudic 
 times supported the stranger or wayfarer by 
 the distribution of food (tamchui), and strangers 
 were lodged in private houses ; and there were 
 inns provided at which no money was taken 
 (cf. Jewish Life, p. 314). Subsequently, besides 
 these methods, special societies were formed 
 " for the entertainment of the resident poor and 
 of strangers." There were commendatory letters 
 also. . These conditions prevailed in the Christian 
 Church also. The Xenodocheion, coming by 
 direct succession alike from Jewish and Greek 
 precedents, was the first form of Christian 
 hospital both for strangers and for members 
 of the Christian Churches. In the Christian 
 community the endowed charity comes into 
 existence in the fourth century, among the Jews 
 not till the thirteenth. The charities of the 
 synagogue without separate societies sufficed.
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 GREEK THOUGHT ON CHARITY COMPARED WITH 
 JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN. 
 
 WE may now compare the conceptions of Jews 
 and Christians on charity with those of the 
 Greeks. There are two chief exponents of the 
 diverse views Aristotle and St. Paul ; for to 
 simplify the issues we refer to them only. 
 Thoughts such as Aristotle's recast by the Stoic 
 Panaetius (185-112 B.C.), and used by Cicero 
 in his de Officiis, became in the hands of 
 St. Ambrose arguments for the direction of the 
 clergy in the founding of the mediaeval Church ; 
 and in the thirteenth century Aristotle reasserts 
 his influence through such leaders of mediaeval 
 thought as St. Thomas Aquinas. St. Paul's 
 chapters on charity, though not fully appreciated 
 and understood, one is inclined to think, have per- 
 haps, more than any other words, prevented an 
 absolute lapse into the materialism of almsgiving. 
 After him we think of St. Francis, the greatest
 
 198 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 of a group of men who, seeking reality in life, 
 revived charity ; but to the theory of charity 
 it might almost be said that since Aristotle and 
 St. Paul nothing has been added until we come 
 to the economic and moral issues which Dr. 
 Chalmers explained and illustrated. 
 
 The problem turns on the conception (l) of 
 purpose, (2) of the self, and (3) of charity, love, 
 or friendship as an active force in social life. 
 To the Greek, or at least to Greek philosophic 
 thought, purpose was the measure of goodness. 
 To have no purpose was, so far as the particular 
 act was concerned, to be simply irrational ; and 
 the less definite the purpose the more irrational 
 the act. This conception of purpose was the 
 touchstone of family and social life, and of the 
 civic life also. In no sphere could goodness be 
 irrational. To say that it was without purpose 
 was to say that it was without reality. So far 
 as the actor was concerned, the main purpose 
 of right action was the good of the soul 
 (psyche) ; and by the soul was meant the 
 better self, ' the ruling part ' acting in harmony 
 with every faculty and function of the man. 
 With faculties constantly trained and developed, 
 a higher life was gradually developed in the 
 soul. We are thus, it might be said, what we 
 become. The gates of the higher life are within
 
 GREEK THOUGHT ON CHARITY 199 
 
 us. The issue is whether we will open them 
 and pass in. 
 
 Consistent with this is the social purpose. 
 Love or friendship is not conceived by Aristotle 
 except in relation to social life. Society is 
 based on an interchange of services. This 
 interchange in one series of acts we call justice ; 
 in another friendship or love. A man cannot 
 be just unless he has acquired a certain character 
 or habit of mind ; and hence no just man will 
 act without knowledge, previous deliberation, 
 and definite purpose. So also will a friend 
 fulfil these conditions in his acts of love or 
 friendship. In the love existing between good 
 men there is continuance and equality of service ; 
 but in the case of benefactor and benefited, in 
 deeds of charity, in fact, there is no such 
 equality. The satisfaction is on one side, the 
 donor's ; but often not on the other, the re- 
 cipient's. The dilemma is one that is pressed, 
 though not satisfactorily, in Cicero and Seneca, 
 The reason for this will be found, Aristotle 
 suggests, in the feeling of satisfaction which 
 men experience in action. We realize ourselves 
 in our deeds throw ourselves into them, as 
 people say ; and this is happiness. What we 
 make we like : it is part of us. On the other 
 hand, in the person benefited there may be
 
 200 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 no corresponding action, and in so far as there 
 is not, there is no exchange of service or the 
 contentment that arises from it. The ' self ' 
 of the recipient is not drawn out. On the 
 contrary, he may be made worse, and feel 
 the uneasiness and discontent that result from 
 this. In truth, to complete Aristotle's argu- 
 ment, the good deed on one side, as it represents 
 the best self of the benefactor, should on the 
 other side draw out the best self of the person 
 benefited. And where there is not ultimately 
 this result, there is no effective friendship or 
 charity, and consequently there is no personal or 
 social satisfaction. 
 
 The point may be pushed somewhat further. 
 In recent developments of charitable work the 
 term ' friendly visitor ' is applied to persons who 
 endeavour to help families in distress on the 
 lines of associated charity. It represents the 
 work of charity in one definite light. So far as 
 the relation is mutual, it cannot at the outset 
 be said to exist. The charitable friend wishes 
 to befriend another ; but at first there may be 
 no reciprocal feeling of friendship on the other's 
 part indeed, such a feeling may never be 
 created. The effort to reciprocate kindness by 
 becoming what the friend desires may be too 
 painful to make. Or the two may be on
 
 GREEK THOUGHT ON CHARITY 201 
 
 different planes, one not really befriending, but 
 giving without intelligence, the other not really 
 endeavouring to change his nature, but receiving 
 help solely with a view to immediate advantage. 
 The would-be befriender may begin ' despairing 
 of no man,' expecting nothing in return ; but if, 
 in fact, there is never any kind of return, the 
 friendship actually fails of its purpose, and the 
 ' friend's ' satisfaction is lost, except in that he 
 may ' have loved much.' In any case, according 
 to this theory, friendship, love, and charity 
 represent the mood from which spring social 
 acts, the value of which will depend on the 
 knowledge, deliberation, and purpose with which 
 they are done ; and only as they acquire value 
 on this account will they give lasting satis- 
 faction to both parties. 
 
 St. Paul's position is different. He seems 
 at first sight to ignore the state and social 
 life. He lays stress on motive rather than 
 on purpose. He speaks as an outsider to the 
 state, though technically a citizen. His mind 
 assumes towards it the external Judaic position, 
 as though he belonged to a society of settlers 
 (paroikoi). Also, as he expects the millennium, 
 social life and its needs are not uppermost in his 
 thoughts. He considers charity in relation to a 
 community of fellow-believers drawn together
 
 202 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 in congregations. His theory springs from this 
 social base, though it over-arches life itself. He 
 is intent on creating a spiritual association. 
 He conceives of the spirit (pneuma) as ' an 
 immaterial personality.' It transcends the soul 
 (psyche), and is the Christ life, the ideal and 
 spiritual life. Christians participate in it, and 
 they thus become part of ' the body of Christ,' 
 which exists by virtue of love love akin to the 
 ideal life, agape. The word represents the love 
 that is instinct with reverence, and not love 
 (philia) which may have in it some quality of 
 passion. This love is the life of ' the body of 
 Christ/ Therefore no act done without it is a 
 living act but, on the contrary, must be dead 
 an act in which no part of the ideal life is 
 blended. On the individual act or the purpose 
 no stress is laid. It is assumed that love, 
 because it is of this intense and exalted type, 
 will find the true purpose in the particular act. 
 And, when the expectation of the millennium 
 passed away, the theory of this ideal charity 
 remained as a motive force available for what- 
 ever new conditions, spiritual or social, might 
 arise. 
 
 Nevertheless, no sooner does this charity 
 touch social conditions, than the necessity asserts 
 itself of submitting to . the limitations which
 
 GREEK THOUGHT ON CHARITY 203 
 
 knowledge, deliberation, and purpose impose. 
 This view has been depreciated or ignored by 
 Christians, who have been content to rely upon 
 the strength of their motives, or perhaps have 
 not realized what the Greeks understood, that 
 society was a natural organism (Arist. Pol. 
 1253A), which develops, fails, or prospers in 
 accordance with definite laws. Hence endless 
 failure in spite of some success. For love, 
 whether we idealize it as agape or consider it a 
 social instinct as philia, cannot be love at all, 
 unless it quickens the intelligence as much as it 
 animates the will. It cannot, except by some 
 confusion of thought, be held to justify the 
 indulgence of emotion irrespective of moral and 
 social results. Yet though this fatal error may 
 have dominated thought for a lohg time, it is 
 hardly possible to attribute it to St. Paul's theory 
 of charity, when the very practical nature of 
 Judaism and early Christianity is considered. 
 In his view the misunderstanding could not 
 arise. And to create a world or ' body ' of men 
 and women linked together by love, even though 
 it be outside the normal life of the community, 
 was to create a new form of religious organiza- 
 tion, and to achieve for it (so far as it was 
 achieved) what, mutatis mutandis, Aristotle 
 held to be the indispensable condition of social
 
 204 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 life, friendship (philia), " the greatest good of 
 states," for " Socrates and all the world declare," 
 he wrote, that " the unity of the state " is 
 "created by friendship " (Arist. Pol ii. 1262B). 
 It should, however, be considered to what 
 extent charity in the Christian Church was 
 devoid of social purpose. The Jewish con- 
 ceptions of charity passed, one might almost 
 say, in their completeness into the Christian 
 Church. Prayer, the petition and the purging of 
 the mind, fasting, the humiliation of the body, 
 and alms, as part of the same discipline, the 
 submissive renunciation of possessions all these 
 formed part of the discipline that was to create 
 the religious mood. Alms henceforth become a 
 definite part of the religious discipline and 
 service. Humility and poverty hereafter appear 
 as yoked virtues, and many problems of charity 
 are raised in regard to them. The non- Christian 
 no less than the Christian world appreciated 
 more and more the need of self-discipline 
 (askesis) ; and it seems as though in the first 
 two centuries A.D. those who may have thought 
 of reinvigorating society searched for the remedy, 
 rather in the preaching and practice of temper- 
 ance, than in the application of ideas that were 
 the outcome of the observation of social or 
 economic conditions. Having no object of this
 
 GREEK THOUGHT ON CHARITY 205 
 
 kind as its mark, almsgiving took the place of 
 charity, and, as Christianity triumphed, family 
 life, instead of taking the first rank in religious 
 social thought, fell into the background, while 
 the virtues of the discipline of the body, con- 
 sidered apart from social life, became an end 
 in themselves, and it was desired rather to 
 annihilate instinct than to control it. Possibly 
 this was a necessary phase in a movement of 
 progress, but however that be, charity, as St. 
 Paul understood it, had in it no part. 
 
 But the evil went farther. Jewish religious 
 philosophy is not elaborated as a consistent 
 whole by any one writer. It is rather a mis- 
 cellany of maxims ; and again and again, as in 
 much religious thought, side issues assume the 
 principal place. The direct effect of the 
 charitable act, or almsgiving, is ignored. Many 
 thoughts and motives are blended. The Jews 
 spoke of the poor as the means of the rich man's 
 salvation. St. Chrysostom emphasizes this: 
 " If there were no poor, the greater part of your 
 sins would not be removed : they are the healers 
 of your wounds" (Horn, xiv., Timothy, etc.: 
 St. Cyprian on Works and Alms). Alms are 
 the medicine of sin. And the same thought 
 is worked into the penitential system. Augus- 
 tine speaks of " penance such as fasting, alms-
 
 206 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 giving, and prayer for breaches of the Decalogue " 
 (Reichel, Manual of Canon Law, ii. p. 23) ; 
 and many other references might be cited. 
 "Pecuniary penances (Ib. 154), ... in so far as 
 they were relaxations of or substitutes for bodily 
 penances, were permitted because of the greater 
 good thereby accruing to others and in this 
 case they were A.D. 1284 legally enforceable 
 under English statute law." The penitential 
 system takes for granted that the almsgiving is 
 good for others, associates with it advantage or 
 reward in assisting others, and puts a premium 
 on it, even though in fact it were done, not with 
 any definite charitable object, but only for the 
 good of the penitent himself. Thus almsgiving 
 becomes detached from charity on the one side 
 and from social good on the other. Still further 
 is it vulgarized by another confusion of thought. 
 It is considered that the alms are paid to the 
 credit of the giver, and are realized as such by 
 him in the after world ; or even that by alms 
 present prosperity may be obtained, or at least 
 evil accident avoided. Thus motives were blended, 
 as indeed they now are, with the result that the 
 gift assumed a greater importance than the 
 charity, by which alone the gift should have been 
 sanctified, and its actual effect was habitually 
 overlooked or treated as only partially relevant.
 
 GREEK THOUGHT ON CHARITY 207 
 
 The Christian maxim of "loving (agape) 
 one's neighbour as one's self" sets a stan- 
 dard of charity. Its relations are idealized 
 according as the 'self is understood; and thus 
 the good self becomes the measure of charity. 
 In this sense, the nobler the self the com- 
 pleter the charity ; and the charity of the 
 best men, men who love and understand their 
 neighbours best, having regard to their chief 
 good, is the best, the most effectual charity. 
 Further, if in what we consider ' best ' we give 
 but a lesser place to social purpose, or even 
 allow it no place at all, our ' self ' will have 
 no sufficient social aim and our charity little 
 or no social result. For this ' self,' however, 
 religion has substituted, not St. Paul's con- 
 ception of the spirit (pneuma), but a soul, 
 conceived as endowed with a substantial nature, 
 able to enjoy and suffer quasi- material rewards 
 and punishments in the after-life ; and in so 
 far as the safeguard of this soul by good deeds 
 or almsgiving has become a paramount object, 
 the purpose of charitable action has been trans- 
 lated from the actual world to another sphere. 
 Thus, as we have seen, the aid of the poor has 
 been considered not an object in itself, but as 
 a means by which the almsgiver effects his own 
 ulterior purpose and 'makes God his debtor.'
 
 208 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 The problem thus handled raises the question 
 of reward and also of punishment. Properly, 
 from the point of view of charity, both are 
 excluded. We may indeed act from a com- 
 plexity of motives and expect a complexity 
 of rewards, and undoubtedly a good act does 
 refresh the ' self/ and may as a result, though 
 not as a reward, win approval. But in reality 
 reward, if the word be used at all, is according 
 to purpose ; and the only reward of a deed 
 lies in the fulfilment of its purpose. In the 
 theory of almsgiving which we are discussing, 
 however, act and reward are on different planes. 
 The reward is on that of a future life ; the act 
 relates to a distressed person here and now. 
 The interest in the act on the doer's part lies 
 in its post-mortal consequences to himself, and 
 not either wholly or chiefly in the act itself. 
 Nor, as the interest ends with the act the 
 giving can the intelligence be quickened by 
 it. The questions " How ? by whom ? with 
 what object ? on what plan ? with what result ? " 
 receive no detailed consideration at all. Two 
 consequences follow. In so far as it is thus 
 practised, almsgiving is out of sympathy with 
 social progress. It is indeed alien to it. Next 
 also the self-contained, self- sustained poverty 
 that will have no relief and does without it, is
 
 GREEK THOUGHT ON CHARITY 209 
 
 outside the range of its thought and under- 
 standing. On the other hand, this almsgiving 
 is equally incapable of influencing the weak and 
 the vicious ; and those who are suffering from 
 illness or trouble it has not the width of vision 
 to understand nor the moral energy to assist, 
 so that they shall not fall out of the ranks 
 of the self-supporting. It believes that ' the 
 poor ' will not cease out of the land. And, 
 indeed, however great might be the economic 
 progress of the people, it is not likely that the 
 poor will cease, if the alms given in this spirit 
 be large enough in amount to affect social 
 conditions seriously one way or the other. 
 When we measure the effects of charity, this 
 inheritance of divided thought and inconsistent 
 counsels must be given its full weight.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE ORGANIZATION OF THE PARISH. 
 
 THE sub-apostolic church was a congregation like 
 a synagogue, the centre of a system of voluntary 
 and personal relief, connected with the congre- 
 gational meals (or agapai) and the Eucharist, 
 and under the supervision of a presiding officer, 
 apostle, prophet, of teacher, who presided at the 
 assembly in the place of the Christ. Out of 
 this was developed a system of relief controlled 
 by a bishop, who was assisted chiefly by deacons 
 or presbyters, while the agapai, consisting of 
 offerings laid before the altar, still remained 
 in force. Subsequently the meal was separated 
 from the sacrament, and became a dole of food, or 
 poor people's meal for instance, in St. Augustine's 
 time in Western Africa and it was not allowed 
 to be served in churches (A.D. 391). As religious 
 asceticism became dominant, the sacrament was 
 taken fasting ; it appeared unseemly that men 
 and women should meet together for such
 
 ORGANIZATION OF THE PARISH 211 
 
 purposes, and the agapai fell out of repute. 
 Simultaneously it would seem that the parish 
 (paroichia) became from a congregational settle- 
 ment a geographical .area. 
 
 The organization of relief at Rome illustrates 
 both a type of administration and a transition. 
 St. Gregory's reforms (A.D. 590) largely de- 
 veloped it. The first factor in the transition 
 was the church fund of the second period of 
 Christianity (Tertullian, about 150 to after 
 208 A.D., Apol. 39). It served as a friendly 
 fund, was supported by voluntary gifts, and 
 was used to succour and to bury the poor, to 
 help destitute and orphaned children, old house- 
 hold slaves, and those who suffered for the 
 faith. This fund is quite different from the 
 collegia tenuiorum or funeratica of the 
 Romans, which were societies to which the 
 members paid stipulated sums at stated periods 
 for funeral benefits or for common meals (Waltz- 
 ing, Corps. Professionelles chez les Romains, 
 i. 313). It represents the charitable centre 
 round which the parochial system developed. 
 That system was adopted probably about the 
 middle of the third century, but in Rome the 
 diaconate probably remained centralized. At 
 the end of the fourth century Pope Anastasius 
 had founded deaconries in Rome, and endowed
 
 212 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 them largely " to meet the frequent demands 
 of the diaconate." Gregory two hundred years 
 later reorganized the system. He divided the 
 fourteen old ' regions ' in^o seven ecclesiastical 
 districts and thirty ' titles ' (or parishes). The 
 parishes were under the charge of sixty-six 
 priests ; the districts were eleemosynary divi- 
 sions. Each was placed under the charge of 
 a deacon, not (Greg. Ep. xi. and xxviii.) under 
 the priests (presbyteri titularii}. Over the 
 deacons was an archdeacon. It was the duty 
 of the deacons to care for the poor, widows, 
 orphans, wards, and old people of their several 
 districts. They inquired in regard to those 
 who were relieved, and drew up, under the 
 guidance of the bishop, the register of poor 
 (matricula). Only these received regular 
 relief. In each district was an hospital or 
 office for alms, of which the deacon had charge, 
 assisted by a steward (or ceconomus). Here 
 food was given and meals were taken, the sick 
 and poor were maintained, and orphan or 
 foundling children lodged. The churches of 
 Rome and of other large towns possessed con- 
 siderable estates, " the patrimony of the patron 
 saints," and to Rome belonged estates in Sicily 
 which had not been ravaged by the invaders, 
 and they continued to pay to it their tenth
 
 ORGANIZATION OF THE PARISH 213 
 
 of corn, as they had done since Sicily was 
 conquered. Four times a year (Milman, Lat. 
 Christ, ii. 117) the shares of the (1) clergy 
 and papal officers, (2) churches and monas- 
 teries, and (3) " hospitals, deaconries, and 
 ecclesiastical wards for the poor," were calcu- 
 lated in money and distributed ; and the first 
 day in every month St. Gregory distributed 
 to the poor in kind corn, wine, cheese, vege- 
 tables, bacon, meal, fish, and oil. The sick 
 and infirm were superintended by persons 
 appointed to inspect every street. Before the 
 pope sat down to his own meal a portion was 
 separated and sent out to the hungry at his 
 door. The Roman plebs had thus become the 
 poor of Christ (pauper es Christi), and under 
 that title were being fed by civica annona 
 and sportula as their ancestors had been ; and 
 the deaconries had superseded the ' regions ' 
 and the ' steps ' from which the corn had been 
 distributed. The hospitium was now part of 
 a common organization of relief, and the sick 
 were visited according to Jewish and early 
 Christian precedent. How far kindly Romans 
 visited the sick of their day we do not know. 
 Alms and the annona were now, it would 
 seem, administered concurrently ; and there 
 was a system of poor relief independent of
 
 214 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 the churches and their alms, unless these, 
 organized, as in Scottish towns, on the ancient 
 ecclesiastical lines, were paid wholly or in part 
 to a central diaconate fund. Much had 
 changed, but in much Roman thought still 
 prevailed. 
 
 On lines similar to these the organization of 
 poor relief in the Middle Ages was developed. 
 In the provinces in the later empire the Senate 
 or ordo decuriorum were responsible for the 
 public provisioning of the towns (Fustel de 
 Coulanges, La Gaule romaine, p. 251), and 
 no doubt the care of the poor would thus in 
 some measure devolve on them in times of 
 scarcity or distress. On the religious side, on 
 the other hand, the churches would probably 
 be constant centres of almsgiving and relief 
 and then, further, when the Roman municipal 
 system had decayed, each citizen (as in Charle- 
 magne's time (742-814)) was required to support 
 his own dependents a step suggestive of much 
 after-history. 
 
 The change in sentiment and method in the 
 earlier, as contrasted with the later Christianity, 
 could hardly be more stronger marked than by 
 a comparison of " the Teaching " with St. 
 Ambrose's (334-397) "Duties of the Clergy" 
 (de Officiis Ministrorum). For the old in-
 
 ORGANIZATION OF THE PARISH 
 
 stinctive obedience to a command there is now 
 an endeavour to find a reasoned basis for 
 charitable action. Pauperism is recognized. 
 " Never was the greed of beggars greater 
 than it is now. . . . They want to empty the 
 purses of the poor, to deprive them of the 
 means of support. Not content with a little, 
 they ask for more. . . . With lies about their 
 lives they ask for further sums of money." 
 " A method in giving is necessary." But in 
 the suggestions made there is little consistency. 
 Liberality is urged as a means of gaining the 
 love of the people ; a new and a false 
 issue is thus raised. The relief is neither to 
 be " too freely given to those who are un- 
 suitable, nor too sparingly bestowed upon the 
 needy." Everywhere there is a doctrine of the 
 mean reflected through Cicero's de Officiis, 
 the doctrine insufficiently stated, as though it 
 were a mean of quantity, and not that rightly 
 tempered mean which is the harmony of oppos- 
 ing moods. The poor are not to be sent 
 empty away. Those rejected by the Church 
 are not to be left to the ' outer darkness ' 
 of an earlier Christianity. They must be sup- 
 plied if they are in want. The methodic giver 
 is " hard towards none, but is free towards 
 all." Consequently none are refused; and no
 
 216 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 account is taken of the regeneration that may 
 spring up in a man from the effort towards 
 self-help which refusal may originate. Thus 
 after all it appears that method means no 
 more than this to give sometimes more, some- 
 times less, to all needy people. In the small 
 congregational church of early Christianity, each 
 member of which was admitted on the con- 
 ditions of strictest discipline, the common alms 
 of the faithful could hardly have done much 
 harm within the body, even though outside 
 they created and kept alive a horde of vagrant 
 alms- seekers and pretenders. Now in this 
 department at least the Church had become 
 the state, and discipline and a close know- 
 ledge of one's fellow -Christians no longer safe- 
 guarded the alms. From Cicero is borrowed 
 the thought of ' active help,' which " is often 
 grander and more noble than the gift," but the 
 thought is not worked out. On the social side 
 the problem is not understood or even stated ; 
 and hence no principle of charity or of charit- 
 able administration is brought to light in the 
 investigation. Still there are rudiments of the 
 economics of charity in the praise of Joseph, 
 who made the people buy the corn, for other- 
 wise " they would have given up cultivating 
 the soil ; for he who has the use of what is
 
 THE ENDOWED CHARITY 219 
 
 were public works provided for them ; if they 
 refused to work on them they were to be 
 driven away. The sick might visit the capital, 
 but must be registered and sent back (A.D. 382) ; 
 the sturdy beggar was condemned to slavery. 
 So little did alms effect. And in the East 
 monasticism seems to have produced no firm- 
 ness of purpose such as led to the organization 
 of the Church and of charitable relief under 
 St. Gregory. 
 
 There were, it is said, 50,000 poor in Con- 
 stantinople, and it was urged by St. Chrysostom 
 that they should become a public charge ; and 
 for the economy of means and organization he 
 would have had all claimants fed at some central 
 place. So entirely was Christian thought, just 
 when the ' annona civica ' was passing away, 
 reviving that system in another form, that of 
 public alms. It was a counsel of despair, natur- 
 ally adopted when the standard of social duty 
 had been lowered and society seemed oppressed 
 alike by injustice and by destitution. Though 
 alms had proved to be no remedy there seemed 
 to be no resource but to give more alms, alms 
 taken from the larger funds of the public ex- 
 chequer and given in larger amounts to larger 
 numbers. For when faith is lost in the natural 
 force and the self-supporting and recuperative
 
 220 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 powers of the people living according to the 
 laws of social life, there seems no alternative 
 but relief and ever more relief. That the volun- 
 tary aid is called 'alms' and the public relief 
 poor or poor law relief makes no difference. 
 
 Apart, however, from the general ' poor ' there 
 were some 3,000 women widows and virgins 
 some poor and, according to the traditional re- 
 quirement, over 60 " widows indeed," some 
 workers for the church and some who had a more 
 questionable right to relief who were fed from 
 the church funds ; and besides these, portions 
 were secured to the prisoners (the prisons were 
 usually under the rule of the Bishop), to the 
 sick, to the people in the hospitia, strangers, 
 casuals, needy infirm poor, the leprous probably 
 a general term for the diseased and all the un- 
 fortunate (calamatosi). The 3,000 were entered 
 in a register as in receipt of permanent allowances 
 of food (cf.the Matricula: and the 'registered' poor 
 of the eighteenth century in England and Scot- 
 land) ; and the duty of selecting the applicants 
 for admission to this register, St. Chrysostom 
 found a troublesome business (molestissima 
 occupatio), for which there was need of the 
 most careful scrutiny, " for it was equally hein- 
 ous to enter undeserving (indignas) women, as 
 to keep off (expugnare) deserving ones." These
 
 THE ENDOWED CHARITY 221 
 
 were considered to have a clear and Honourable 
 claim on the Church funds. 
 
 The differences between this ecclesiastical 
 almsgiving and the personal charities of the 
 earlier Church are obvious. The system that 
 worked well in the small self-governing ' assem- 
 blies" of Jews or Christians, could not be rightly 
 expanded without the adoption of some new 
 principles of administration. An effort was 
 made, and considered in relation to an evidently 
 large administration, it is the sign of a marked 
 advance, to use inquiry and to restrict relief to 
 the ' deserving ' ; but this by itself, as experience 
 has shown, is not enough. We do not hear of any 
 parochial decentralization. No reference is made, 
 as we moderns would say, to adequate relief. 
 
 Another movement of the Byzantine period 
 was the establishment of the endowed charity. 
 The Jewish synagogue long served as a place 
 for the reception of strangers a religious 
 xenodocheion. Probably the strangers referred 
 to in " the Teaching " were so entertained. 
 The table of the bishop and a room in his 
 house served as the guest chamber, for which 
 afterwards a separate building was substituted. 
 In the East the Jewish charitable inn first 
 appears, and there took place the earliest 
 extension of institutions. There was probably
 
 222 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 a demand for an elaboration of institutions as 
 social changes made themselves felt in the 
 churches. We have seen this in the case of 
 the agape. Similar changes would affect other 
 branches of charitable work. The hospital (hos- 
 pitalium, xenodocheion) is defined as a " house 
 of God in which strangers who lack hospitality 
 are received" (Suicer : Thesaur.), a house 
 separated from the church ; and round the 
 church, out of the primitive xenodocheion of 
 early Christian times and the entertainment of 
 strangers at the houses of members of the com- 
 munity, would grow up other similar charities. 
 
 In theory the Church held no property. All 
 gifts were made to the Christ, and the Bishop 
 received them on behalf of Christ for the pur- 
 poses of the Church, and applied them to those 
 purposes. With the establishment of institutions 
 and the building of churches new conditions 
 arose. But nevertheless these buildings were 
 not held by the Church in any corporate 
 capacity, but as the property of Christ. Only 
 slowly in the fourth century was this non- 
 legal tenure superseded by legal enactments 
 (Lowrie-Sohm, The Church and its Organisation, 
 p. 317, etc.). In A.D. 321 license was given by 
 Constantine to leave property to the Church. 
 The churches were thus placed in the same
 
 THE ENDOWED CHARITY 223 
 
 position as pagan temples, and though subse- 
 quently Valentinian (A.D. 379) withdrew the 
 permission on account of the shameless legacy- 
 hunting of the clergy, in that period much 
 must have been done to endow Church and 
 charitable institutions. 
 
 In the same period grew to its height the 
 passion for monasticism. This affected the 
 parish and the endowed charity alike. Under 
 its influence the deacon as an almoner tends 
 to disappear, except where, as in Rome, there 
 is an elaborate system of relief. Nor does it 
 seem that deaconesses, widows, and virgins 
 continued to occupy their old position as 
 church workers and alms-receivers. Naturally 
 when marriage was considered " in itself an 
 evil, perhaps to be tolerated, but still 
 degrading to human nature," and (A.D. 385) 
 the marriage of the clergy was prohibited, 
 men, except those in charge of parishes, and 
 women would join regular monastic bodies ; 
 the deacon, as almoner, would disappear, and 
 the ' widows ' and virgins would become nuns. 
 Thus there would grow up a large body of 
 men and women living segregated in insti- 
 tutions, and forming a leisured class able to 
 superintend institutional charities. And now 
 two new officers appear, the eleemosynarius
 
 224 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 or almoner and the ceconomus or steward 
 (already an assistant treasurer to the bishop), 
 who superintend and distribute the alms and 
 manage the property of the institution. (In the 
 first six books of the Apostolical Constitutions 
 A.D. 300 these officers are not mentioned.) In 
 these circumstances the hospitium or hospital 
 (xenon, katagogion) assumes a new character. 
 It becomes in St. Basil's hands (A.D. 330-379) 
 a resort not only for those who " visit it 
 from time to time as they pass by, but also 
 for those who need some treatment in illness." 
 And round St. Basil at Caesarea there springs 
 up a colony of institutions. Four kinds prin- 
 cipally are mentioned in the Theodosian code : 
 (1) the guest houses (xenodocheia) ; (2) the 
 poor-houses (ptocheia), where the poor (mendici) 
 were housed and maintained. The ptocheion was 
 a general term also applied to all houses for the 
 poor, the aged, orphans, and sick. (3) There 
 were orphanages (orphanotropheid) for orphans 
 and wards ; and (4) there were houses for 
 infant children (brephotropheia). Thus a large 
 number of endowed charities had grown up. 
 
 This new movement it is necessary to consider 
 in connexion with the law relating to religious 
 property and bequests, in its bearing on the 
 rule of the monasteries, and in its effect on
 
 THE ENDOWED CHARITY 225 
 
 the family. The gradual development of this 
 elaborate system of endowments out of the 
 stringency of Roman law may be noted. 
 
 The sacred property (res sacra) of Roman 
 law consisted of things dedicated to the gods 
 by the pontiff with the approval of the civil 
 authority, in turn, the people, the senate, and 
 the emperor. Things so consecrated were in- 
 alienable. Apart from this in the empire, the 
 municipalities as they grew up were considered 
 'juristic persons' who were entitled to receive 
 and hold property. In a similar position were 
 authorized collegia, amongst which were the 
 mutual aid societies referred to above. Christians 
 associated in these societies would leave legacies 
 to them. Thus (W. M. Ramsay, Cities and 
 Bishoprics of Phrygia, I. i. 119), an inscription 
 mentions a bequest (possibly by a Christian) to 
 the council (synedriori) of the presidents of the 
 dyers in purple for a ceremonial, on the con- 
 dition that, if the ceremony be neglected, the 
 legacy shall become the property of the guild 
 for the care of nurslings ; and in the same way 
 a bequest is left in Rome (Orelli, 4420) for a 
 memorial sacrifice, on the condition that, if it 
 be not performed, double the cost be paid to 
 the treasury of the corn-supply (Jtsco stationis 
 annonae). No unauthorized collegia could re-
 
 226 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 ceive a legacy. " The law recognized no free- 
 dom of association." Nor could any private 
 individual create a foundation with separate 
 property of its own. Property could only be 
 left to an authorized juristic person, being a 
 municipality or a collegium. But as the pro- 
 blem of poverty was considered from a broader 
 standpoint, there was a desire to deal with it 
 in a more permanent manner than by the 
 annona civica. 
 
 The pueri alimentarii (see above) were con- 
 sidered to hold their property as part of the 
 fiscus or property of the state. Pliny (Ep. 
 vii. 18), seeking a method of endowment, trans- 
 ferred property in land to the steward of public 
 property, and then took it back again subject 
 to a permanent charge for the aid of children 
 of freemen. By the law of Con stan tine and 
 subsequent laws no such devices were necessary. 
 Widows or deaconesses, or virgins dedicated to 
 God, or nuns (A.D. 455), could leave bequests 
 to a church or memorial church (martyrum), 
 or to a priest or a monk, or to the poor in 
 any shape or form, in writing or without it. 
 Later (A.D. 475) donations of every kind, "to 
 the person of any martyr, or apostle, or prophet, 
 or the holy angels," for building an oratory 
 were made valid, even if the building were
 
 THE ENDOWED CHARITY 227 
 
 promised only and not begun ; and the same 
 rule applied to infirmaries (noscomia) and poor- 
 houses (ptocheia). The bishop or steward was 
 competent to appear as plaintiff in such cases. 
 Later, again (A.D. 528), contributions of 50 
 solidi (say about 19 10s.) to a church, hostel 
 (xenodocheion), etc., were made legal, though 
 not registered ; while larger sums, if registered, 
 were also legalized. So (A.D. 529) property 
 might be given for " churches, hostels, poor- 
 houses, infant and orphan homes, and homes 
 for the aged, or any such community" (con- 
 sortium], even though not registered, and such 
 property was free from taxation. 
 
 The next year (A.D. 530) it was enacted that 
 prescription even for 100 years did not alienate 
 Church and charitable property. The broadest 
 interpretation was allowed.- If by will a share 
 of an estate was left " to Christ our Lord," 
 the church of the city or other locality might 
 receive it as heir ; "let these, the law says, 
 belong to the holy churches, so that they may 
 become the alimony of the poor." It was 
 sufficient to leave property to the poor (Corpus 
 Juris Civilis, ed. Krueger, 1877, ii. 25). The 
 bequest was legal. It went to the legal repre- 
 sentative of the poor the Church. Charitable 
 property was thus Church property. The word
 
 228 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 ' alms ' covered both. It was given to pious 
 uses, and as a kind of public institution " shared 
 that corporate capacity which belonged to all 
 ecclesiastical institutions by virtue of a general 
 rule of law." On a pia causa it was not 
 necessary to confer a juristic personality. Other 
 laws preserved or regulated alienation (A.D. 477, 
 A.D. 530), and checked negligence or fraud in 
 management. The clergy had thus become the 
 owners of large properties, with the coloni and 
 slaves upon the estates and the allowances of 
 civic corn (annona civicd) ; and (A.D. 357) it 
 was stipulated that whatever they acquired by 
 thrift or trading should be used for the service 
 of the poor and needy, though what they 
 acquired from the labour of their slaves in the 
 labour houses (ergastula) or from inns (tabernae) 
 might be considered a profit of religion (religi- 
 onis lucrum). 
 
 Thus grew up the system of endowed 
 charities, which with certain modifications con- 
 tinued throughout the Middle Ages, and, though 
 it assumed different forms in connexion with 
 guilds and municipalities, in England it still 
 retains, partially at least, its relation to the 
 Church. It remained the system of institutional 
 relief parallel to the more personal almsgiving 
 of the parish.
 
 THE ENDOWED CHARITY 229 
 
 Here perhaps, to mark a certain progress, we 
 may add a word as to the state of Constantinople 
 in the "Iconoclast period" (A.D. 716-867). 
 (George Finlay : A History of Greece, B.C. 
 146-A.D. 1864; II. 216). " Among the people at 
 large," Finlay writes, " though the curial system 
 of castes (cf. p. 106), had broken down, still 
 the trader was fettered to his corporation, and 
 often to his quarter or his street, where he exer- 
 cised his calling amidst men of the same profession. 
 The education of the child, and the tendencies of 
 society, both prevented the individual from 
 acquiring more than the confined knowledge 
 requisite for his position in the empire. Great 
 progress was made towards the extinction of 
 slavery during the eighth and ninth centuries." 
 Free labour was being found to be more profitable. 
 Many hospitals and charitable institutions had 
 been founded. " That the moral conditions of 
 the great mass of the people of the Byzantine 
 empire under the Iconoclast emperors was 
 superior to that of any equal number of the 
 human race in any preceding period, can hardly 
 be doubted. The bulk of society occupied a 
 higher social position in the time of Copronymus 
 than of Pericles ; the masses had gained more by 
 the decrease of slavery and the extension of free 
 labour than the privileged citizens had lost."
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 EARLY MONASTICISM AND CHARITY. 
 
 MONASTICISM, in acting on men of strong char- 
 acter, endowed them with a double strength 
 of will, and to men like St. Gregory it seemed 
 to give back with administrative power the 
 relentless firmness of the Roman. In the East 
 it produced the turbulent soldiery of the 
 Church, in the West its missionaries ; and each 
 mission-monastery was a centre of relief. But 
 whatever the services monasticism rendered, it 
 can hardly be said to have furthered true 
 charity from the social standpoint, though out 
 of regard to some of its institutional work, we 
 may to a certain degree qualify this judgment 
 (see below " Charity and Social Conditions in 
 England"). 
 
 The movement was almost of necessity in 
 large measure anti-parochial, and thus out of 
 sympathy with the charities of the parish, 
 where personal relations with the poor at their
 
 EARLY MONASTICISM AND CHARITY 231 
 
 homes count for most. The good and evil of 
 it may be weighed. Monasticism working 
 through St. Augustine helped the world to 
 realize the mood of love as the real or eternal 
 life. Of the natural life of the world and its 
 responsibilities, through which that mood would 
 have borne its completest fruit, it took but 
 little heed, except in so far as, by creating a 
 class possessed of leisure, it created able 
 scholars, lawyers, and administrators, and dis- 
 ciplined the will of strong men. It had no 
 power to stay the social evils of the day. 
 Unlike the friars, at their best the monks were 
 a class apart, not a class mixed up with the 
 people. So were their charities. The belief 
 in poverty as a fixed condition irretrievable 
 and ever to be alleviated without any regard 
 to science or observation, subjected charity to 
 a perpetual stagnation. Charity requires belief 
 in growth, in the sharing of life, in the utility 
 and nobility of what is done here and now 
 for the hereafter of this present world. Mon- 
 asticism had no thought of this. It was based 
 on a belief in the evil of matter ; and from 
 that root social charity could hardly spring. 
 
 Economic difficulties also fostered monasticism. 
 Gold was appreciated in value, and necessaries 
 were expensive, and the cost of maintaining a
 
 232 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 family was great. It was an economy to force 
 a son or a brother into the Church. The 
 population was decreasing; and in spite of 
 Church feeling Marjorian (A.D. 461) had to 
 forbid women from taking the veil before forty, 
 and to require the remarriage of widows, subject 
 to a large forfeit of property (Hodgkin, Italy 
 and her Invaders, iL 420). Monasticism was 
 inconsistent with the social good. As to the 
 family like the moderns who depreciate thrift 
 and are careless of the life of the family, the 
 monks, believing that marriage was a lower 
 form of morality, if not indeed, as would at 
 times appear, hardly moral at all, could feel 
 but little enthusiasm for what is socially a chief 
 source of health to the community and a well- 
 spring of spontaneous charitable feeling. By 
 the sacerdotal-monastic movement the moral- 
 izing force of Christianity was denaturalized. 
 Among the secular clergy the falsity of the 
 position as between men and women revealed 
 itself in relations which, being unhallowed and 
 unrecognized, became also degrading. But, worse 
 than all, it pushed charity from its pivot. For 
 this no monasteries or institutions, no domina- 
 tion of religious belief could atone. The 
 Church that with so fine an intensity of pur- 
 pose had fostered chastity and marriage was
 
 betraying its trust. It was out of touch with 
 the primal unit of social life, the child-school 
 of dawning habits and the loving economy of 
 the home. It produced no treatise on economy 
 in the older Greek sense of the word. The 
 home and its associations no longer retained 
 their pre-eminence. In the extreme advocacy 
 of the celibate state the honourable develop- 
 ment of the married life and its duties were 
 depreciated, and sometimes one would think 
 quite forgotten. 
 
 We may ask, then, What were the results of 
 charity at the close of the period which ends 
 with St. Gregory and the founding of the 
 mediaeval Church ? for if the charity is 
 reflected in the social good, the results should 
 be manifest. Economic and social conditions 
 were adverse. With lessened trade the middle 
 class was decaying (Dill, Roman Society in the 
 Last Century of tJie Western Empire, p. 204) 
 and a selfish aristocracy rising up. Municipal 
 responsibility had been taxed to extinction. 
 The public service was corrupt. The rich 
 evaded taxation, the poor were oppressed by 
 it. There were laws upon laws, endeavours to 
 underpin the framework of a decaying society. 
 Society was bankrupt of skill and the skill of
 
 234 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 a generation has a close bearing on its charitable 
 administration. While hospitals increased, medi- 
 cine was im progressive. There were miserable 
 years of famine and pestilence, and constant 
 wars. The care of the poorer classes, and 
 ultimately of the people, was the charge of 
 the Church. The Church strengthened the 
 feeling of kindness for those in want, widows, 
 orphans, and the sick. It lessened the degrada- 
 tion of the ' actresses,' and, co-operating with 
 Stoic opinion, abolished the slaughter of the 
 gladiatorial shows. It created a popular 
 " dogmatic system and moral discipline," which 
 paganism failed to do ; but it produced no 
 prophet of charity, such as enlarged the moral 
 imagination of the Jews. It ransomed slaves, 
 as did paganism also, but it did not abolish 
 slavery. Large economic causes produced that 
 great reform. The serf attached to the soil 
 took the place of the slave. The almsgiving 
 of the Church by degrees took the place of 
 annona and sportula, and it may have created 
 pauperism. But dependence on almsgiving was 
 at least an advance on dependence founded on 
 a civic and hereditary right to relief. The 
 pauper stood higher than the slave, socially at 
 any rate : he was free to support himself. Bad 
 economic conditions and traditions, and a bad
 
 
 EARLY MONASTICISM AND CHARITY 235 
 
 system of almsgiving, might enthral him. But 
 the way, at least, was open ; and thus ultimately 
 it became possible that charity, working in 
 alliance with good economic traditions, should 
 in the end accomplish the self-support of 
 society,- the independence of the whole people.
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 CHANGES IN THE STRUCTUEE OF SOCIETY. 
 
 MEANWHILE changes were taking place in the 
 structure of society ; and these show how 
 personal slavery tended to disappear in a system 
 of organized social dependence, and how it in 
 some measure reappeared in the status of the 
 lowest class of serfs, before the freedom of the 
 modern world was reached. 
 
 In Western Europe the tribe and tribal custom 
 form the basis of the new structure. They are 
 strong and not yet overlaid by conditions which 
 would assert themselves in the passage from a 
 tribal community to the community of a nascent 
 city-state. They are at a formative stage ; and 
 lend themselves to a series of adaptations which 
 take the names of the manorial system and of 
 feudalism. These are the product of a long and 
 complex period of fusion, racial and social. 
 Tribal custom is brought into conflict with 
 Roman law, and paganism with Christianity
 
 CHANGES IN STRUCTURE OF SOCIETY 237 
 
 among Burgundians and Franks and the mass 
 of Scandinavian peoples. The period of the 
 invasion of France lasts from 406 A.D. to 800. 
 Feudalism develops from the ninth to the 
 eleventh century. The tribe consisted, according 
 to the Cymric custom, of protective and co-opera- 
 tive communities or hamlets of the same kindred, 
 ruled over by a chief. The manor was a settle- 
 ment formed on the basis of private rights held 
 in association with common rights, controlled 
 by a lord of the manor and a manor court. 
 Feudalism represents an agrarian and social 
 movement on the one side, and on the other 
 the establishment of a new chieftainate on a 
 territorial basis and under new conditions of 
 graded dependence. 
 
 In the tribe (Seebohm, Tribal Custom in 
 Anglo-Saxon Law, pp. 21, 50) the family of 
 four generations forms the kin. Each boy born 
 in the kin has a tribesman's right of maintenance, 
 and at the age of fourteen an allotment of cattle 
 and a right of co-ploughing in the waste. The 
 cattle are provided out of the flocks of the 
 chieftain. Each girl born in the kin remains 
 " at the father's platter " till fourteen, and then 
 the father ceases to be responsible for her. 
 When she is married a portion goes with her 
 out of the kin. Thus all are settled. The tref
 
 238 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 or trefgordd is a co-operative hamlet, " nine 
 houses, and one plough, and one oven, and one 
 churn, and one cat, and one bull, and one 
 herdsman." The chief receives from the trefs 
 food-rents, in the form of nightly entertainments 
 in his progress through the district (or villata), 
 or a fixed commutation. The necessitous man 
 " does not forfeit life " for a theft of food, if 
 he has traversed three trevs and nine houses in 
 each trev " without obtaining a gift, though 
 asked for." Non-members of the tribe in the 
 fourth generation (Seebohm, pp. 51 and 499) 
 become settled, adscripti glebae, and acquire a 
 status as founders of a kindred. This state is 
 not looked upon as a degradation, but "on the 
 contrary, as a step in advance towards the 
 recognition of tribal rights." There is also a 
 semi-servile class, permanent nativi, in later 
 developments of the tribal system called bonds- 
 men, born non-tribesmen without recognized 
 family rights ; but they too in the fourth 
 generation may reach recognition of family or 
 kin rights, like the stranger who settles. They 
 after the fourth generation form kindreds of 
 non-tribesmen. There are also bought slaves. 
 These may gain freedom from their master. 
 With the exception of these slaves, the tribal 
 society consists of a self-supporting society with
 
 CHANGES IN STRUCTURE OF SOCIETY 239 
 
 dependents who may by the mere process of 
 time become recognized members of the com- 
 munity. Their dependence is not slavery, but 
 a dependence of different kinds and qualified 
 by the prospect of admission to the state of 
 tribesmanship. In such a population there is 
 a large freedom of movement (Seebohm, p. 34). 
 The groups of kindreds carry their hearthstones 
 and move from one district or villata to another: 
 and the villata becomes " the fixed unit for tribal 
 food-rents to the chieftain and for taxation after 
 the English conquest." 
 
 To the manor as a social and self-supporting 
 unit we refer later on. But we would here 
 show the connexion of feudalism with the pro- 
 tection and maintenance of the people, and 
 illustrate it by the account of the estate of the 
 Abbey of St. Germain-des-Pres in the ninth 
 century (Levasseur, La Population Franqaise 
 (ed. 1889), i. 125). 
 
 Feudalism represents an agrarian and social 
 movement for the protection and maintenance 
 of the settled labourers or coloni in the turbulent 
 period of the break-up and ending of the Roman 
 Empire (406-800, the year in which Charlemagne 
 was crowned King of the Romans), culminating 
 in the eleventh century. This is one side of 
 the question. It represents, on the other hand,
 
 240 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 the parcelling out of the sovereignty of the 
 Roman Empire. That sovereignty was taken 
 over piecemeal by the great proprietors. The 
 proprietors administered justice to their people, 
 had retainers for their own defence and their 
 people's protection, and kept the cultivators on 
 the soil. The small cultivators, the coloni, from 
 the end of the Merovingian period (752 A.D.), 
 out of fear or on account of their poverty, by 
 submission, gave themselves up in a crowd to 
 masters, and freemen to become serfs or coloni, 
 holding their lands subject to the payment of 
 dues (cens, or cens et rente). A formula for 
 the renunciation of their liberty was : " As is 
 well known to all that I have not the means to 
 clothe myself or to support myself." . . . There 
 is thus owing to the disquiet of the times a 
 loss of freedom, but it takes the form not of 
 slavery but of a qualified dependence, the pro- 
 vision of land and a livelihood by the one party, 
 the provision of protection, subject to dues, 
 by the other. 
 
 The domain of the Abbey of St. Germain-des- 
 Pres in the ninth century consisted of about 
 a million and 75,000 acres say about two- 
 thirds of a French department of the present 
 day. The land was still, as in Charlemagne's 
 time, divided into mansi, or estates of land.
 
 CHANGES IN STRUCTURE OF SOCIETY 241 
 
 The account given in the Polyptique of the 
 Abbot Irminion refers to only 552,500 acres, 
 which lie in the departments of the Seine, Seine- 
 et-Oise, and five other neighbouring departments. 
 Some of these estates are signorial, held by 
 lords under the abbey. They number twenty- 
 four, and on an average consist of some 627 
 acres of arable, besides meadows and woods. 
 They represent the Roman villas, with all the 
 buildings necessary for the farm of a landed 
 proprietor. They are worked by the labour of 
 the classes dependent on the lord. 
 
 The other estates (mansi], 1646 in number, 
 are held subject to the levy of dues (tributaires) 
 payable in labour and in kind and money. The 
 average size of these estates, including woods, 
 is thirty acres, but they vary according to the 
 status of the dependent. Some are ranked as 
 free estates (ingenuiles), having been probably 
 the estates of freemen originally. These num- 
 ber 1430, and consist of 25 acres on an average, 
 and they pay in money or in kind 116 francs 
 and in personal services 67 francs. Others of the 
 estates or mansi liable for dues are classed as 
 'servile.' They number 191, and consist of 
 plots of 17| acres, and they pay 48 francs in 
 money or kind, and 114 francs in personal 
 
 service. The mansi are worked by two and 
 
 Q
 
 242 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 sometimes by many households which live in a 
 kind of community. Thus, in the 1430 tribu- 
 tary mansi of the first class (ingenuiles) there 
 are households (menages) of coloni (1957), house- 
 holds of barbari or nativi (tides), 29 in number ; 
 some 43 households of serfs, and only eight 
 households of freemen. The remaining house- 
 holds are (160) those in which the man and the 
 wife are of different conditions of life, or (199) 
 where their standing is undetermined. 
 
 Besides tributary mansi of the free type 
 (ingenuiles} and of the serf type (serviles), there 
 were 25 estates or mansi held by nativi (tides] ; 
 and there was yet another class of estate lower 
 than the ' servile ' called hospitia, or, apparently, 
 holdings granted to strangers. They were culti- 
 vated by 71 households, and consisted of patches 
 of land of very small size. The population of the 
 whole estate of the abbey was 10,282 in an 
 area of 552,500 acres. The coloni paid a war 
 tribute. 
 
 The Polyptique thus gives us the picture 
 of a scattered community in a sparsely popu- 
 lated country, associated for mutual protection, 
 containing differences in rank and status, subject 
 to fixed taxes, and for the most part to the 
 payment of war tribute. It also indicates a past 
 revolution in which the freeholders of a previous
 
 CHANGES IN STRUCTURE OF SOCIETY 243 
 
 generation have become dependents, subjected 
 to the payment of dues, and approximating 
 to the condition of those who paid a relatively 
 larger amount in personal service and a rela- 
 tively lesser amount in money or kind. By 
 degrees the individual right which gave a 
 distinctive quality to the person and to his 
 estate (mansus) disappeared before the territorial 
 right of the lord. " Individual liberty and small 
 proprietorship were almost everywhere sacrificed 
 or subordinated to the settlement of the feudal 
 domains" (Levasseur, i. 141). The classes of 
 nobles, freemen, and serfs were being formed, to 
 the general exclusion of minor differences. At 
 the end of the thirteenth century the serfs had 
 become very numerous (p. 145); some became 
 practically the property of the lord. " Between 
 the lord and the villein there was no judge 
 except God." Others who paid their dues were 
 only subject to the lord if they committed some 
 offence; but if they died without issue their 
 property passed to the lord, as it did also if 
 they married a free woman whose children would 
 otherwise have escaped his claim (mainmorte). 
 Thus for many of the peasants protection 
 tended to pass from an ordered dependence to 
 an actual slavery.
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHARITABLE 
 RESPONSIBILITY OF THE PARISH. 
 
 IT remains to trace the history of thought 
 and administration in relation to (1) the 
 development of charitable responsibility in the 
 parish, and the use of tithe and Church property 
 for poor relief; and (2) the revision of the 
 theory of charity, with which are associated 
 the names of St. Augustine (354-430), St. 
 Benedict (480-542), St. Bernard (1091-1153), 
 St. Francis (1182-1226), and St. Thomas 
 Aquinas (1225-1274). (3) There follows, in 
 reference chiefly to England, a sketch of the 
 dependence of the poor under feudalism, the 
 charities of the parish, the monastery, and the 
 hospital the mediaeval system of endowed 
 charity ; the rise of guild and municipal 
 charities ; the decadence at the close of the 
 fifteenth century, and the statutory endeavours 
 to cope with economic difficulties which, in the
 
 RESPONSIBILITY OF THE PARISH 245 
 
 sixteenth century, led to the establishment of 
 statutory serfdom and the poor laws. New 
 elements affect the problem of charity in the 
 seventeenth and eighteenth centuries ; but it 
 is not too much to say that almost all these 
 headings represent phases of thought or institu- 
 tions which in later forms are interwoven with 
 the charitable thought and endeavours of the 
 present day. 
 
 Naturally, two methods of relief have usually 
 been prominent : relief administered locally, 
 chiefly to residents in their own homes, and 
 relief administered in an institution. At the 
 time of Charlemagne (742-814) the system of 
 relief was parochial, consisting principally of 
 assistance at the home. After that time, except 
 probably in England, the institutional method 
 appears to have predominated, and the monas- 
 tery or hospital in one form or another gradually 
 encroached on the parish. 
 
 The system of parochial charity was the 
 outcome, apparently, of three conditions: the 
 position and influence of the bishop, the 
 eleemosynary nature of the church funds, and 
 the need of some responsible organization of 
 relief. It resulted in what might almost be 
 called an ecclesiastical poor-law. The affairs 
 of a local church or congregation were superin-
 
 246 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 tended by a bishop. To deal with outlaying 
 districts he detached priests for religious work 
 and, as in Rome and (774) Strasburg, deacons 
 also for the administration of relief. Originally 
 all the income of the church or congregation 
 was paid into one fund only, of which the bishop 
 had charge, and this fund was available primarily 
 for charitable purposes. Church property was 
 the patrimony of the poor. In the fourth 
 century (IV. Council of Carthage, 398) the 
 names of the clergy were entered on a list 
 (matricula or canon), as were also the names 
 of the poor, and both received from the church 
 their daily portion (cf. Ratzinger, Geschichte. der 
 Kirchlichen Armenpjlege, p. 117). There were 
 no expenses for building. Before the reign of 
 Constantine (306) very few churches were built 
 (Ratzinger, p. 120). Thus the early Church, 
 as has been said, w r as chiefly a charitable society. 
 By degrees the property of the Church was 
 very largely increased by gifts and bequests, 
 and in the West before St. Gregory's time the 
 division of it for four separate purposes the 
 support of the bishop, of the clergy, and of 
 the poor, and for church buildings still further 
 promoted decentralization. Apart from any 
 special gifts, there was thus created a separate 
 fund for almsgiving, supervised by the bishop,
 
 RESPONSIBILITY OF THE PARISH 247 
 
 consisting of a fourth of the church property, 
 the oblations (mostly used for the poor), and 
 the tithe, which at first was used for the poor 
 solely. 
 
 The organization of the church was gradually 
 extended. The church once established in the 
 chief city of a district would become in turn, 
 the mother church of other neighbour churches, 
 and the bishop or priest of the mother church 
 would come to exercise supervision over them 
 and their parishes. In France, which may serve 
 as a good illustration in the fourth century 
 (Ratzinger, p. 181) the civic organization was 
 utilized for a further change. The Roman 
 provinces were divided into large areas (civitates), 
 and these were adopted by the Church as 
 bishops' parishes, or, as we should call them, 
 dioceses ; and the chief city became the 
 cathedral city. The bishop thus became 
 responsible in Charlemagne's time both for his 
 own parish (that of the mother church), and 
 for the supervision of the parishes in the civitas, 
 and so for the sick and needy of the diocese 
 generally. He had to take charge of the poor 
 in his own parish personally, keep the list of the 
 poor, and provide houses for the homeless. The 
 other parishes were at first, or in some measure, 
 supported from his funds, but they acquired by
 
 248 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 degrees tithe and property of their own and 
 were endowed by Charlemagne, who gave one or 
 more manses or lots of land (cf. Fustel de 
 Coulanges, Hist, des Institutions Politiques de 
 I'ancienne France, p. 360), for the support of 
 each parish priest. The priests were required 
 to relieve their own poor, so that they should 
 not stray into other cities (II. Counc. Tours, 
 567), and to provide food and lodging for 
 strangers. The method was indeed elaborated, 
 and became, like the Jewish, that contradiction 
 in terms a compulsory system of charitable 
 relief. The payment of tithe was enforced by 
 Charlemagne, and it became a legal due (Counc. 
 Frankfort, 794 ; Arelat. 794). At the same 
 time two other conditions were enforced. Each 
 person (unusquisque fidelium nostrorum or 
 omnes cives) was to keep his own family, 
 i.e., all dependent on him upon his freehold 
 estate (allodium); and no one was to presume to 
 give relief to able-bodied beggars unless they 
 were set to work. Thus we find here the germ 
 of a poor-law system. As in the times, whether 
 of the annona civica, slavery, feudalism, or 
 statutory serfdom, the burthen of the mainten- 
 ance of the poor fell only in part on charity. 
 Only those who could not be maintained as 
 members of some ' family ' were properly
 
 RESPONSIBILITY OF THE PARISH 249 
 
 entitled to relief and in these circumstances 
 the officially recognized clients of the Church 
 consisted of the gradually decreasing number 
 of free poor and those who were tenants of 
 Church lands. 
 
 Since 817 there has been no universally 
 binding decision of the Church respecting the 
 care of the poor (Ratzinger, p. 236). So long 
 ago did laicization commence in charity. In the 
 wars and confusion of the ninth and tenth 
 centuries the poorer freemen lapsed still further 
 into slavery, or became coloni or bond servants ; 
 and later they passed under the feudal rule. 
 Thus the Church's duty to relieve them became 
 the masters' obligation to maintain them. 
 Simultaneously the activity of the clergy, 
 regular and secular alike, dwindled. They were 
 exhorted to increase their alms. The revenues 
 and property of ' the poor ' were largely turned 
 to private or partly ecclesiastical purposes, or 
 secularized. Legacies went wholly to the 
 clergy, but only the tithe of the produce of 
 their own lands was used for relief; and of the 
 general tithe, only a third or fourth part was 
 so applied. Eventually to a large extent, but 
 more elsewhere than in England (Ratzinger, pp. 
 246, 269) the tithe itself was appropriated by 
 nobles or even by the monasteries ; and thus
 
 250 CHAKITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 during and after the tenth century a new 
 organization of charity was created on non- 
 parochial methods of relief. Alms, with prayer 
 and fasting, had always been connected with 
 penance. But the character of the penitential 
 system had altered. By the seventh century 
 private penance had superseded the public and 
 congregational penance of the earlier Church 
 (Diet. Christian Antiquities, art. Penitence). 
 To the penalties of exclusion from the sacraments 
 or from the services of the Church, or from its 
 communion was coupled, with other penitential 
 discipline, an elaborate penitential system, in 
 which about the seventh century the redemption 
 of sin by the ' sacrifice ' of property, payments of 
 money fines, etc., was introduced. (Cf. for 
 instance Cone. Elberti : Labbeus, i. 969 (A.D. 
 305), with Cone. Berghamstedense, Wilkins, 
 Cone. p. 60 (A.D. 696), and the Penitential 
 (p. 115) and Canons (A.D. 960), p. 236). The 
 same sin committed by an overseer (praepositus 
 paganus) was compensated by a fine of 100 
 solidi ; in the case of a colonus by a fine of 50. 
 So amongst the ways of penitence were entered 
 in the above-mentioned Canons, to erect a 
 church, and if means allowed, add to it land 
 . . . to repair the public roads ... 'to 
 distribute,' to help poor widows, orphans, and
 
 RESPONSIBILITY OF THE PARISH 251 
 
 strangers, redeem slaves, fast, etc. a combination 
 of * good deeds ' which suggests a line of thought 
 such as ultimately found expression in the 
 definition of charities in the Charitable Uses 
 Act of Queen Elizabeth. The confessor, too, 
 was ' spiritualis medicus,' and much that from 
 the point of view of counsel would now be 
 the work of charity would in his hands be 
 dealt with in that capacity. For lesser sins 
 (cf. Bede (673-735), Horn. 34, quoted by 
 Ratzinger) the penalty was prayer, fasting, and 
 alms ; for the greater sins murder, adultery, 
 and idolatry to give up all. Thus while half- 
 converted barbarians were kept in moral 
 subjection by material penances, the Church 
 was enriched by their gifts ; and these tended 
 to support the monastic and institutional 
 methods which were in favour, and to which, 
 on the revival of religious earnestness in the 
 eleventh century, the world looked for the 
 reform of social life.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 MEDIAEVAL REVISION OF THE THEORY OF 
 CHARITY. 
 
 To understand mediaeval charity it is necessary 
 to return to St. Augustine. According to him, 
 the motive of man in his legitimate effort to 
 assert himself in life was love or desire (amor 
 or cupido). " All impulses were only evolutions 
 of this typical characteristic " (Harnack, History 
 of Dogma (trans.), v. iii.) ; and this was so 
 alike in the spiritual and the sensuous life. 
 Happiness thus depended on desire ; and desire 
 in turn depended on the regulation of the 
 will ; but the will was regulated only by grace. 
 God was the spiritualis substantial and freedom 
 was the identity of the will with the omnipotent 
 unchanging nature. This highest Being was 
 " holiness working on the will in the form of 
 omnipotent love." This love was grace " grace 
 imparting itself in love." Love (caritas 
 charity) is identified with justice ; and the will,
 
 THE THEORY OF. CHARITY 253 
 
 the goodwill, is love. The identity of the 
 will with the will of God was attained by 
 communion with Him. The after-life consum- 
 mated by sight this communion, which was 
 here reached only by faith. Such a method 
 of thought was entirely introspective, and it 
 turned the mind " wholly to hope, asceticism, 
 and the contemplation of God in worship." 
 " Where St. Augustine indulges in the exposition 
 of practical piety he has no theory at all of 
 Christ's work." To charity on that side he 
 added nothing. In the eleventh century there 
 was a revival of piety, which had amongst its 
 objects the restoration of discipline in the 
 monasteries and a monastic training for the 
 secular clergy. To this Augustinian thought 
 led the way. " Christianity was asceticism and 
 the city of God" (Harnack, vi. 6). A new 
 religious feeling took possession of the general 
 mind, a regard and adoration of the actual, 
 the historic Christ. Of this St. Bernard was 
 the expositor. " Beside the sacramental Christ 
 the image of the historical took its place 
 majesty in humility, innocence in penal suffering, 
 life in death." The spiritual and the sensuous 
 were intermingled. Dogmatic formulae fell into 
 the background. The picture of the historic 
 Christ led to the realization of the Christ
 
 254 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 according to the spirit (kata pneuma). Thus 
 St. Bernard carried forward Augustinian thought ; 
 and the historic Christ became the " sinless man, 
 approved by suffering, to whom the divine 
 grace, by which He lives, has lent such power 
 that His image takes shape in other men and 
 incites them to corresponding humility and love." 
 Humility and poverty represented the con- 
 ditions under which alone this spirit could be 
 realized ; and the poverty must be spiritual, 
 and therefore self-imposed (' wilful,' as it was 
 afterwards called). This led to practical results. 
 Poverty was not a social state, but a spiritual ; 
 and consequently the poor generally were not 
 the pauperes Christi, but those who, like the 
 monks, had taken vows of poverty. From 
 these premisses followed later the doctrine that 
 gifts to the Church were not gifts to the poor, 
 as once they had been, but to the religious 
 bodies. The Church was not the Church of 
 the poor, but of the poor in spirit. But the 
 immediate effect was the belief, for a time 
 apparently almost universal, that the salvation 
 of society would come from the monastic orders. 
 By their aid, backed by the general opinion, 
 the secular clergy were brought back to celibacy 
 and the monasteries new T ly disciplined. But 
 charity could not thus regain its touch of life
 
 THE THEORY OF CHARITY 255 
 
 and become the means of raising the standard 
 of social duty. 
 
 Next, one amongst many who were stirred 
 by a kindred inspiration, St. Francis, turned 
 back to actual life and gave a new reality to 
 religious idealism. For him the poor were once 
 again the pauperes Christi. To follow Christ 
 was to adopt the life of ' evangelical poverty/ 
 and this was to live among the poor the life 
 of a poor man. The follower was to work with 
 his hands (as the poor clergy of the early 
 Church had done and the clergy of the early 
 English Church were exhorted to do) ; he was 
 to receive no money ; he was to earn the actual 
 necessaries of life, though what he could not 
 earn he might beg. To ask for this was a 
 right, so long as he was bringing a better life 
 into the world. All in excess of this he gave 
 to the poor. He would possess no property, 
 buildings, or endowments, nor was his order to 
 do so. The fulness of his life was in the 
 complete realization of it now, without the 
 cares of property and without any fear of 
 the future. Having a definite aim and mission, 
 he was ready to accept the want that might 
 come upon him, and his life was a discipline 
 to enable him to suffer it if it came. To 
 him humility was the soul making itself fit
 
 256 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 to love ; and poverty was humility expanded 
 from a mood to a life, a life not guarded by 
 seclusion, but spent amongst those who were 
 actually poor. The object of life was to 
 console the poor those outside all monasteries 
 and institutions the poor as they lived and 
 worked. The movement was practically a lay 
 movement, and its force consisted in its 
 simplicity and directness. Book learning was 
 disparaged : life was to be the teacher. The 
 brothers thus became observant and practical, 
 and afterwards indeed learned, and their 
 learning had the same characteristics. Their 
 power lay in their practical sagacity, in their 
 treatment of life, outside the cloister and the 
 hospital, at first hand. They knew the people 
 because they settled amongst them, living just 
 as they did. This was their method of charity. 
 
 The inspiration that drew St. Francis to 
 this method was the contemplation of the life 
 of Christ. But it was more than this. The 
 Christ was to him, as to St. Bernard, an ideal, 
 whose nature passed into that of the con- 
 templating and adoring beholder, so that, as 
 he said, " having lost its individuality, of itself 
 the creature could no longer act." He had no 
 impulse but the Christ impulse. He was 
 changed. His identity was merged in that of
 
 THE THEORY OF CHARITY 257 
 
 Christ. And with this came the conception of 
 a gracious and finely ordered charity, moving 
 like the natural world in a constant harmonious 
 development towards a definite end. The 
 mysticism was intense, but it was practical 
 because it was intense. In that lay the 
 strength of the movement of the true Fran- 
 ciscans, and in those orders that, whether 
 called heretical or not, followed them Lollards 
 and others. Religion thus became a personal 
 and original possession. It became individual. 
 It was inspired by a social endeavour, and for 
 the world at large it made of charity a new 
 thing. 
 
 St. Thomas Aquinas took up St. Bernard's 
 position. Renunciation of property, voluntary 
 poverty, was in his view also a necessary 
 means of reaching the perfect life ; and the 
 feeling that was akin to this renunciation and 
 prompted it was charity. " All perfection of 
 the Christian life was to be attained according 
 to charity," and charity united us to God. 
 
 In the system elaborated by St. Thomas 
 Aquinas two lines of thought are wrought into 
 a kind of harmony. The one stands for 
 Aristotle and nature, the other for Christian 
 tradition and theology. We have thus a dupli- 
 cate theory of thought and action throughout,
 
 258 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 both rational and theologic virtues, and a 
 duplicate beatitude or state of happiness corre- 
 spondent to each. On the one hand it is 
 argued that the good act is an act which, in 
 relation to its object, wholly serves its purpose ; 
 and thus the measure of goodness (Prima 
 Secundae Summae Theolog. Q. xviii. 2) is the 
 proportion between action and effect. On the 
 other hand, the act has to satisfy the twofold 
 law, human reason and eternal reason. From 
 the point of view of the former the cardinal 
 factor is desire, which, made proportionate to 
 an end, is love (amor] ; and, seeking the good 
 of others, it loses its quality of concupiscence 
 and becomes friendly love (amor amicitiae). 
 But this rational love (amor) and charity 
 (caritas), the theologic virtue, may meet. All 
 virtue or goodness is a degree of love (amor), 
 if by virtue we mean the cardinal virtues and 
 refer to the rule of reason only. 
 
 But there are also theologic virtues, which 
 are on one side 'essential,' on the other side 
 participative. As wood ignited participates in 
 the natural fire, so does the individual in these 
 virtues (II. IL* 6 Ixii. 1). Charity is a kind of 
 friendship towards God. It is received per 
 infusionem spiritus sancti, and is the chief and 
 root of the theologic virtues of faith and hope,
 
 THE THEORY OF CHARITY 259 
 
 and on it the rational virtues depend. They 
 are not degrees of charity as they are of (amor) 
 love, but charity gives purpose, order, and 
 quality to them all. In this sense the word is 
 applied to the rational virtues as, for instance, to 
 beneficence. The counterpart of charity in social 
 life is pity (misericordia), the compassion that 
 moves us to supply another's want (summa 
 religionis Christianae in misericordia consistit 
 quantum ad exterior a opera}. It is, however, 
 an emotion, not a virtue, and must be regulated 
 like any other emotion ( . . . passio est et non 
 virtus. Hie autem motus potest esse secundum 
 rationem regulatus, II. II. ae xxx. 3). 
 
 Thus we pass to alms, which are the instrument 
 of pity an act of charity done through the 
 intervention of pity. The act is not done in 
 order to purchase spiritual good by a corporal 
 means, but to merit a spiritual good (per 
 effectum caritatis) through being in a state of 
 charity; and from that point of view its effect is 
 tested by the recipient being moved to pray for 
 his benefactor. The claim of others on our bene- 
 ficence is relative according to 'consanguinity 
 and other bonds (II. II.** xxxi. 3), subject to the 
 condition that the common good of many is a 
 holier obligation (divinius) than that of one. 
 Obedience and obligation to parents may be
 
 260 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 crossed by other obligations, as, for instance, 
 duty to the Church. To give alms is a com- 
 mand. Alms should consist of the superfluous 
 that is, of all that the individual possesses 
 after he has reserved what is necessary. What 
 is necessary the donor should fix in due relation 
 to the claims of his family and dependents, his 
 position in life (dignitas), and the sustenance 
 of his body. On the other hand, his gift should 
 meet the actual necessities of the recipient and 
 no more. More than this will lead to excess 
 on the recipient's part (ut inde luxurietur) or 
 to want of spirit and apathy (ut aliis remissio 
 et refrigerium sit), though allowance must be 
 made for different requirements in different 
 conditions of life. It were better to distribute 
 alms to many persons than to give more than 
 is necessary to one. In individual cases there 
 remains the further question of correction the 
 removing of some evil or sin from another ; 
 and this, too, is an act of charity. 
 
 It will be seen that though St. Thomas bases 
 his argument on a duplicate theory of thought, 
 action, and happiness, part natural, part theo- 
 logic, and states fully the conditions of good 
 action, he does not bring the two into unison. 
 Logically the argument should follow that 
 alms that fail in social benefit (that produce
 
 THE THEORY OF CHARITY 261 
 
 remissionem et refrigerium, for instance, want of 
 spirit and apathy) fail also in spiritual good, 
 for the two cannot be inconsistent. But 
 in regard to the former he does not press the 
 importance of purpose, and, in spite of his 
 Aristotle, he misses the point on which Aris- 
 totle, as a close observer of social conditions, 
 insists, that gifts without purpose and recipro- 
 city foster the dependence they are designed 
 to meet. The proverb of the ' pierced cask ' 
 is as applicable to ecclesiastical as to political 
 almsgiving, as has often been proved by the 
 event. The distribution of all ' superfluous ' 
 income in the form of alms would -have the 
 effect of a huge endowment, and would stereo- 
 type ' the poor ' as a permanent and unprogres- 
 sive class. The proposal suggests that St. 
 Thomas contemplated the adoption of a method 
 of relief which would be like a voluntary 
 poor-law ; and it is noteworthy that his phrase 
 ' necessary relief forms the defining words of 
 one chief part of the Elizabethan poor-law, while 
 he also lays stress on the importance of ' correc- 
 tion,' which, on the decline and disappearance of 
 the penitential system, assumed at the Reforma- 
 tion a prominent position in administration, in 
 relation not only to 'sin/ but also to offences 
 against society, such as idleness, etc.
 
 262 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 On this foundation was built up the classi- 
 fication of acts of charity which in one shape 
 or another had a long social tradition, and 
 which St. Thomas quotes in an elaborated form 
 the seven spiritual acts (consule, carpe, doce, 
 solare, remitte, fer, ora), counsel, sustain, teach, 
 console, save, pardon, pray ; and the seven 
 corporal (vestio, poto, cibo, redimo, tego, colligo, 
 condo), I clothe, I give drink to, I feed, I free 
 from prison, I shelter, I assist in sickness, I 
 bury (II. II.* 6 xxxii. 2). These in subsequent 
 thought became ' good works,' and availed for 
 the after-life, bringing with them definite boons. 
 Thus charity was linked to the system of 
 indulgences. The bias of the act of charity is 
 made to favour the actor. Primarily the benefit 
 reverts to him. He becomes conscious of an 
 ultimate award accruing to himself. The sim- 
 plicity of the deed, the spontaneity from which, 
 as in a well-practised art, its freshness springs 
 and its good effects result, is falsified at the 
 outset. The thought that should be wholly 
 concerned in the fulfilment of a definite purpose 
 is diverted from it. The deed itself, apart from 
 the outcome of the deed, is highly considered. 
 An extreme inducement is placed on giving, 
 counselling, and the like, but none on the 
 personal or social utility of the gift or counsel.
 
 THE THEORY OF CHARITY 263 
 
 Yet the value of these lies in their end. No 
 policy or science of charity can grow out of 
 such a system. It can produce innumerable 
 isolated acts, which may or may not be bene- 
 ficent, but it cannot enkindle the 'ordered 
 charity.' This charity is, strictly speaking, by 
 its very nature alike intellectual and emotional. 
 Otherwise it would inevitably fail of its purpose, 
 for though emotion might stimulate it, intelli- 
 gence would not guide it. 
 
 There are, then, these three lines of thought. 
 That of St. Bernard, who invigorated the 
 monastic movement, and helped to make the 
 monastery or hospital the centre of charitable 
 relief. That of St. Francis, who. passing by 
 regular and secular clergy alike, revived and 
 reinvigorated the conception of charity and 
 gave it once more the reality of a social force, 
 knowing that it would find a freer scope and 
 larger usefulness in the life of the people than 
 in the religious aristocracy of monasteries. And 
 that of St. Thomas Aquinas, who, analysing 
 the problem of charity and almsgiving, and 
 associating it with definite groups of works, 
 led to its taking, in the common thought, 
 certain stereotyped forms, so that its social aim 
 and purpose were ignored and its power for 
 good was neutralized.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 MEDIAEVAL CHARITY AND SOCIAL CONDITIONS 
 IN ENGLAND. 
 
 WE have now to turn to the conditions of social 
 life in which these thoughts fermented and took 
 practical shape. The population of England from 
 the Conquest to the fourteenth century is esti- 
 mated at between 1^ and 2^ millions. London, 
 it is believed, had a population of about 40,000. 
 Other towns were small. Two or three of the 
 larger had 4000 or 5000 inhabitants. The only 
 substantial building in a village, apart perhaps 
 from the manor-house, was the church, used 
 for many secular as well as religious purposes. 
 In the towns the mud or wood-paved huts 
 sheltered a people who, accepting a common 
 poverty, traded in little more than the neces- 
 saries of life (Green, Town Life in the Fifteenth 
 Century, i. 13). The population was stationary. 
 Famine and pestilence were of frequent occur- 
 rence (Creighton, Epidemics in Britain, p. 19),
 
 SOCIAL CONDITIONS IN ENGLAND 265 
 
 and for the careless there was waste at harvest 
 time and want in winter. Hunger was the 
 drill-sergeant of society. Owing to the hard- 
 ship and penury of life infant mortality was 
 probably very great. (Blashill, Sutton in 
 Holdernesse, p. 123). The fifteenth century 
 was, however, ' the golden age of the labourer.' l 
 Our problem is to ascertain what was the 
 service of charity to this people till the 
 end of the century. In order to estimate 
 this we will have to apply tests similar to 
 those we applied before to Greece and Rome 
 and the pre-mediaeval Church. 
 
 THE FAMILY. 
 
 Largely Germanic in its origin, we may 
 perhaps set down as elemental in the English 
 race what Tacitus said of the Germans. They 
 had the home virtues. They had a high regard 
 for chastity, and respected and enforced the 
 family tie. The wife was honoured. The men 
 were poor, but when the actual pressure of their 
 
 lr This view, that of Thorold Rogers, as to the fifteenth cen- 
 tury is too absolute. Cf. Dr. Cunningham's English Industry 
 and Commerce, fourth ed., p. 439. His summing up (p. 441) is : 
 " For many of the rural population the fifteenth century was a 
 time of abundance ; not because agriculture was flourishing, but 
 because they were being set to work at domestic manufactures 
 by enterprising employers."
 
 266 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 work fighting was removed, they were idle. 
 They were born gamblers. Much toil fell upon 
 the wife ; but slavery was rather a form of tenure 
 than a Roman bondage. 1 As elsewhere, there 
 was in England " the joint family or household " 
 (Pollock and Maitland, English Law before 
 Edward I. i. 31). Each member of the com- 
 munity was, or should be, under some lord ; 
 for the lordless man was, like the wanderer in 
 Homer, who belonged to no phratry, suspected 
 and dangerous, and his kinsfolk might be required 
 to find a lord for him. There was personal 
 servitude, but it was not of one complexion ; 
 there were grades amongst the unfree, and the 
 general advance to freedom was continuous. 
 By the ninth century the larger amount of the 
 slavery was bondage by tenure. In the reign 
 of Edward L, though " the larger half of the 
 
 1 On the other hand under Scandinavian tribal custom (Anglo- 
 Saxon Custom : Seebohm 264) if the thrall became a freedman, 
 his children inherited from him, for he had gained family rights. 
 He " married and would make his own bargains and keep what 
 property he and his wife could accumulate." But if the freed 
 parents could not keep their children and fell into extreme 
 want, they were grafgangsmenn ; and a " grave shall be dug 
 in the churchyard, and they shall be put into it and left to 
 die there. The master shall take out the one who lives the 
 longest and feed that one thereafter." Freedom was thus given 
 at the freedman's peril. The self-support of the family was an 
 indispensable condition of it.
 
 SOCIAL CONDITIONS IN ENGLAND 267 
 
 rural population was unfree," yet the serf, 
 notwithstanding the fact that he was his lord's 
 chattel, was free against all save his lord. A 
 century later (1381) villeinage that is payment 
 for tenancy by service, instead of by quit-rent 
 was practically extinguished. So steady was 
 the progress towards the freedom and self- 
 maintenance of the individual and his family. 
 
 THE MANOR. 
 
 In social importance, next to the family, 
 comes the manor, the organization of which 
 affected charity greatly on one side. It was 
 "an economic unit," the estate of a lord, on 
 which there were associated the lord with his 
 demesne, tenants free of service, and villeins 
 and others, tenants by service. All had the 
 use of land, even the serf. The estate was 
 regulated by a manor court, consisting of the 
 lord of the manor or his representative and the 
 free tenants, and entrusted with wide quasi- 
 domestic jurisdiction. The value of the estate 
 depended on the labour available for its culti- 
 vation, and the cultivators were the unfree 
 tenants. Hence the lord, through the manor- 
 court, required an indemnity or fine if a child, 
 for instance, left the manor ; and similarly, if 
 a villein died, his widow might have to remarry
 
 268 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 or pay a fine. Thus the lord reacquired a 
 servant and the widow and her family were 
 maintained. The court, too, fixed prices, and 
 thus in local and limited conditions of supply 
 and demand was able to equalize them in 
 a measure and to neutralize some of the effects 
 of scarcity. In this way, till the reign of 
 Edward I., and, where the manor courts remained 
 active, till much later, a self-supporting social 
 organization made any systematic public or 
 charitable relief unnecessary. 1 
 
 1 Mr. Arthur H. Johnson in The Disappearance of the Small 
 Landowner (1909), describes the manor before the great plague, 
 and incidentally sums up the position of the villein very ably ; 
 and the latter question so closely affects the social issues of 
 mediaeval English life which we have to consider, that we 
 venture to quote his description : 
 
 " A typical manor, then, in the middle of the thirteenth 
 century, was a complete social and juridical unit. The arable 
 land is still cultivated in common, generally on the three-field 
 system, each field being left fallow every third year. On these 
 open fields the freeholders and the villeins, who enormously 
 preponderate, except in a few North-Eastern counties such as 
 Norfolk and in Kent, hold their strips and in return pay rents 
 or owe labour service to their lord. The lord's demesne itself 
 either lies in strips on the open fields, or has become consoli- 
 dated, and is cultivated by all those who owe him service, such 
 as ploughing, carting, herding cows, and dairy work, sometimes 
 partly by hired labour. 
 
 " If the lord is a small man he lives on the manor and manages 
 it himself. If he is the king or some great lord, ecclesiastical 
 or lay, with many manors, his demesne is managed or let out in 
 farm to his bailiff. Outside the arable land lies the waste.
 
 SOCIAL CONDITIONS IN ENGLAND 269 
 
 THE PARISH AND THE TITHE. 
 
 The conversion of England in the seventh 
 century was effected by bishops, accompanied by 
 itinerant priests, who made use of conventual 
 houses as the centres of their work. The 
 parochial system was not firmly established till 
 the tenth century (970). Then, by a law of 
 Edgar, a man who had a church on his own 
 land was allowed to pay a third of his tithe 
 
 This, according to the statute of Merton of the reign of Henry 
 III., the lord could enclose or dispose of at will, provided that 
 he left sufficient whereon the freeholders might pasture their 
 cattle, cut turf, timber, and so forth, privileges which by custom 
 were usually shared by the villeins and for which a small 
 annual payment was made. 
 
 " By law there is a great difference between the villein or 
 bondsman by blood and the freeman, and also between the 
 villeinage by tenure and the freehold. The freeman, whether 
 he holds some land on villein tenure or not, is free to come and 
 go ; he cannot be forced to act as reeve ; he can sell all the 
 lands he holds in freehold, and above all, if his tenure is free, 
 he can sue for a writ of right in the King's Courts against his 
 lord who dispossesses him. The villein by blood or status, is 
 bound to the land : he cannot leave it without the lord's 
 licence ; he is liable to pay merchet for leave to marry his 
 daughter and leyrwite for her incontinency, and fines for leave 
 to send his boy to school, or to have him ordained ; he can be 
 tallaged at the lord's will. The lord can seize his lands and his 
 chattels, except perhaps his waynage or implements of industry, 1 
 although land or goods which he has himself acquired do not 
 lapse unless the lord has actually taken them in hand. 2 The 
 
 1 Vinogradoff, Villeinage, p. 75. 2 Ibid., p. 67.
 
 270 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 to his own church, instead of giving the whole 
 of it to the minster or conventual church. 
 Theodore, archbishop of Canterbury (667), had 
 introduced the Carlovingian system into England ; 
 and, accordingly, the parish priest was required 
 
 lord can move him from one holding to another and increase 
 his labour services. He can sell his labour, or even his person 
 and his family, away from the manor altogether. The bonds- 
 man by blood is indeed protected in life and limb against his 
 lord, and as against all others he is free and can enforce any 
 engagements made with them, but he must first get his lord's 
 leave and pay a fine ( gersumma). 
 
 " So again the difference between villeinage and free tenure is 
 considerable. If it is free, the services other than the military 
 service, which was forty days whenever called upon and the 
 dues are fixed and immutable, whereas the characteristic feature 
 of villein tenure lies in the uncertainty of the services. ' He 
 knoweth not to-night what he may have to do to-morrow.' 
 He must grind his corn at the lord's mill and pay dues ; he 
 must pen his sheep on the lord's fold to manure it ; he must 
 keep his buildings in repair, and his ditches clean ; he pays 
 numerous little dues in kind or money. Lastly, villein tenure, 
 unless it was on ancient demesne (a manor which had been in 
 the king's hand ' when Edward the Confessor was alive and 
 dead,' that is in the first year of Will. I.) is not protected by 
 the king's court, while on his death his lord can admit whom he 
 likes, and if his son is admitted he must pay a heriot. 
 
 " Such was the legal position of the villein whether by status 
 (blood) or by tenure. Yet we must remember that the manor 
 was a juridical unit and had its court. Here no doubt the lord 
 or his steward presided. We might therefore expect that in 
 and by this court the chains of villeinage would be all the more 
 strongly rivetted. The fact was otherwise. Just as the exist- 
 ence of a good system of justice acts as a control on the 
 arbitrariness of a despot, so it was in the case of the manor.
 
 SOCIAL CONDITIONS IN ENGLAND 271 
 
 to provide for strangers and to keep a room 
 in his house for them. Of the tithe, a third 
 and not a fourth was to go to the poor with 
 any surplus ; and in order to have larger means 
 of helping them, the priests were urged to work 
 
 In this court all tenants, free and villein, were suitors, and 
 though villeins alone could be forced to serve on the juries, 
 freemen also did. It was under the protection of the court 
 that those customs grew, which served as an effective check on 
 the will of the lord. Custom is the very life of the manor, the 
 court is the protector of that custom, and the suitors were the 
 interpreters of that custom. ' To fix,' says Professor Maitland, 
 ' in precise terms the degree of binding force that the lords in 
 their thoughts and deeds ascribed to manorial custom would be 
 impossible. Generalizations about the moral sentiments of a 
 great and heterogenous class of men are apt to be fallacious, 
 and when a lord pays respect to a custom that cannot be 
 enforced against him by any compulsory legal process, it will 
 be hard to choose between the many possible motives by which 
 he may have been urged ; provident self interest, a desire for 
 a quiet life, human fellow feeling for his dependents, besides his 
 respect for the custom as a custom, may all have pulled one 
 way.' : But whatever were their motives, custom grew, and 
 the position of the villein no longer ' depended on the caprice 
 of the lord though it depended theoretically on his will,' 2 and 
 if the villein forfeited his land for non-performance of his 
 duties, the question whether he had so failed was decided by 
 the court where the villeins, and not the lord, were the judges. 
 "Thus, although all that the villeins by blood possessed be- 
 longed by law to the lord, in practice we find them enjoying 
 property, and buying and selling at will. 3 Further, the dis- 
 
 1 Pollock and Maitland, i. 359. 
 
 2 Vinogradoff, Villeinage, p. 176. 
 
 3 Page, End of Villeinage, p. 15.
 
 272 
 
 themselves, according to the ancient canons of 
 the Church (cf. Labbeus, IV. Cone. Carthag. 
 A.D. 398). The importance of the tithe to the 
 poor is shown by Acts of Richard II. and 
 Henry IV., by which it was enacted that, if 
 parochial tithes were appropriated to a monas- 
 tery, a portion of them should be assigned to 
 the poor of the parish. 
 
 At a very early date (1287) quasi-compulsory 
 charges in the nature of a rate were imposed on 
 parishioners for various church purposes (Pollock 
 and Maitland, i. 604), though in the fourteenth 
 and fifteenth centuries a compulsory church 
 rate was seldom made. Collections were made 
 by paid collectors, especially for Hoke money- 
 money gathered for church purposes (Brand's 
 Antiquities, p. 11 2). But there must have 
 been many varieties in practice. In Somerset- 
 shire the churchwarden's accounts (1349 to 
 1560) show that the parish contributed nothing 
 to the relief of the poor, and it seems probable 
 
 tinction between villein status and villein tenure, though it 
 still existed, was becoming obscured, because many villeins by 
 status held lands on free tenure and many freemen held lands 
 on villein tenure. The freeholder often worked by the side of 
 the bondsman on the lord's demesne. They often served on the 
 juries of the court, and in some cases paid the merchet which 
 was considered the especial mark of bondage by blood." x 
 
 1 Vinogradoff, Villeinage, p. 154.
 
 SOCIAL CONDITIONS IN ENGLAND 273 
 
 that the personal charities of the parishioners, 
 and the charities of the guild fellowships and of 
 the parsonage house sufficed. (Bishop Hobhouse, 
 Churchwardens' Accounts, 1349-1560. Somer- 
 set Record Soc.). Many parishes possessed land, 
 houses, and cattle, and received gifts and 
 legacies of all kinds. The proceeds of this 
 property, if given for the use of the parish 
 generally, might, if necessary, be available for 
 the relief of the poor, but if given definitely 
 for their use would provide doles or stock 
 cattle or ' poor's lands,' etc. (cf. Augustus Jessop, 
 Before the Great Pillage, p. 40, and many 
 instances in the reports of the Charity Com- 
 missioners, 1818-1835). Of the endowments for 
 parish doles, very many may have disappeared 
 in the break-up of the sixteenth century. There 
 were also ' Parish Ales,' the proceeds of which 
 would be used for parish purposes or for relief. 
 Further, all the greater festivals were days of 
 feasting and the distribution of food ; at funerals 
 also there were often large distributions, and also 
 at marriages. The faithful generally, subject 
 to penance, were required to relieve the poor 
 and the stranger. In the larger part of England 
 the parish and the vill were usually coterminous. 
 In the north a parish contained several vills. 
 There were thus side by side the charitable
 
 274 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 relief system of the parish, which at an early 
 date became a rating area, and the self-supporting 
 system of the manor. 
 
 THE MONASTERIES. 
 
 As Christianity spread monasteries spread, and 
 each monastery was a centre of relief. Some- 
 times they were established, like St. Albans 
 (796), for a hundred Benedictine monks and for 
 the entertainment of strangers ; or sometimes 
 without any such special purpose, like the 
 abbey of Croyland (reorganized 946), which, 
 becoming exceeding rich, from its diversorium 
 pauperum, or almonry, " relieved the whole 
 country round so that prodigious numbers 
 resorted to it." At Glastonbury, for instance, 
 (1537) 140 16s. 8d. was given away in doles. 
 But documents seem to prove (Denton, England 
 in the Fifteenth Century, p. 245) that the relief 
 generally given by monasteries was much less 
 than is usually supposed. The general system 
 may be described (cf. Rule ; S. Dunst. Cant. 
 Archep. p. xlii. Dugdale ; J. B. Clark ; TJie 
 Observances; Augustinian Priory, Barnwell : 
 Gasquet ; English Monastic Life). The almonry 
 was usually near the church of the monastery. 
 An almoner was in charge. He was to be 
 prudent and discreet in the distribution of
 
 SOCIAL CONDITIONS IN ENGLAND 275 
 
 his doles (portiones), and to relieve travellers, 
 palmers, chaplains and mendicants (mendicantes, 
 apparently the beggars recognized as living by 
 begging, such as we have noted under other 
 social conditions), and the leprous more liberally 
 than others. The old and infirm, lame and 
 blind who were confined to their beds he was 
 to visit and relieve suitably (in competenti 
 annona). The importunity of the poor he was 
 to put up with, and to meet their need as far 
 as he could. In the almonry there were 
 usually rooms for the sick. The sick outside 
 the precincts were relieved at the almoner's 
 discretion. Continuous relief might be given 
 after consultation with the superior. All the 
 remnants of meals and the old clothes of 
 the monks were given to the almoner for 
 distribution, and at Christmas he had a store 
 of stockings, etc., to give away as presents to 
 widows, orphans, and poor clerks. He also 
 provided the Maundy gifts and selected the 
 poor for the washing of feet. He was thus 
 a local visitor and alms distributor, not merely 
 at the gate of the monastery, but in the 
 neighbourhood, and had also at his disposal 
 1 indoor ' relief for the sick. Separate from 
 the rest of the house there was also a dormitory 
 and rooms and the kitchen for strangers. A
 
 276 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 Jiospitularius attended to their needs, and novices 
 waited on them. Guests who were laymen 
 might stay on, working in return for board 
 and lodging (Smith's Diet. Christian Antiq., 
 Benedictine). The monasteries often established 
 hospitals ; they served also as schools for the 
 gentry and for the poor ; and they were pioneers 
 of agriculture. In the twelfth century, in which 
 many monastic orders were constituted, there 
 were many lavish endowments. In the fourteenth 
 century their usefulness had begun to wane. 
 At the end of that centurv the larger estates 
 
 m 
 
 were generally held in entail, with the result 
 that younger sons were put into religious houses. 
 This worldliness had its natural consequences. 
 In the fifteenth century, owing to mismanage- 
 ment, waste, and subsequently to the decline of 
 rural prosperity, their resources were greatly 
 crippled. 
 
 In their relation to charity one or two points 
 may be noted : (I) Of the small population of 
 England the professed monks and nuns with the 
 parish priests (Rogers, Hist. Agric. and Prices, 
 i. 58) numbered at least 30,000 or 40,000. 
 This number of celibates was a standing protest 
 against the moral sufficiency of the family life. 
 On the other hand, amongst them were the 
 brothers and sisters who visited the poor and
 
 SOCIAL CONDITIONS IN ENGLAND 277 
 
 nursed the sick in hospitals ; and many who 
 now succumb physically or mentally to the 
 pressure of life, and are cared for in institutions, 
 may then have found maintenance and a retreat 
 in the monasteries. (2) Bound together by no 
 common controlling organization, the monasteries 
 were but so many miscellaneous centres of relief, 
 chiefly casual relief. They were mostly " magni- 
 ficent hostelries." (3) They stood outside the 
 parish, and they weakened its organization 
 and hampered its development. 
 
 THE HOSPITALS. 
 
 The revival of piety in the eleventh century 
 led to a large increase in the number of hospitals 
 and hospital orders. To show how far they 
 covered the field in England two instances 
 may be quoted. At Canterbury (Creighton, 
 Epidemics, p. 87) there were four for different 
 purposes, two endowed by Lanfranc (1084), one 
 for poor, infirm, lame, and blind men and 
 women, and one outside the town for lepers. 
 These hospitals were put under the charge of 
 a priory, and endowed out of tithes payable 
 to the secular clergy. Later (Henry II.) a 
 hospital for leprous sisters was established, and 
 afterwards a hospital for leprous monks and
 
 278 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 poor relations of the monks of St. Augustine's. 
 In a less populous parish, Luton (Cobbe, Luton 
 Church), there were a hospital for the poor, 
 an almshouse, and two hospitals, one for the 
 sick and one for the leprous. The word ' leper,' 
 it is evident, was used very loosely, and was, 
 applied to many diseases other than leprosy 
 There were hospitals for the infirm and the 
 leprous ; the disease was not considered con- 
 tagious. The hospital in its modern sense was 
 but slowly created. Thus St. Bartholomew's 
 in London was founded (1123) for a master, 
 brethren, and sisters, and for the entertainment 
 of poor diseased persons till they got well ; of 
 distressed women big with child till they were 
 able to go abroad ; and for the maintenance, 
 until the age of seven, of all such children 
 whose mothers died in the house. St. Thomas's 
 (rebuilt 1228) had a master and brethren and 
 three lay sisters, and 40 beds for poor, infirm, 
 and impotent people, who had also victual and 
 firing. There were hospitals for many special 
 purposes as for the blind, for instance. There 
 were also many hospital orders in England and 
 on the Continent. They sprang up beside the 
 monastic orders, and for a time were very 
 popular : brothers and sisters of the Holy 
 Ghost (1198), sisters of St. Elizabeth (1207-1231)
 
 SOCIAL CONDITIONS IN ENGLAND 279 
 
 Beguins and Beghards (about 1175), knights of 
 St. John, and others. 
 
 THE MENDICANT ORDERS. 
 
 The Franciscans tended the sick and poor in 
 the slums of the towns with great devotion 
 indeed, the whole movement tells of a splendid 
 self-abandonment and an intensity of effort 
 in the early spring of its enthusiasm and 
 with the aid of reform councils and reforma- 
 tions it lengthened out its usefulness for two 
 centuries.
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 MEDIAEVAL ENDOWED CHARITIES AND GUILD 
 CHARITIES. 
 
 As in the pre-mediaeval Church, the system 
 of relief is that of charitable endowments a 
 marked contrast to the modern method of 
 voluntary associations or rate-supported institu- 
 tions. 
 
 THE CHURCH AS LEGATEE. 
 
 The church building among the Teutonic 
 races was not held by the bishop as part of 
 what was originally the charitable property of 
 the Church. It was assigned to the patron 
 saint of the church by the donor, who retained 
 the right of administration, of which his own 
 patronage or right of presentation is a relic. 
 Subsequently, with the study of Roman law, 
 the conception of the Church as a persona ficta 
 prevailed ; and till the larger growth of the 
 guilds and corporations it was the only general 
 legatee for charitable gifts. As these arise a
 
 MEDIAEVAL ENDOWED CHARITIES 281 
 
 large number of charitable trusts are created 
 and held by lay corporations ; and ' alms ' 
 include gifts for social as well as religious or 
 eleemosynary purposes. 
 
 FREEDOM FROM TAXATION AND SERVICE. 
 
 Gifts to the Church for charitable or other 
 purposes, were made in free, pure, and perpetual 
 alms (" ad tenendum in puram et perpetuam 
 eleemosynam sine omni temporali servicio et 
 consuetudine "). Land held under this frankal- 
 moigne was given "in perpetual alms," therefore 
 the donor could not retract it ; in free alms, 
 therefore he could exact no services in regard 
 to it ; and in pure alms as being free from 
 secular jurisdiction (cf. Pollock and Maitland). 
 
 ALIENATION AND MORTMAIN. 
 
 To prevent alienation of property to religious 
 houses, with the consequent loss of service to 
 the superior or chief lords, a license from the 
 chief lord was required to legalize the alienation 
 (Magna Carta and Edw. I.. De viris religiosis). 
 Other statutes (Edw. I. and Rich. II.) enacted 
 that this license should be issued out of 
 Chancery after investigation ; and the principle 
 was applied to civil corporations. The necessity
 
 282 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 of this license was one lay check on injurious 
 alienation. 
 
 IRRESPONSIBLE ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 Until after the thirteenth century, when the 
 lay courts had asserted their right to settle 
 disputes as to lands held in alms, the adminis- 
 tration of charity was from the lay point of 
 view entirely irresponsible. It was outside the 
 secular jurisdiction ; and civilly the professed 
 clergy, who were the administrators, were 
 ' dead.' They could not sue or be sued 
 except through their sovereign their chief, the 
 abbot. They formed a large body of non-civic 
 inhabitants free from the pressure and the 
 responsibilities of civil life. 
 
 CONTROL. 
 
 Apart from the control of the abbot, friar, 
 master, or other head, the bishop was visitor, 
 or, as we should say, inspector ; and abuses 
 might be remedied by the visit of the bishop 
 or his ordinary. The bishop's ordinary (2 
 Henry V. i. 1) was the recognized visitor of 
 all hospitals apart from the founder. The 
 founder and his family retained a right of 
 intervention. Sometimes thus an institution 
 was reorganized, or even dissolved, the property
 
 MEDIAEVAL 
 
 reverting to th 
 Anglicanum, v 
 
 Charities \ 
 reign, appro} 
 their origin 
 new object 
 instance, 
 is re-est 
 a mast* 
 bantu' 
 Henr 
 is { 
 Ox 
 b-
 
 AL LIFE 
 
 ot qualified as 
 
 nen, sons living 
 
 rants, and ap- 
 
 an increasing 
 
 >upled with a 
 
 lay charities 
 
 ds, and for 
 
 Men left 
 
 i decayed 
 
 r other- 
 
 m their 
 
 . The 
 
 msure 
 
 uilds 
 
 ints 
 
 'S. 
 
 e 
 \
 
 MEDIAEVAL ENDOWED CHARITIES 287 
 
 had in large towns courts of orphans presided 
 over by the mayor and aldermen, thus taking 
 over a duty that previously had been one of 
 conspicuous importance in the Church. As early 
 as 1257 in Westphalian towns there was a 
 rough-and-ready system of Easter relief of the 
 poor ; and in Frankfort in 1437 there was a 
 town council of almoners with a systematic 
 programme of relief (Ratzinger, p. 352). Thus 
 at the close of the Middle Ages the towns were 
 gradually assuming what had been charitable 
 functions of the Church.
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 THE RISE OF STATUTORY AND POOR-LAW SERFDOM. 
 
 WHILE a new freedom was being attained by the 
 labourer in the country and the burgher in the 
 town, the difficulty of obtaining a sufficient 
 supply of labour for agriculture must have been 
 constant, especially at every visitation of plague 
 and famine. In accordance with a general policy 
 of State regulation which was to control and 
 supervise industry, agriculture and poor relief, 
 and to repress vagrancy by gaols and houses 
 of correction, the State accordingly stepped in 
 as arbiter and organizer. By Statutes of 
 Labourers beginning in 1351 (25 E. 3. 1351) 
 it aimed at enforcing a settled wage and restrain- 
 ing migration. From 1351 it endeavoured to 
 suppress mendicity, and in part to systematize 
 it in the interest of infirm and aged mendicants. 
 Each series of enactments is the natural com- 
 plement of the other. In the main their 
 signification, from the point of view of charity,
 
 POOR-LAW SERFDOM 289 
 
 lies in the fact that they represent a persistent 
 endeavour to prevent social unsettlement and 
 in part the distress, which unsettlement causes, 
 and which vagrancy in some measure indicates, 
 by keeping the people within the ranks of recog- 
 nized dependence, the settled industry of the 
 crafts and of agriculture, or forcing them back 
 into it by fear of the gaol or the stocks. The 
 extreme point of this policy was reached when 
 by the laws of Edward VI. and Elizabeth, 
 possibly founded on Byzantine edicts, the 
 despairing legislator offered to give the mendi- 
 cant as a slave or bondman for a period to any 
 one who would take him. On the other hand, 
 it was desired that relief should be a means of 
 preventing migration. 
 
 In any time of general pressure there is a 
 desire to organize mendicity, to prevent the 
 wandering of beggars, to create a kind of 
 settled poor, distinguished from the rest as 
 infirm and not able-bodied, and to keep these 
 at least at home sufficiently supported by local 
 and parochial relief; and this, in its simpler form 
 all the world over, has in the past been effected 
 by response to public begging. The argument 
 may be summed up thus : We cannot have 
 begging, which implies that the beggar is cared 
 for by no one, and belongs to no one, and there-
 
 290 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 fore throws himself on the world at large. 
 Therefore, if he is able-bodied he must be 
 punished as unsocial, for it is his fault that 
 he belongs to no one ; or we must make him 
 some one's dependent, and so keep him ; or 
 if he is infirm, and therefore of no service to 
 any one if no one will keep him we must 
 organize his mendicity, for such mendicity is 
 justified. If he cannot dig for the man to 
 whom he does or should belong, he must beg. 
 Then out of the failure to organize mendicity 
 for relief of itself is no remedy, least of all 
 casual relief a poor-law springs up, which, 
 afterwards associated with the provision of 
 employment, will, it is hoped, make relief in 
 some measure remedial by increasing its quan- 
 tity by means of compulsory levies. This 
 argument, which combined statutory wage control 
 and statutory poor relief, seems to have been 
 firmly bedded in the English legislative mind 
 for more than two centuries, from 1351 till after 
 1600 ; and, until the close of the eighteenth 
 century, these two series of laws effectually 
 reduced the English labourer to a new industrial 
 dependence. To people imbued with ideas of 
 feudalism the way of escape from villeinage 
 seemed to be not independence, but a new 
 reversion to it.
 
 POOR-LAW SERFDOM 291 
 
 Many elements produced the social and 
 economic catastrophe of the sixteenth century, 
 for the condition into which the country fell 
 can hardly be considered less than a catastrophe. 
 With the growing independence of the people 
 there was created after the thirteenth century an 
 unsettled ' masterless ' class, a residue of failure 
 resulting from social changes, which was large 
 and important enough to call for legislation. 
 In the fifteenth century, ' the golden age of the 
 English labourer,' the towns increased and 
 flourished. Both town and country did well. 
 At the end of the century came the decadence. 
 The measure of the strain, when perhaps it had 
 reached its lowest level, is indicated by the 
 following comparison : " The cost of a peasant's 
 family of four in the early part of the fourteenth 
 century was 3 4s. 9d. ; after 1540 it was 8" 
 (Rogers, Hist of Agric. and Prices, iv. 756). 
 
 The cause of this has now been fairly investi- 
 gated. The value of land in the thirteenth 
 century generally depended chiefly ' on the head 
 of labour' retained upon it. Its fertility depended 
 on main-oeuvre (manure). To keep labour upon 
 it was therefore the aim of the lord or owner. 
 The enclosing of lands for sheep began early, 
 and in the time of Edward III., in the great 
 days of the wool staple, must have been ex ten-
 
 292 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 sive. So long as the demand for the exporta- 
 tion of wool, and then for its consumption at 
 home in the cloth trade, continued, the towns 
 prospered, and the enclosures did not become a 
 grievance. But in the fifteenth century itself, 
 in many ways prosperous, changes were taking 
 place that affected the towns greatly. " Com- 
 petition was beginning to have freer play. 
 Domestic industry, especially that of weaving 
 of cloth in the rural districts, was taking the 
 place of the old guild system, and causing dis- 
 location of manufacture in many towns. Out of 
 the wreck of the mediaeval system the capitalist 
 was arising, who found in this new world a field 
 for enterprise and business capacity " (Johnson, 
 The Disappearance of the Small Landowner, 
 p. 29). Before the reign of Henry VII. , with 
 the decay of trade, the towns decayed, and 
 their population in some cases diminished ex- 
 traordinarily. This reacted on the country, 
 where the great families had already become 
 impoverished and were hardly able to support 
 their retainers. In Henry VIII. 's time the 
 lands of the religious houses were confiscated. 
 Worked on old lines, the custom of tillage 
 remained in force on them. Accordingly, when 
 these estates fell into private hands they 
 were transferred subject to the condition that
 
 POOR-LAW SERFDOM 293 
 
 they should be tilled as heretofore. The con- 
 dition was evaded by the new owners, and 
 the disbandment of farm labourers went on 
 apace. Enclosures were very profitable. Their 
 actual extent in the fifteenth and sixteenth 
 centuries it is difficult to gauge. But it can 
 hardly be doubted that it was a phenomenon 
 large and conspicuous enough to represent a 
 change of national importance. It affected not 
 only the " waste " of the manor, but the open 
 field in which each member of the manor had 
 his share and interest. It was to remain a 
 force for the industrialization of agriculture 
 till the end of the eighteenth century. An 
 industrial revolution indeed was in progress, 
 and, especially in its earlier stages, the people 
 could hardly adapt themselves to the new con- 
 ditions without suffering great penury and 
 distress. With towns decaying the effect of 
 this must have been terrible. What were 
 really ' latifundia ' were created, ' great landes,' 
 " enclosures of a mile or two or thereabouts . . . 
 destroying thereby not only the farms and 
 cottages within the same circuits, but also towns 
 and villages adjoining." A herdsman and his 
 wife took the place of eighteen to twenty-four 
 farm hands. The people thus set wandering 
 could only join the wanderers from the decaying
 
 294 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 towns. At the same time the economic difficulty 
 was aggravated by a new patrician or commercial 
 greed. Owing to the confiscation of monastic 
 property a great amount of land was thrown 
 upon the market. It was bought up as an 
 investment with but little regard to the claims 
 of the labourers upon it. It passed into com- 
 paratively few hands, few by comparison with 
 the number of all those members of the old 
 manors, who had made their subsistence out 
 of it. Thus once more the absorption of the 
 land by a few, regardless of the legal and 
 equitable claims of all those whose interests 
 were involved, led to long continued social 
 demoralization. 
 
 A few years after the alienation of the 
 monasteries the coinage (1543) was debased. 
 By this means prices were arbitrarily raised, 
 and wages were increased nominally ; but never- 
 theless the price of necessaries was ' so enhanced ' 
 that neither " the poor labourers can live with 
 their wages that is limited by your grace's laws, 
 nor the artificers can make, much less sell, their 
 wares at any reasonable price " (Lamond, The 
 Commonweal of this Realm of England, p. 
 xlvii). No social reformation, such as the 
 charitable instincts of Wycliffe, More, Hales, 
 Latimer, and other men suggested, was
 
 POOR-LAW SERFDOM 295 
 
 attempted, or at least persistently carried out. 
 In towns the organization of labour had become 
 restrictive, exclusive, and inadaptable, or, judged 
 from the moral standpoint, uncharitable. There 
 had been a time of plenty and extravagance, of 
 which in high quarters the famous ' field of the 
 cloth of gold ' was typical ; and probably, in 
 accordance with the frequently observed law of 
 social economics, as the advance in wages and 
 their purchasing power in the earlier part of the 
 fifteenth century had not been accompanied by 
 a simultaneous advance in self-discipline and 
 intelligent expenditure, it resulted in part in 
 lessened competence and industrial ability on 
 the part of the workmen, and thus in the end 
 produced pauperism. 
 
 The poverty of the country was very great 
 in the reigns of Edward VI. and Elizabeth. 
 Adversity then taught the people new manners, 
 and households became more simple and thrifty. 
 In the reign of James L, with enforced economy 
 and thrift, a " slow but substantial improvement 
 in agriculture" took place, and a new growth 
 of commercial enterprise. The vigour of the 
 municipalities had abated, so that in Henry 
 VIII. 's time they had become the very humble 
 servants of the Government ; and the Govern- 
 ment, on the other hand, had become strongly
 
 296 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 centralized in itself a sign of the general with- 
 drawal of self-sustaining activity in all admini- 
 stration, in the administration of charitable 
 relief no less than in other departments. A 
 system of endowed charities had been built 
 up, supported chiefly by rents from landed 
 property. To a very large extent these had 
 now passed into other hands, and thus the 
 means of relief, which Edward VI. and Queen 
 Elizabeth might have utilized at a time of 
 general distress, had been dissipated by the 
 acts of their predecessors. The civil inde- 
 pendence of the monasteries and religious houses 
 might have been justified, possibly, when they 
 were engaged in missionary work and were 
 instilling into the people the precepts of a 
 higher moral law than that which was in force 
 around them. But afterwards, as the ability 
 and intelligence of the community increased, 
 their privileges became more and more anta- 
 gonistic to charity, and tended to create a 
 non-social, and even anti-social, ecclesiastical 
 democracy actuated by aims and interests in 
 which the general good of the people had little 
 or no place. There was a growing alienation 
 between religious tradition and secular opinion, 
 as Lollardism slowly permeated the thought of 
 the people and led the way to the Reformation.
 
 POOR-LAW SERFDOM 297 
 
 While this alienation existed no national system 
 of charity, civic and yet religious, could be 
 created. But worse than all, the ideal of charity 
 had been degraded. A self- regarding system of 
 relief had superseded charity, and it was pro- 
 ductive of nothing but alms, large or small, 
 isolated and unmethodic, given with a wrong 
 bias, and thus almost inevitably with evil 
 results. Out of this could spring no vigorous 
 co-operative charity. Charity not relief indeed 
 seemed to have left the world. The larger 
 issues were overlooked. The property of the 
 hospitals and the guilds was wantonly con- 
 fiscated, though the poor had already lost that 
 share in the revenues of the Church to which at 
 one time they were admitted to have a just 
 claim. A new beginning had to be made. 
 The obligations of charity had to be revived. 
 A new organization of charitable relief had to 
 be created, and that with an empty exchequer 
 and after a vast waste of charitable resources. 
 There were signs of a new congregational and 
 parochial energy ; yet the task could not be 
 entrusted to the religious bodies, divided and 
 disunited as they were. In their stead it 
 could only be imposed on some authority which 
 represented the general community, such as 
 municipalities ; and in spite of the centralization
 
 298 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 of the Government there seemed some hope 
 of creating a system of relief in connexion 
 with them. They were tried, and, very 
 naturally, failed. In the poverty of the time 
 it seemed that the poor could be relieved only 
 by a compulsory rate, and the administration 
 of statutory relief naturally devolved on the 
 central Government the only vigorous adminis- 
 trative body left in the country. The Govern- 
 ment might indeed have adopted the alternative 
 of letting the industrial difficulties of the 
 country work themselves out, but they had 
 inherited a policy of minute legislative control, 
 and they continued it. Revising previous 
 statutes, they enacted the Poor Law, which 
 still remains on our statute book. It could be 
 no remedy for social offences against charity 
 and the community. But in part at least 
 it was successful. It helped to conceal the 
 failure to find a remedy.
 
 CHAPTER XXVIL 
 
 CHARITY AND THE REFORMATION. 
 
 DURING the Reformation, which extended, it 
 should be understood, from the middle of the 
 fourteenth century to the reign of James L, 
 the groundwork of the theory of charity was 
 being recast. The old system and the narrow 
 theory on which it had come to depend were 
 discredited. The recoil is startling. To a very 
 large extent charitable administration had been 
 in the hands of men and women who, as an 
 indispensable condition to their participation in 
 it, took the vows of obedience, chastity, and 
 ' wilful ' poverty. Now this was all entirely 
 set aside. It was felt (see Homilies on Faith 
 and Good Works, etc., A.D. 1547) that socially 
 and morally the method had been a failure. 
 The vow of obedience, it was argued, led to 
 a general disregard of the duties of civic and 
 family life. Those who bound themselves by 
 it were outside the state and did not serve it.
 
 300 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 In regard to chastity the Homily states a 
 widespread opinion : " How the profession of 
 chastity was kept, it is more honesty to pass 
 over in silence and let the world judge of 
 what is well known." As to wilful poverty, the 
 regular clergy, it is urged, were not poor, but 
 rich, for they were in possession of much wealth. 
 Their property, it is true, was held in cammuni, 
 and not personally, but nevertheless it was 
 practically theirs, and they used it for their 
 personal enjoyment ; " arid for all their riches 
 they might never help father nor mother, nor 
 others that were indeed very needy and poor, 
 without the license of their father abbot" or 
 other head. This was the negative position. 
 The positive was found in the doctrine of 
 justification the central point in the dis- 
 cussions of the time, a plant from the garden 
 of St. Augustine. Justification was the personal 
 conviction of a lively (or living) faith, and was 
 defined as "a true trust and confidence of the 
 mercy of God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 
 and a stedfast hope of all good things to be 
 received at His hands." Without this justifica- 
 tion there could be no good works. They were 
 the signs of a lively faith and grew out of it. 
 Apart from it, what seemed to be ' good works ' 
 were of the nature of sin, phantom acts pro-
 
 CHARITY AND THE REFORMATION 301 
 
 ductive of nothing, " birds that were lost, unreal." 
 So were the works of pagans and heretics. 
 The relation of almsgiving to religion was thus 
 entirely altered. The personal reward here or 
 hereafter to the actor was eliminated. The 
 deed was good only in the same sense in which 
 the doer was good ; it had in itself no merit. 
 This was a great gain, quite apart from any 
 question as to the sufficiency or insufficiency 
 of the Protestant scheme of salvation. The 
 deed, it was realized, was only the outcome of 
 the doer, the expression of himself, what he 
 was as a whole, neither better nor worse. 
 Logically this led to the discipline of the 
 intelligence and the emotions, and undoubtedly 
 'justification' to very many was only consistent 
 with such discipline and implied it. Thus under 
 a new guise the old position of charity reasserted 
 itself. But there were other differences. 
 
 The relation of charity to prayer, fasting, 
 almsgiving, and penance was altered. The 
 prayerful contemplation of the Christ was pre- 
 served in the mysticism of Protestantism ; but 
 it was dissociated from the ' historic Christ,' 
 from the fervent idealization of whom St. 
 Francis drew his inspiration and his active 
 charitable impulse. The tradition did not die 
 out, however. It remained with many, notably
 
 302 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 with George Herbert, of whom it made, not 
 unlike St. Francis, a poet as well as a practical 
 parish priest ; but the absence of it indicated 
 in much post- Reformation endeavour a want, 
 if not of devotion, yet of intensity of feeling, 
 which may in part account for the fact that 
 sectarianism in relief has since proved itself 
 stronger than charity, instead of yielding to 
 charity as its superior and its organizer. 
 Fasting was parted from prayer and alms- 
 giving. It was " a thing not of its own proper 
 nature good as the love of father or mother or 
 neighbour, but according to its end." Alms- 
 giving also as a ' work ' disappeared, and with 
 it a whole series of inducements that from the 
 standpoint of the pecuniary and material supply 
 of relief had long been active. It was no 
 wonder that the preachers advocated it in 
 vain, and reproached their hearers with their 
 diminished bounty to the poor ; the old personal 
 incentive had gone, and could only gradually 
 be superseded by the spontaneous activity of 
 personal religion very slowly wedding itself to 
 true views of social duty and purpose. Penance, 
 once so closely related to almsgiving, passed out 
 of sight. Charity, the love of God and our 
 neighbour, had two offices, it was said " to 
 cherish good and harmless men," and " to correct
 
 CHARITY AND THE REFORMATION 303 
 
 and punish vice without regard to persons." 
 Correction as a means of discipline takes the 
 place of penance, and it becomes judicial, 
 regulating and controlling church membership 
 by the authority of the church, a congregation, 
 minister, or elder ; or dealing with laziness or 
 ill-doing through the municipality or state, in 
 connexion with what now first appear, not 
 prisons, but houses of correction. 
 
 The religious life was to be democratic not 
 in religious bodies, but in the whole people ; 
 and in a new sense in relation to family and 
 social life it was to be moral. That was the 
 significance of the Reformation for charity.
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 THE OEGANIZATION OF MUNICIPAL RELIEF. 
 
 CONSISTENTLY with this movement of religious 
 activity towards a complete fulfilment of the 
 duties of civic life, the older classical social 
 theory, fostered by the Renaissance, assumed 
 a new influence the great conception of the 
 state as a community bound together by love 
 and friendship. " We be not born to ourselves," 
 it was said, " but partly to the use of our 
 country, of our parents, of our kinsfolk, and 
 partly of our friends and neighbours ; and there- 
 fore all good virtues are grafted on us naturally, 
 whose effects be to do good to others, when 
 it showeth forth the image of God in man, 
 whose property is ever to do good to others ' 
 (Lamond, p. 1 4). Economic theory also changed. 
 Instead of the mediaeval opinion of the " theo- 
 logian or social preacher," that " trade could 
 only be defended on the ground that honestly 
 conducted it made no profit" (Green, ii. 71),
 
 MUNICIPAL RELIEF 305 
 
 we have a recognition of the advantages re- 
 sulting from exchange, and individual interests, 
 it is argued, are not necessarily inconsistent 
 with those of the state, but are, on the contrary, 
 a source of solid good to the whole community. 
 Municipal laws for the suppression of the men- 
 dicity of the able-bodied and the organization 
 of relief on behalf of the infirm were common 
 in England and on the Continent (Colmar, 
 1362; Nuremberg, 1478; Strasburg, 1523; 
 London, 1514). Vives (Ehrle, Beitrdge zur 
 Geschichte und Reform der Armenpflege, 
 p. 26), a Spaniard, who had been at the court 
 of Henry VIII. , in a book translated into 
 several languages and widely read, seems to 
 have summed up the thought of the time in 
 regard to the management of the poor. He 
 divided them into three classes : those in 
 hospitals and poor-houses, the public homeless 
 beggars, and the poor at home. He would 
 have a census taken of the number of each 
 class in the town, and information obtained as 
 to the causes of their distress. Then he would 
 establish a central organization of relief under 
 the magistrates. Work was to be supplied for 
 all, while begging was strictly forbidden. Non- 
 settled poor who were able-bodied were to be 
 sent to their homes. Able-bodied settled poor 
 
 IT
 
 306 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 who knew no craft were to be put on some 
 public work and the undeserving set to hard 
 labour. For others work was to be found, or 
 they were to be assisted to become self- 
 supporting. The hospitals provided with 
 medical advice and necessaries were to be 
 classified to meet the needs of the sick, the 
 blind, and lunatics. The poor living at home 
 were to work with a view to their self-support. 
 What they earned, if insufficient, might be 
 supplemented. If a citizen found a case of 
 distress he was not to help it, but to send it 
 for inquiry to the magistrate. Children were 
 to be taught. Private relief was to be obtained 
 from the rich. The funds of endowed charities 
 were to be the chief source of income ; if more 
 was wanted, bequests and church collections 
 would suffice. 
 
 The scheme was put in force in Ypres in 
 1524. The Sorbonne approved it, and similar 
 plans were adopted in Paris and elsewhere. It 
 is in outline the scheme of London municipal 
 charity promoted by Edward VI., by which 
 the poor were classified, St. Bartholomew's and 
 St. Thomas's hospitals appropriated for the sick, 
 Christ's hospital for the children of the poor, 
 and Bridewell for the correction of the able- 
 bodied. Less the institutional arrangements
 
 MUNICIPAL RELIEF 307 
 
 and plus the compulsory rate, the methods are 
 those of the Poor Relief Act of Queen Elizabeth 
 of 1601. At first the attempt had been made 
 to introduce state relief in reliance on voluntary 
 alms (1 Mary 13, 5 Eliz. 3, 1562-63), subject 
 to the right of assessment, if alms were refused. 
 But the position was anomalous. Charity is 
 voluntary, and spontaneously meets the demands 
 of distress. Such demands have always a 
 tendency to increase with the supply. Hence 
 the very limitations of charitable finance are 
 in the nature of a safeguard. 
 
 At the utmost, economic trouble can only be 
 assuaged by relief : it can be met or pre- 
 vented only by economic and social reforms. If 
 a compulsory rate be not enforced, as in Scot- 
 land and formerly in some parishes in England, 
 a voluntary rate may be made in supplemen- 
 tation of the local charities. In Scotland, 
 where the compulsory clauses of the Poor 
 Relief Act of James I. were not put in force, 
 the country weathered the storm without them, 
 and the compulsory rate, which was extended, 
 throughout the country by the Poor Act of 
 1845, came in very slowly in the eighteenth 
 and nineteenth centuries. In France (1566) a 
 similar Act was passed and set aside: If a 
 compulsory rate be. enforced, it is inevitable
 
 308 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 that the resources of charity, unless kept apart 
 from the poor-law and administered on different 
 lines from it, will diminish, and at the same 
 time, as has happened often in the case of 
 endowed charities, the interest in charitable 
 administration will lapse, while the charges for 
 poor-law relief, drawn without much scruple 
 from the taxation of the community, will mount 
 to millions either to meet increasing demands 
 or to provide more elaborate institutional 
 accommodation. The principle once adopted, 
 it was enacted (1572-73) that the aged and 
 infirm should be cared for by the overseers of 
 the poor, a new authority; and in 1601 two 
 Acts were passed, that for the relief of the 
 poor (43 Eliz. 2), and that for the further- 
 ance and protection of endowed charities. Thus 
 the poor were brought into the dependence 
 of a legally recognized class, endowed with a 
 claim for relief, on the fulfilment of which, 
 after a time, they could without difficulty insist, 
 if they were so minded. The civic authority 
 had indeed taken over the alms of the parish, 
 and an eleemosyna civica had taken the place 
 of the annona civica. It was a similar system 
 under a different name.
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 THE ORGANIZATION OF STATUTORY 
 POOR RELIEF. 
 
 A PHRASE of Cecil's indicates the minute domestic 
 character of the Elizabethan legislation (D'Ewes, 
 674). The question (1601) was the repeal of 
 a statute of tillage. Cecil says : " If in Edward 
 I.'s time a law was made for the maintenance 
 of the fry and fish, and in Henry VII. 's for 
 the preservation of the eggs of wild fowl, shall 
 we now throw away a law of more consequence 
 and import ? If we debar tillage, we give 
 scope to the depopulating. And then, if the 
 poor being thrust out of their houses go to 
 dwell with others, straight we catch them 
 with the statute of inmates ; if they wander 
 abroad, they are within the danger of the 
 statute of the poor to be whipt. So by this 
 undo this statute, and you endanger many 
 thousands." A strong central Government, 
 a local authority appointed directly by the
 
 310 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 Government, and a network of legislation con- 
 trolled the whole movement of economic life. 
 On this reliance was placed to meet economic 
 difficulties. The local authority were the Justices 
 of the Peace, and they had to carry out the 
 statutes for this purpose, to assess the wages 
 of artisans and labourers, and to enforce the 
 payment of the wages they had fixed ; to 
 ensure that suitable provision was made for 
 the relief of the poor at the expense of rates, 
 which they also fixed, and to suppress vaga- 
 bondage. Since 23 Edw. III. there had been 
 labour statutes; and in 1562 a new statute 
 was passed, an " Act containing divers orders 
 for Artificers, Labourers, Servants of Husbandry, 
 and Apprentices " (5 Eliz. c. 4). 
 
 It recognized and upheld a social classi- 
 fication. On the one hand there was the 
 gentleman or owner of property to which the 
 Act was not to apply ; and on the other the 
 artisan and labouring class. This class in turn 
 was subdivided, and the Justices were to assess 
 their wages annually according to " the plenty 
 and scarcity of the time and other circum- 
 stances." Persons between the ages of 12 and 
 60 who were not apprentices or engaged in 
 certain specified employments were compelled 
 to serve in husbandry by the year " with any
 
 STATUTORY POOR RELIEF 311 
 
 person that keepeth husbandry." The length 
 of the day's work and the conditions of 
 apprenticeship were fixed. The assessed rate 
 of wages was enforceable by fine and im- 
 prisonment, and refusal to be apprenticed by 
 imprisonment. Thus there was created a life 
 control over labour with an industrial settlement 
 and a wage fixed by the Justices annually. 
 
 There are differences of opinion with regard 
 to the extent to which this Act was enforced ; 
 and the evidence on the point is comparatively 
 scanty. It was enforced throughout the century 
 in which it was passed, and it probably 
 continued in force generally until the Restora- 
 tion, while subsequently it was put in operation 
 to meet special emergencies, such as times of 
 distress when some settlement of wages seemed 
 desirable (cf. Rogers, v. 611 ; Hewins, English 
 Trade and Finance, 82 ; Cunningham, Growth 
 of English Industry and Commerce : Modern. 
 Times, i. 168). It was not repealed till 1814. 
 From 1585 to 1622 there was, it is said, a slight 
 increase in labourers' wages, which stood at about 
 5s. a week, with a declining standard of comfort 
 and at times great distress. Then there was a 
 marked increase of wage till 1662, "a very 
 marked improvement, the rate of increase being 
 nearly double that of the earlier periods," and
 
 312 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 reaching 9s. " as the highest weekly rate for the 
 whole period." Then from 1662 to 1702 there 
 was "a slight improvement" (Hevvins, p. 89). 
 It would seem, indeed, that the stir of the 
 times between 1622 and 1662 may have caused 
 a great demand for labour. But with the 
 Restoration, when the assessment system was 
 falling into desuetude, came the Poor Relief 
 Act of 1662 (13 and 14 Car. ii. cap. 62), 
 which brought in the Law of Settlement ; and 
 a settlement for relief of a very strict nature 
 was added to the industrial settlement of the 
 Artificers and Labourers Act. Thus, if the 
 influence of that Act, which had so long 
 controlled labour, was waning, its place was 
 now taken by an Act which, though it had 
 nothing to do with the assessment of wage, 
 yet so settled the labourer within the bounds 
 of his parish that he had practically to rely, 
 if not upon a wage fixed by the Justices, yet 
 upon a customary wage limited and restricted 
 as a result of the law of settlement. And the 
 assessment by the Justices, in so far as it may 
 have continued, would therefore be of little or 
 no consequence. Settlement also, like the 
 Artificers and Labourers Act, would prevent 
 the country labourer from passing to the towns, 
 or the townsman passing to other towns. At
 
 STATUTORY POOR RELIEF 313 
 
 least they would do so at the risk of for- 
 feiting their right to relief if they lost their 
 settlement without acquiring a new one. Hence 
 the industrial control, though under another 
 name and other conditions, remained in force 
 and to a large extent in practice. 
 
 By the Artificers and Labourers Act, then, in 
 conjunction with other measures, the labouring 
 classes were finally committed to a new bondage 
 when they had freed themselves from the 
 serfdom of feudalism, and when the control 
 exercised over them by the guild and munici- 
 pality was relaxed. The statute was so 
 enforced that to earn a year's livelihood would 
 have taken a labourer not 52 weeks, but 
 sometimes two years, or 58 weeks, or 80 weeks, 
 or 72 weeks ; sometimes, however, less 48 or 
 35 (cf. Rogers, above). It followed that on such 
 a system the country could only with the utmost 
 good fortune free itself from the economic diffi- 
 culties of the century, and that the need of a 
 poor-law was felt the more as these difficulties 
 persisted. A voluntary or a municipal system 
 could not suffice, even as a palliative, while 
 such statutes as these were in force to render 
 labour immobile and improgressive. Also, while 
 wages were fixed by statute or order, whether 
 chiefly in the interest of the employers or not,
 
 314 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 obviously any shortage on the wages had to be 
 made good by the community. The community, 
 by fixing the wages to be earned in a liveli- 
 hood, made itself responsible for their sufficiency. 
 And it is suggestive to find that in the year 
 in which the Artificers and Labourers Act 
 (1563) was passed, that for the enforcement of 
 assessments of poor-rate (5 Eliz. cap. iii.) was 
 also enacted. The Law of Settlement to which 
 we have referred, passed in the reign of Charles 
 II., was due, it is said, to a migration of 
 labourers southward from counties where less 
 favourable statutory wages prevailed ; but it 
 was, in fact, only a corollary of the Artificers 
 and Labourers Act of 1563 and the Poor Relief 
 Act of 1601. These laws, it may be said, 
 were the means of making the English labourer, 
 until the poor-law reform of 1834, a settled 
 but landless serf, supported by a fixed wage 
 and a state bounty. By the poor-law it was 
 possible to continue this state of things till, 
 in consequence of an absolute economic break- 
 down, there was no alternative but reform. 
 
 The philanthropic nature of the poor-law is 
 indicated by its antecedents : once enacted, its 
 bounties became a right ; its philanthropy 
 disappeared in a quasi-legal claim. Its objects 
 were to relieve the poor by home industries,
 
 STATUTORY POOR RELIEF 315 
 
 to apprentice children, and to provide necessary 
 relief to the poor unable to work. The Act 
 was commonly interpreted so as to include 
 the whole of that indefinite class, the ' poor ' ; 
 but according to a better and more rigid in- 
 terpretation it was held by the Poor Law 
 Commissioners of 1834, so far as those able to 
 work were concerned, to apply in the words of 
 the Act only to " such persons, married and 
 unmarried, [as] having no means to maintain 
 them, use no ordinary or daily trade to get 
 their living by," that is, to the ' destitute,' 
 as the Commissioners called them. For those 
 unable to work " competent sums of money for 
 or towards their necessary relief were to be 
 provided." The economic fallacy of home in- 
 dustries founded on rate-supplied capital early 
 declared itself, and the method could only have 
 continued as long as it did because it formed 
 part of a general system of industrial control. 
 When in the eighteenth century workhouses 
 were established, the same industrial fallacy, 
 as records show, repeated itself under new 
 conditions. Within the parish, in many parts 
 of England, it resulted in the farmer paying 
 the labourer as small a wage as possible, and 
 leaving the parish to provide whatever he 
 might require in addition during his working
 
 316 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 life and in his old age. Thus, indeed, a 
 gigantic experiment in civic employment was 
 made for at least two centuries on a vast scale 
 throughout the country and failed. As was 
 natural, the lack of economic independence 
 reacted on the morals of the people. With 
 pauperism came want of energy, idleness, and 
 a disregard for chastity and the obligations of 
 marriage. The law, it is true, recognized the 
 mutual obligations of parents and grandparents, 
 children and grandchildren ; but in the general 
 poverty which it was itself a means of per- 
 petuating such obligations became practically 
 obsolete, while at all times they are difficult 
 to enforce. Still, the fact that they were 
 recognized implies a great advance in charitable 
 thought. The Act, passed at first from year 
 to year, was very slowly put in force. Even 
 before it was passed the poor-rate first assessed 
 under the Act of 1563 was felt to be "a 
 greater tax than some subsidies," and in the 
 time of Charles II. it amounted to a third of 
 the revenue of England and Wales (Rogers, v. 
 81). 
 
 The service of villein and cottar was thus, as 
 we have seen, in part superseded by what we 
 have called a statutory wage control, founded 
 on a basis of wage supplemented by relief, which
 
 STATUTORY POOR RELIEF 317 
 
 was provided by a rate-supported poor-law. It 
 follows that with the decay of this wage system 
 the poor-law itself should have disappeared, or 
 should have taken some new and very limited 
 form. Unfortunately, as in Roman times, 
 state relief proved to be a popular and vigorous 
 parasite that outlived the tree on which it 
 was rooted. Assessments of wage under the 
 Statute of Labourers fell into disuse after the 
 Restoration, and the statute was finally repealed 
 in 1814, and sixty years later was repealed 
 the Act against illegal combinations of working 
 men. But the serfdom of the poor-law, the 
 eleemosyna civica, remained, to work the gravest 
 evil to the labouring classes, and, even after the 
 reform of 1834, it impeded greatly the recovery 
 of their independence. Nevertheless, by new 
 laws for the grant of state alms or pensions 
 for the aged, and for the official regulation of 
 wages, in certain trades in which poor labour is 
 employed, it is now proposed to bring the people 
 once again under a political dependence similar 
 to that from which they have so slowly eman- 
 cipated themselves. The new servitude like the 
 old is supported on philanthropic grounds.
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 THE ORGANIZATION OF ENDOWED CHARITIES. 
 
 THE policy adopted by Queen Elizabeth for the 
 relief of the poor (1601) included a scheme for 
 the reorganization of voluntary endowed charity 
 as well as plans for the extension of rate-aided 
 relief. The "Charitable Uses" Act of 43 Eliz. 
 c. 4 (1601), was an Act "to redress the mis- 
 employment of lands, goods, and stocks, hereto- 
 fore given to certain charitable uses." During 
 the previous century, as we have seen, endeavours 
 had been made to create a responsible system of 
 voluntary charity. This it was now proposed to 
 safeguard and promote concurrently with the ex- 
 tension of the poor-rate. Accordingly, in the 
 poor-law it was arranged that the overseers, the 
 new parochial authority, and the churchwardens, 
 the old parochial and charitable authority, 
 should act in conjunction, and, subject to 
 magisterial approval, together raise " by taxation 
 of every inhabitant," weekly or otherwise,
 
 ENDOWED CHARITIES 319 
 
 money for a convenient stock to set to work 
 the able bodied poor who had " no means 
 to support them," and also competent sums 
 of money for or towards the necessary relief 
 of those unable to work. The old charitable 
 organization was based on endowment, and 
 the churchwarden was responsible for the 
 administration of many such endowments. 
 The aim of the two new Acts taken together 
 was to utilize charitable gifts, and to encourage 
 donors to bequeath them. What was not avail- 
 able from voluntary sources was to be raised 
 ' by taxation. ' 
 
 Towards the end of the eighteenth century, 
 when the administration of poor relief fell 
 into confusion, many charities were lost, or 
 were in danger of being lost, and many were 
 mismanaged. In 1786 and 1788 a committee 
 of the House of Commons reported on the 
 subject. In 1818, chiefly through the instru- 
 mentality of Lord Brougham, a commission of 
 inquiry on educational charities was appointed, 
 and in 1819 another commission to investigate 
 (with some exceptions) all the charities for the 
 poor in England and Wales. These and sub- 
 sequent commissions continued their inquiries 
 till 1835, when a select committee of the 
 House of Commons made a strong report,
 
 320 
 
 advocating the establishment of a permanent 
 and independent board, to inquire, to compel 
 the production of accounts, to secure the safe 
 custody of charity property, to adapt it to 
 new uses on cy-pres lines, etc. A commission 
 followed in 1849, and eventually in 1853 the 
 first Charitable Trusts Act was passed, under 
 which ' the Charity Commissioners of England 
 and Wales ' were appointed. 
 
 The following are details of importance : l 
 
 DEFINITION. 
 
 The definition of the Act of 1601 (Charitable 
 Uses, 43 Eliz. 4) still holds good. It enumerates 
 as charitable objects all that was once called 
 ' alms ' : (a) " The relief of aged, impotent, and 
 poor people" the normal poor; "the main- 
 tenance of sick and maimed soldiers and 
 mariners" the poor chiefly by reason of war, 
 sometimes a class of privileged mendicants ; 
 (6) education, " schools of learning, free schools, 
 and scholars in universities " ; and then (c) a 
 group of objects which include general civic 
 and religious purposes, and the charities of 
 
 1 In regard to this section and the development of the ad- 
 ministration of charity the reader may be referred to "Charities 
 and the Relief of Distress," Section VII. of the Report of the 
 Royal Commission on the Poor Laws and Relief of Distress 
 (1909).
 
 ENDOWED CHARITIES 321 
 
 guilds and corporations ; " the repair of bridges, 
 ports, havens, causeways, churches, sea-banks, 
 and highways ; the education and preferment 
 of orphans ; the relief, stock, or maintenance 
 for houses of correction ; marriages of poor 
 maids, supportation, aid, and help of young 
 tradesmen, handicraftsmen, and persons decayed " ; 
 and there follows (d) " the relief or redemption 
 of prisoners or captives " ; and, lastly, (e) " the 
 aid and ease of any poor inhabitants concerning 
 payment of fifteens " (the property-tax of Tudor 
 times), setting* out of soldiers, and other taxes. 
 The definition might be illustrated by the 
 charitable bequests of the next 60, or indeed 
 225, years. It is for the most part a fair 
 summary of them. 
 
 CHARITABLE GIFTS. 
 
 A public trust and a charitable trust are, as 
 this definition shows, synonymous. Such a trust 
 is not held for the benefit of private persons, 
 e.g. relations, but for the common good, and, 
 subject to the instructions of the founder, by 
 trustees responsible to the community. Gifts for 
 charitable purposes, other than those affected by 
 the law of mortmain, have always been viewed 
 with favour. " Where a charitable bequest is 
 capable of two constructions, one of which
 
 322 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 would make it void and the other would make it 
 effectual, the latter will be adopted by the court" 
 (Tudor's Charitable Trusts, ed. 1906, by Messrs. 
 Bristowe Hunt and Burdett, p. 167). Gifts to 
 the poor, or widows, or orphans, indefinitely, or 
 in a particular parish, have been considered valid 
 under the Act, or for any purpose or institution 
 for the aid of the 'poor.' Thus practically the 
 Act covered the same field as the poor-law, 
 though afterwards it was decided that, "as a 
 rule, persons receiving parochial relief were not 
 entitled to the benefit of a charity intended 
 for the poor" (Tudor, p. 167). In the adminis- 
 tration of charities which are for the poor the 
 broadest view is taken of religious differences. 
 
 SUPERSTITIOUS USES. 
 
 The superstitious use is one that has for its 
 object the propagation of the rights of a religion 
 not tolerated by the law (Tudor, p. 4). Con- 
 sequently, so far as charities were held or left 
 subject to such rights, they were illegal, or 
 became legal only as toleration was extended. 
 Thus by degrees, since the Toleration Act of 
 1688, all charities to dissenters have become 
 legal that is, trusts for schools, places for 
 religious instruction, education, and charitable 
 purposes generally. But bequests for masses for
 
 ENDOWED CHARITIES 323 
 
 the soul of the donor, or for monastic orders, are 
 still void. 
 
 ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 The duty of administering charitable trusts 
 falls upon trustees or corporations, and under 
 the term ' eleemosynary corporations ' are in- 
 cluded endowed hospitals and colleges. Under 
 schemes of the Charity Commissioners, where 
 charities have been remodelled, besides trustees 
 elected by corporations, there are now usually 
 appointed ex officio trustees who represent some 
 office or institution of importance which it is 
 considered desirable to bring into some con- 
 nexion with the charity. 
 
 The Court of Chancery has jurisdiction over 
 charities, under the old principle that ''charities 
 are trusts of a public nature, in regard to which 
 no one is entitled by an immediate and peculiar 
 interest to prefer a complaint for compelling 
 the performance by the trustees of their, 
 obligations." The court, accordingly, represents 
 the Crown as parens patriae. Now, by the 
 Charitable Trusts Act, 1853, and subsequent 
 Acts, a charity commission has been formed 
 which is entrusted with large powers, formerly 
 enforced only by the Court of Chancery. 
 
 A further jurisdiction is by the 'visitor.' 
 Visitation is a right inherent in the founder of
 
 324 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 any eleemosynary corporation, and his heirs, or 
 in those whom he appoints, or on their default, 
 in the king. The object of the visitor is "to 
 prevent all perverting of the charity, or to 
 compose differences among members of the cor- 
 poration." Formerly the bishop's ordinary was 
 the recognized visitor (2 Henry V. i. 1, 1414) of 
 hospitals, apart from the founder. Subsequently 
 his power was limited (14 Eliz. c. 5, 1572) to 
 hospitals for which the founders had appointed 
 no visitors. Then (1601) by the Charitable 
 Uses Act commissions were issued for inquiry by 
 county juries. Now, apart from the duty of 
 visitors, inquiries are conducted by the charity 
 commissioners. By subsequent Acts (see below) 
 ecclesiastical and eleemosynary charities have 
 been still further separated and defined. 
 
 " Trustees, or other persons concerned in the 
 management of a charity, may apply to the 
 charity commissioners for their opinion, advice, 
 or direction ; and any person acting under such 
 advice is indemnified, unless he has been guilty 
 of misrepresentation in obtaining it." 
 
 THE CHARITY COMMISSIONERS. 
 
 The commissioners cannot, however, make any 
 order with respect to any charity of which the
 
 ENDOWED CHARITIES 325 
 
 gross annual income amounts to 50 or upwards, 
 except on the application (in writing) of the 
 trustees or a .majority of them. Their powers 
 are thus very limited, except when put in 
 motion by the trustees. If a parish is divided 
 they can apportion the charities, if the gross 
 income does not exceed 20. 
 
 Subject to the limitation of 50, etc., the 
 charity commissioners have power (Charitable 
 Trusts Act, 1860) to make orders for the 
 appointment or removal of trustees, or of any 
 officer, and for the transfer, payment, and 
 vesting of any real or personal estate, or " for 
 the establishment of any scheme for the 
 administration " of the charity. 
 
 Under this power charities are remodelled, 
 and small and miscellaneous charities put into 
 one fund and applied to new purposes. The 
 cy-pres doctrine is applied, by which if a 
 testator leaves directions that are only in- 
 definite, or if the objects for which a charity 
 was founded are obsolete, the charity is applied 
 to some purpose, as far as possible in accordance 
 with the charitable intention of the founder. 
 This doctrine probably received its widest appli- 
 cation in the City of London Parochial Charities 
 Act of 1883. Under other Acts doles have 
 been applied to education and to allotments.
 
 326 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 About 380 schemes are issued by the charity 
 commissioners in the course of a year. 
 
 In the remodelling of charities for the general 
 benefit of the poor some one or more of thirteen 
 objects are usually included in the scheme. 
 These are subscriptions to a medical charity, 
 to a provident club or coal or clothing society, 
 to a friendly society ; for nurses, for annuities, 
 for outfit for service, etc. ; for emigration ; 
 for recreation grounds, clubs, reading-rooms, 
 museums, lectures ; for temporary relief to a 
 limited amount in each year ; for clothes, fuel, 
 tools, medical aid, food, etc., or in money "in 
 cases of unexpected loss or sudden destitution " ; 
 for pensions. 
 
 By the Local Government Act of 1892, local 
 ecclesiastical charities, i.e. endowments for " any 
 spiritual purpose that is a legal purpose " (for 
 spiritual persons, church and other buildings, 
 for spiritual uses, etc.) are separated from 
 parochial charities, " the benefits of which are, 
 or the separate distribution of the benefits of 
 which is, confined to inhabitants of a single 
 parish, or of .a single ancient ecclesiastical 
 parish, or not more than five neighbouring 
 parishes." These charities are further dealt with 
 under the Local Government Act, 1894. 
 
 There is " an official trustee of charity lands,"
 
 ENDOWED CHARITIES 327 
 
 who as " bare trustee " may hold the land or 
 stock of the charity managed by the trustees or 
 administrators. At the end of 1908 the stock 
 transferred to the official trustees amounted to 
 27,142,228. 
 
 The charity commissioners have no power of 
 audit, but the trustees of every charity have 
 to prepare a statement of accounts annually, 
 and transmit it to the commission. The 
 accounts have to be " certified under the hand 
 of one or more of the trustees and by the 
 auditor of the charity." 
 
 In the case of rents and profits of lands, 
 etc., belonging to hospitals or alms-houses, or 
 vested in trustees for charitable purposes, allow- 
 ances are made in diminution of income-tax (56 
 Viet. 35, 61). From the inhabited house 
 duty any hospital, charity school, or house 
 provided for the reception or relief of poor 
 persons, is exempted (House- tax Act, 1808). 
 Also there is an exemption from the land-tax 
 in regard to land rents, etc., in possession of 
 hospitals before 1693. 
 
 A digest of endowed charities in England and 
 Wales was compiled in the years 1861 to 1876. 
 A new digest of reports and financial particulars 
 has been set on foot, but it has not yet been 
 completed. The income of endowed charities
 
 328 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 at that time was returned at 2,198,463. 
 It is now, no doubt, considerably larger than 
 it was in 1876. Partial returns show that 
 at least a million a year is now available 
 in England and Wales for the assistance of 
 the aged poor and for doles. 
 
 THE POOR-LAW AND ENDOWED CHARITIES. 
 
 Between the poor-law, which, as it is at 
 present administered, is a permanent endow- 
 ment provided from the rates for the support 
 of a class of permanent ' poor,' and endowed 
 charities, which are funds available for the poor 
 of successive generations, there might seem to be 
 no great difference. But in their resources and 
 administration the difference is marked. Local 
 endowed charities were constantly founded 
 after Queen Elizabeth's time till about 1830, 
 and the poor-rate was at first supplementary 
 of the local charities. When corn and fuel 
 were dear and clothes very expensive, what 
 now seem trivial endowments for food, fuel, 
 coal, and clothes were important assets in the 
 thrifty management of a parish. But when 
 the poor were recognized as a class of dependents 
 entitled by law to relief from the community, 
 the rate increased out of all proportion to the 
 charities. A distinction then made itself felt,
 
 ENDOWED CHARITIES 329 
 
 and was recognized by the Court of Chancery, 
 between the ' parish ' poor and the ' second ' 
 poor, or the poor who were not relieved from 
 the rates ; and relief from the rates altogether 
 overshadowed the charitable aid. Charitable 
 endowments were ignored, ill-administered, and 
 often were lost. After 1834 the poor-law was 
 brought under the control of the central Govern- 
 ment. Poor relief was placed in the hands of 
 boards of guardians in unions of parishes. The 
 method of co-operation between poor-law and 
 charity suggested by the Acts of Queen Eliza- 
 beth was set aside, and, as a responsible partner 
 in the public work of relief, charity was dis- 
 established. In the parishes the endowed chari- 
 ties remained in general a disorganized medley 
 of separate trusts, jealously guarded by incom- 
 petent administrators. To give unity to this 
 mass of units, so long as the principles of 
 charity are misunderstood or ignored, has 
 proved an almost impossible and certainly an 
 unpopular task. So far as it has been achieved, 
 it has been accomplished by the piecemeal 
 legislation of schemes cautiously elaborated to 
 meet local prejudices. Active reform has been 
 resented, and politicians have often accentuated 
 this resentment. In 1894 a Select Committee 
 was appointed to inquire whether it was desirable
 
 330 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 to take measures to bring the action of the 
 Charity Commission more directly under the 
 control of Parliament, but no serious grievances 
 were substantiated. The committee's reports are 
 of interest, however, as an indication of the 
 initial difficulties of all charitable work, the 
 general ignorance that prevails in regard to 
 the elementary conditions that govern it, the 
 common disregard of these principles, and the 
 absence of any accepted theory or constructive 
 policy that should regulate its development and 
 its administration. 
 
 The Royal Commission on the Poor Laws and 
 Relief of Distress (1909) has made new proposals, 
 however, that would add greatly to the utility of 
 the Charity Commission, and meet some of their 
 difficulties. They suggest that all charities should 
 have a status, similar to that which is obtained 
 by Friendly Societies by registration under the 
 Friendly Societies Act. They would be enabled 
 to register at the Commission, whether endowed 
 or voluntary. The Commission would become 
 the Charities Commission, and would, to some 
 extent, be reorganized to fulfil its new purpose. 
 It would also be attached to the Local Govern- 
 ment, and represented by the President of the 
 Board in the House of Commons. For the 
 better utilization of dole-endowments, it is
 
 ENDOWED CHARITIES 331 
 
 suggested, that by a general statute the con- 
 ditions that prevent the beneficial use of these 
 endowments should be set aside, so that the 
 sums which they represent may be made service- 
 able for voluntary aid. Recognized voluntary 
 Aid Councils and Committees would be formed 
 with a view to systematic co-operation with the 
 Public Assistance Authorities (see Appendix I.).
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 CHARITY IN THE PARISH AFTER 1601. 
 
 AFTER the Poor-Law Act of 1601 the history 
 of the voluntary parochial charities in a town 
 parish is marked by their decreasing amount 
 and utility, as poor-law relief and pauperism 
 increased. The Act, it would seem, was not 
 adopted with much alacrity by the local 
 authorities. From 1625 to 1646 there were 
 many years of plague and sickness, but in 
 St. Giles's, London, as late as 1649, the 
 amount raised by the ' collectors ' (or over- 
 seers) was only 176. They disbursed this to 
 "the visited poor" as 'pensions.' In 1665 
 an extra levy of 600 is mentioned. In the 
 accounts of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, where, 
 as in St. Giles's, gifts were received, the change 
 wrought by another half-century (1714) is 
 apparent. 
 
 The sources of charitable relief were similar to 
 those in all the Protestant churches English,
 
 CHARITY IN THE PARISH 333 
 
 Scottish, or Continental : church collections and 
 offertories ; correctional fines, such as composi- 
 tion for bastards and conviction money for 
 swearers ; and besides these, income from annui- 
 ties and legacies, the parish estate, the royal 
 bounty, and " petitions to persons of quality." 
 In all 2041 was collected, but, so far as relief 
 was concerned, the parish relied not on it, but 
 on the poor-rate, which produced 3765. All 
 this was collected and disbursed on their own 
 authority by collectors, to orphans, ' pensioners ' 
 or the 'known or standing' poor, or to casual 
 poor (1818), including nurse children and 
 bastards. The begging poor were numerous 
 and the infant death-rate enormous, and each 
 year three-fourths of those christened were 
 " inhumanly suffered to die by the barbarity 
 of nurses." The whole administration was 
 uncharitable, injurious to the community and 
 the family, and inhuman to the child. If one 
 may judge from later accounts of other parishes 
 even up to 1834, usually it remained the same, 
 purposeless and unintelligent ; and it can hardly 
 be denied that, generally speaking, only since 
 the middle of the nineteenth century has any 
 serious attention been paid to the charitable 
 side of parochial work. Parallel to the parochial 
 movement of the poor-law in England, in France
 
 334 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 (about 1617) were established the bureaux de 
 bienfaisance, at first entirely voluntary institu- 
 tions, then recognized by the state, and during 
 the Revolution made the central administration 
 for relief in the communes.
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 CHARITABLE MOVEMENTS AFTER 1601. 
 
 IN the seventeenth century in England, as in 
 France, opinion favoured the establishment of 
 large hospitals or maisons Dieu for the recep- 
 tion of the poor of different classes. In France 
 throughout the century there was a continuous 
 struggle with mendicancy, and the hospitals 
 were used as places into which offenders were 
 summarily driven. A new humanity was, 
 however, beginning its protest. The pitiful 
 condition of abandoned children attracted sym- 
 pathy in both countries. St. Vincent de Paul 
 established homes for the enfants trouves, 
 followed in England by the establishment of 
 the Foundling Hospital (1739). In both 
 countries the method was applied inconsider- 
 ately and pushed to excess, and it affected 
 family life most injuriously. Grants from Parlia- 
 ment supported the foundling movement in 
 England, and homes were opened in many 
 parts of the country. The demand soon became
 
 336 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 overwhelming ; the mortality was enormous, 
 and the cost so large that it outstripped all 
 financial expedients. The lesson of the experi- 
 ment is the same as that of the poor-law 
 catastrophe before 1834; only, instead of the 
 able-bodied poor of another age, infants were 
 made the object of a compassionate but un- 
 discerning philanthropy. With widespread relief 
 there came widespread abandonment of duty 
 and economic bankruptcy. Had the poor-rates 
 instead of charitable relief been used in the 
 same way, the moral injury would have been 
 as great, but the annual draft from the rates 
 would have concealed the moral and postponed 
 the economic disaster. To amend the evil 
 changes were made by which the relation 
 between child and mother was kept alive, and 
 a personal application on her part was required ; 
 the character of the mother and her circum- 
 stances were investigated, and assistance was 
 only given when it would be " the means of 
 replacing the mother in the course of virtue 
 and the way of an honest livelihood." General 
 reforms were also made, especially through the 
 instrumentality of Jonas Hanway, to check 
 infant mortality, and metropolitan parishes were 
 required to provide for their children outside 
 London. A kindred movement led to the
 
 CHARITABLE MOVEMENTS 337 
 
 establishment of penitentiaries (1758), of lock 
 hospitals and lying-in hospitals (1749-1752). 
 
 In Queen Anne's reign there was a new 
 educational movement " the charity school " 
 " to teach poor children the alphabet and the 
 principles of religion," followed by the Sunday- 
 school movement (1780), and about the same 
 time (1788) by "the school of industry "- to 
 employ children and teach them to be indus- 
 trious. In 1844 the Ragged School Union was 
 established, and until the Education Act of 
 1870 continued its voluntary educational work. 
 As an outcome of these movements, through the 
 efforts of Miss Mary Carpenter and many others, 
 in 1854-55 industrial and reformatory schools 
 were established, to prevent crime and reform 
 child criminals. The orphanage movement, be- 
 ginning in 1758, when the Orphan Working 
 Home was established, has been continued to 
 the present day on a vastly extended scale. 
 In 1772 a society for the discharge of persons 
 imprisoned for small debts was established, and 
 in 1773 Howard began his prison reforms. This 
 raised the standard of work in institutional 
 charities generally. After the civil wars the old 
 hospital foundations of St. Bartholomew and 
 St. Thomas, municipalized by Edward VI., became 
 endowed charities partly supported by voluntary
 
 338 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 contributions. The same fate befell Christ's 
 Hospital, in connexion with which the voting 
 system, the admission of candidates by the vote 
 of the whole body of subscribers that peculiarly 
 English invention first made its appearance. 
 
 A new interest in hospitals sprang up at the 
 end of the seventeenth century. St. Thomas's 
 was rebuilt (1693) and St. Bartholomew's (1739); 
 Guy's was founded in 1724, and on the system of 
 free 'letters' obtainable in exchange for donations, 
 voluntary hospitals and infirmaries were estab- 
 lished in London (1733 and later) and in most of 
 the large towns. Towards the end of the century 
 the dispensary movement was developed, a 
 system of local dispensaries with fairly definite 
 districts and home visiting, a substitute for 
 attendance at a hospital, where ' hospital fever ' 
 was dreaded, and an alternative to what was 
 then a very ill-administered system of poor- 
 law medical relief. After 1840 the provident 
 dispensary was introduced, in order that the 
 patients by small contributions in the time of 
 health might provide for illness without having 
 to meet large doctors' bills, and the doctor 
 might receive some sufficient remuneration for 
 his attendance on poor patients. This move- 
 ment was largely extended after 1860. Three 
 Hospital Funds for collecting contributions for
 
 CHARITABLE MOVEMENTS 339 
 
 hospitals and making them grants, a movement 
 that originated in Birmingham in 1859, were 
 established in London in 1873 and 1897. 
 In 1897 was established for London medical 
 charities King Edward's Hospital Fund by 
 which a useful system of voluntary visitation 
 of hospitals has been instituted. From the ex- 
 tended activity of this Fund many measures in 
 support of Hospitals and for their co-ordination 
 are anticipated. Since 1868 the poor- law medical 
 system of Great Britain has been immensely 
 improved and extended, while at the same time 
 the number of persons in receipt of free medical 
 relief, public and voluntary, in most of the 
 large towns has greatly increased. The following 
 figures refer to London : at hospitals, 97 in 
 number, in-patients (1905) during the year, 
 119,099; out-patients and casualty cases, 
 1,859,800. The total expenditure was 1,1 7 5,5 12. 
 Patients at free or part-pay dispensaries, about 
 230,200; and at provident dispensaries about 
 116,650. In Poor Law Infirmaries the number 
 of inmates at the commencement of the year and 
 admitted during the year 1905-6, was 104,105. 
 The cost 925,614. (Appendix No. XIII. (B), 
 Vol. II., Minutes of Evidence, R. Commission on 
 Poor Laws.) There are in London 12 general 
 hospitals with, 18 without, medical schools,
 
 340 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 and 67 special hospitals. Thus the population 
 in receipt of public and voluntary medical relief 
 is very large, indeed altogether excessive. 
 
 Each religious movement has brought with 
 it its several charities. The Society of Friends, 
 the Wesleyans, the Baptists have large charities. 
 With the extension of the High Church move- 
 ment there have been established many sister- 
 hoods which support penitentiaries, convalescent 
 homes and hospitals, schools, missions, etc. 
 
 The magnitude of this accumulating provision 
 of charitable relief is evident, though it cannot 
 be summed up in any single total. 1 
 
 At the beginning of the nineteenth century 
 anti-mendicity societies were established ; and 
 later, about 1869, in England and Scotland a 
 movement began for the organization of charit- 
 able relief, in connexion with which there are 
 now societies and committees in most of the 
 larger towns in Great Britain, in the Colonies, 
 and in the United States of America. 
 
 More recently (1884) the movement for the 
 establishment of settlements in poor districts, 
 initiated by Canon Barnett at Toynbee Hall 
 " to educate citizens in the knowledge of one 
 another, and to provide them with teaching 
 and recreation " has spread to many towns in 
 England and America. 
 
 1 In regard to London charities generally, see the Appendix.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 PROGRESS OF THOUGHT IN THE EIGHTEENTH 
 AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES. 
 
 THESE notes of charitable movements suggest 
 an altogether new development of thought. 
 On behalf of the charity school of Queen Anne's 
 time were preached very formal sermons, which 
 showed but little sympathy with child life. 
 After the first half of the century a new 
 humanism, with which we connect the name 
 of Rousseau, slowly superseded this formal 
 beneficence. Rousseau made the world open 
 its eyes and see nature in the child, the family, 
 and the community. He analyzed social life, 
 intent on explaining it and discovering on what 
 its well-being depended ; and he stimulated that 
 desire to meet definite social needs which is 
 apparent in the charities of the century. Little as 
 it may appear to be so at first sight, that century 
 was a period of charitable reformation. Law 
 revised the religious conception of charity, though
 
 342 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 he was himself so strangely devoid of social 
 instinct that, like some of his successors, he linked 
 the utmost earnestness in belief to that form of 
 almsgiving which most effectually fosters beggar- 
 dom. Howard introduced the era of inspection, 
 the ardent apostle of a new social sagacity ; 
 and Bentham, no less sagacious, propounded 
 opinions, plans, and suggestions which, perhaps 
 it may be said, in due course moulded the 
 principles and methods of the poor-law of 1834. 
 In the broader sense the turn of thought is 
 religious, for while usually stress is laid on the 
 religious scepticism of the century, the deeper, 
 fervent, conscientious, and evangelical charity 
 in which Nonconformists, and especially ' the 
 Friends/ took so large a part, is often forgotten. 
 Sometimes, indeed, as often happens now, the 
 feeling of charity passed into the merest senti- 
 mentality. This is evident, for instance, from 
 so ill-considered a measure as Pitt's Bill for the 
 relief of the poor. On the other hand, during 
 the eighteenth century the poor-law was the 
 object of constant criticism, though, so long as 
 the labour statutes and the old law of settlement 
 were in force, and the relief of the labouring 
 population as state 'poor' prevailed, it was. 
 impossible to reform it. Indeed, the criticism 
 of the time was generally vitiated by a tacit
 
 PROGRESS OF THOUGHT 343 
 
 acceptance of ' the poor ' as a class, a permanent 
 and irrevocable charge on the funds of the 
 community ; and a class the poor had become. 
 At the end of the eighteenth century, in the 
 times of dearth and difficulty that prevailed 
 during the Napoleonic war, when the labour 
 statutes had become inoperative, but the poor- 
 law was unreformed, serfdom in its later stage, 
 the serfdom of the poor-law, asserted itself in 
 its extremest form. In 1802-03 it was calcu- 
 lated (Marshall's Digest) that 28 per cent, of 
 the population were in receipt of permanent or 
 occasional relief. Those in receipt of the former 
 numbered 734,817, including children so real 
 had this serfdom of the poor become. The 
 establishment of mendicity societies in some of 
 the larger towns, in the early years of the 
 nineteenth century, is a sign of the general dis- 
 content with existing methods of administration. 
 The Society for Bettering the Condition of the 
 Poor representing a group of men such as 
 Patrick Colquhoun, Sir T. Bernard, Dr. Lettsom, 
 Dr. Haygarth, James Neald, Count Rumford, 
 and others took a more positive line and issued 
 many useful publications (1796). 
 
 After 1833 the very atmosphere of thought 
 seems changed. There was a general desire to 
 be quit of the serfdom of pauperism. The Poor-
 
 344 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 Law Amendment Act was passed in 1834, and 
 since then the actual registered pauperism of 
 male able-bodied persons in health has well-nigh 
 dwindled to a minimum. 
 
 The bad years of 1860-70 revived the pro- 
 blem in England and Scotland, and the old spirit 
 of reform for a time prevailed. Improved 
 administration working with economic progress 
 effected still further reductions of pauperism, 
 till on January 1, 1905 (exclusive of lunatics in 
 county asylums and casual paupers), the mean 
 number of paupers stood at 764,589, or 22'6 
 per thousand of the population, instead of at 
 41 '8 per thousand as in 1859. Charity organi- 
 zation societies were formed after 1869, with 
 the object of " improving the condition of the 
 poor," or, in other words, to promote independ- 
 ence by an ordered and co-operative charity ; 
 and the Association for Befriending Young Ser- 
 vants, and workhouse aid committees, in order 
 to prevent relapse into pauperism on the part 
 of those who as children or young women 
 received relief from the poor-law. The Local 
 Government Board adopted a restrictive out-door 
 relief policy, and a new interest was felt in all 
 the chief problems of local administration. The 
 movement was general. The results of the 
 Elberfeld system of municipal relief adminis-
 
 PROGRESS OF THOUGHT 345 
 
 tered by unpaid almoners, each dealing with but 
 one or two cases, influenced thought both in 
 England and America. The experience gained 
 by Mr. Joseph Puckerman of New York of the 
 utility of registering applications for relief, and 
 the teaching of Miss Octavia Hill, led to the 
 foundation of the system of friendly visiting and 
 associated charity at Boston (1880) and else- 
 where. Since that time the influence of Arnold 
 Toynbee and the investigations of Mr. Charles 
 Booth have led to a better appreciation of the 
 conditions of labour of which it may be said 
 that the Labour Department of the Board of 
 Trade is in great measure the outcome. In 
 co-operation with the Poor- Law and other 
 authorities, in Health Visiting, and in Children's 
 Care Committees, it may be said that the 
 spirit of charity has assumed the form of a 
 new devotion to the duties of citizenship. 
 
 But perhaps, in regard to charity in Great 
 Britain, the most important change has been 
 the revival of the teaching of Dr. Chalmers 
 (1780-1847), who (1819) introduced a system of 
 parochial charity at St. John's, Glasgow, on 
 independent lines, consistent with the best 
 traditions of the Scottish Church. In the 
 development of the theory of charitable relief 
 on the economic side this has been a main
 
 346 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 factor. His view, which he tested by experi- 
 ence, may be summed up as follows. Society 
 is a growing, self-supporting organism. It has 
 within it, as between family and family, neigh- 
 bour and neighbour, master and employee, 
 endless links of sympathy and self-support. 
 Poverty is not an absolute, but a relative term. 
 Naturally the members of one class help one 
 another ; the poor help the poor. There is thus 
 a large invisible fund available and constantly 
 used by those who, by their proximity to one 
 another, know best how to help. The philan- 
 thropist is an alien to this life around him. 
 Moved by a sense of contrast between his own 
 lot, as he understands it, and the lot of those 
 about him, whom he but little understands, he 
 concludes that he should relieve them. But his 
 gift, unless it be given in such a way as to 
 promote this sympathy and this self-support, 
 instead of weakening them, is really injurious. 
 In the first place, by his interference he puts a 
 check on the charitable resources of another class 
 and lessens their social energy. What he gives 
 they do not give, though they might do so. But 
 next, he does more harm than this. He stimu- 
 lates expectation, so that by a false arithmetic his 
 gift of a few shillings seems to those who receive 
 it and to those who hear of it a possible source
 
 PROGRESS OF THOUGHT 347 
 
 of help in any difficulty. To them it represents 
 a large command of means ; and where one has 
 received what, though it be little, is yet, relative 
 to wage, a large sum acquired without labour, 
 many will seek for other such gifts, and with that 
 object they will waste their time and be put off 
 their work, or be tempted to lie and cheat. 
 In this way social energy is diverted from its 
 proper use. Alms thus given weakens social 
 ties, diminishes the natural relief funds of mutual 
 help, and beggars a neighbour instead of benefit- 
 ing him. It follows from this argument that a 
 clear and well-defined purpose lies before charity. 
 Charity becomes a science based on social princi- 
 ples and observation. Not to give alms, but 
 to keep alive the saving health of the family, 
 becomes its problem : relief becomes altogether 
 subordinate to this, and institutions or societies 
 are serviceable or the reverse according as they 
 serve or fail to serve this purpose. Not poverty, 
 but distress is the plea for help ; not alms-' 
 giving, but charity the means. To charity is 
 given a definite social aim, and a desire to use 
 consistently with this aim every method that 
 increasing knowledge and trained ability can 
 devise. Under such influences as these, joined 
 with better economic conditions, a great reform 
 has been introduced.
 
 348 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 The poor-law, however, remains our modern 
 eleemosyna civica. It now, indeed, absorbs a 
 proportionately lesser amount of the largely 
 increased national income, but excluding the 
 maintenance of lunatics, it costs England and 
 Wales more than twelve millions a year ; and 
 among the lower classes of the poor, directly or 
 indirectly, it serves as a bounty on dependence, 
 and is a permanent obstacle to thrift and self- 
 reliance. The number of those who are within 
 the circle of its more immediate attraction is 
 now perhaps, in different parts of the country, 
 or different districts in a town, not more than, 
 say, 20 per cent, of the population. Upon that 
 population the statistics of a day census would 
 show a pauperism not of 2 '6 3, the percentage 
 of the mean day pauperism on population at the 
 present time, but of 13*15 per cent.; and the 
 percentage would be much greater twice as 
 large perhaps if the total number of those who 
 in some way received poor relief in the course of 
 a year were taken into account. 1 
 
 Thus the poor-law is among the lower classes, 
 those most tempted to dependence say some 
 six or seven millions of the people a very 
 potent influence antagonistic to the good de- 
 velopment of family life, unless it be limited to 
 
 1 Cf. the figures on p. 441.
 
 PROGRESS OF THOUGHT 349 
 
 very narrow proportions, or so organized as to 
 lead definitely to self-support. As ample ex- 
 perience shows, only on these conditions can 
 poor-law relief be justified from the point of 
 view of charity and the common good. In 
 marked contrast to this opinion is the agitation 
 for pensions. These, it was at first proposed, 
 should be given out of the national exchequer to 
 all persons over 65, at the rate of five shillings 
 a week ; and, were the plan adopted in spite of 
 its great cost, a system of state alms for the 
 aged would be set on foot, unlike the annona 
 civica, since it would be available not for citizens 
 only, a comparatively small part of the popula- 
 tion, but for the whole population, yet like the 
 annona, since it would be claimed as a right 
 a huge charity endowed with unlimited funds, 
 funds which ultimately may largely exceed the 
 normal cost of the army or the navy. Schemes 
 of the kind have been adopted in the Australasian 
 colonies with limitations and safeguards ; and 
 they seem likely to develop into a new type of 
 poor relief organization for the aged and infirm 
 (Reports, Royal Commission on Old Age Pen- 
 sions, Commonwealth of Australia, 1906). Now 
 (1909) the Old Age Pensions Act (1908) has 
 been carried, and is in operation. By it, free 
 pensions of 5s. a week are made available for
 
 350 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 persons over 70 years of age whose yearly 
 income does not exceed 21 ; and proportional 
 sums are payable, according to a schedule, to 
 those whose income does not exceed 31 10s. 
 Already there is agitation that the age should 
 be reduced to 65 or 60. On the other hand, 
 there is some hope that instead of these free 
 pensions, a contributory system may be estab- 
 lished instead for " invalidity " on lines similar 
 to those adopted in Germany. There is, indeed, 
 great scope for preventive thrift organized on 
 the basis of actuarial science. 
 
 History has proved that demoralization results 
 from the wholesale relief whether of the maSs of 
 the citizens, or of the able-bodied, or of the 
 children, and the fact that endowment is now 
 limited to the aged makes no substantial differ- 
 ence. The social results must be similar ; but 
 social forces work slowly, and usually only the 
 unanswerable argument of financial bankruptcy 
 suffices to convince a people habituated to de- 
 pendence of the evils of the largess which they 
 have received, though the inward decay of 
 vitality and character may long before have 
 been manifest. Ultimately the distribution of 
 pensions and allowances for maintenance by 
 way of a disguised outdoor relief, corrupting a 
 people far more independent than the Roman
 
 PROGRESS OF THOUGHT 351 
 
 plebs, would work a far greater injury than 
 the annona civica. The endowment of old age 
 might indeed be justified as part of a system 
 of regulated labour, which, as in earlier times, 
 could not be enforced without some such ex- 
 traneous help, but it cannot be justified other- 
 wise. It is naturally associated, therefore, with 
 socialistic proposals for the regulation of wage 
 by authority, and may even be considered an 
 indispensable step towards the adoption of that 
 method.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 THE ECONOMICS OF CHARITY. 
 
 IN the light of the principles of charity, which 
 we have considered historically, we have now to 
 turn to two questions : charity and economics, 
 and charity and socialism. 
 
 The object of charity is to render to our 
 neighbour the services and duties of goodwill, 
 friendship, and love. To prevent distress charity 
 has for its further object to preserve and develop 
 the manhood and womanhood of individuals and 
 their self-maintenance in and through the family ; 
 and any form of state intervention is approved 
 or disapproved by the same standard. By self- 
 maintenance is meant self-support throughout 
 life in its ordinary contingencies sickness, 
 widowhood, old age, etc. Political economy we 
 would define as the science of exchange and 
 exchange value. Here it has to be considered 
 in relation to the purposes of charity. By way 
 of illustration we take, accordingly, two points:
 
 THE ECONOMICS OF CHARITY 353 
 
 distribution and use, and the standard of well- 
 being in relation to wage. 
 
 Economy in the Greek sense begins at this 
 point the administration, the use, of means and 
 resources. Political economy generally ignores 
 this part of the problem. Yet from the point 
 of view of charity it is cardinal to the whole 
 issue. The distribution of wage may or may 
 not be largely influenced by trades unions ; but 
 the variation of wage by, as is generally the 
 case, the increase or decrease of a few pence is 
 of less importance than its use. Comparing a 
 careful and an unthrifty family, the difference 
 in use may amount to as much as a third on 
 the total wage. Mere abstention from alcohol 
 may make, in a normal family, a difference of 
 6s. in a wage of 25s. On the other hand, 
 membership of a friendly society is at a time of 
 sickness equivalent to the command of a large 
 sum of money, for the common stock of capital 
 is by that means placed at the disposal of each 
 individual who has a share in it. Further, even 
 a small amount saved may place the holder in a 
 position to get a better market for his labour ; 
 he can wait when another man cannot. Kent 
 may be high, but by co-operation that too may 
 be reduced. Other points are obvious and need 
 not be mentioned. It is evident that while the
 
 354 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 amount of wage is important, still more import- 
 ant is its use. In use it has a large expansive 
 value. 1 
 
 SUPPLEMENTATION OF WAGE. 
 
 The exchange between skill and wage must be 
 free if it is to be valid. The less the skill the 
 greater is the temptation to philanthropists to 
 supplement the lesser wage ; and the more im- 
 portant is non-supplementation on such a large 
 scale as may affect wages ; for the skilled can 
 usually look after their own interests in the 
 market, while the less skilled, because their 
 labour is less marketable, have to make the 
 greater effort to avoid dependence. But under 
 certain conditions the dole of endowed charities 
 in a small parish, outdoor relief, and any 
 constant giving, may tend to reduce wage or 
 to keep it down. The employer is pressed by 
 competition himself, and in return he presses for 
 
 1 Professor Chittenden, in his Physiological Economy in 
 Nutrition, and others, have shown what great economies can 
 be made in the use of food consistent with a wise parsimony 
 such as has enabled many people, earning low agricultural 
 wages, to bring up healthy families. Townspeople now, with 
 food purchasable at extraordinary low prices, could do as much. 
 To urge, as some do, that people in receipt of low wages cannot 
 usually make any provision for the future, nor even feed their 
 children properly, is rather a plea for their social incompetence 
 than for their actual lack of resources.
 
 THE ECONOMICS OF CHARITY 355 
 
 profit by using more labour-saving machinery, a 
 smaller and more skilled staff of workers, and by 
 reduction of wage, when such a reduction can be 
 made without a corresponding loss of the skill 
 that may be indispensable for his business. The 
 reduction of wage due to supplementation, if it 
 take effect, can arise, however, only on certain 
 conditions. There must be some direct associa- 
 tion between the employers and the providers of 
 the supplementation, or between the employees 
 and those who supplement their wages. There 
 must be supplementation of an amount sufficient 
 to affect the wage sheets of the section of labour 
 as a whole. There must be a market area 
 sufficiently confined to make the supplementa- 
 tion effective in relation to the amount of the 
 wage. Two or three examples will illustrate 
 this. 
 
 Before 1834 the overseers gave parochial out- 
 relief. They, by arrangement, associated them- 
 selves with the farmers in the parish, who paid 
 a large part of the rates. The farmers under- 
 took to employ the able-bodied men at a certain 
 wage. The wage was supplemented by the 
 overseers from the rates. The conjunction of 
 the givers of the outdoor relief and the providers 
 of the employment made the supplementation 
 effective for the reduction of wages. Further,
 
 356 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 the market area for employment, the parish, 
 was small. The law of Settlement prevented 
 migration. Economically the parish was a 
 " close borough." Here were all the conditions 
 for an effective supplementation and reduction 
 of wages. Next, in the case of women's work 
 generally, it is admitted that the fact that 
 women are to a large extent supported at home 
 reduces their wage. In this case the wage- 
 earner, not the employer, is associated with the 
 provider of "charity" or of maintenance, not 
 paid for by wage, but furnished at home in the 
 form of food and shelter and the rest ; and it 
 becomes necessary to earn only such a wage 
 as will supplement this provision. The same 
 results follow. The market area of the wage is 
 in that case not geographical, as it is in the case 
 of the parish, but industrial. It lies within a 
 certain class or classes of persons who are pre- 
 pared to do a certain class of work. The amount 
 of the supplementation by the home provision 
 is also in this case sufficient to affect the 
 amount of wage. 
 
 Again, if the age of pensioners who receive 
 the state alms or pension of five shillings a week 
 was reduced from 70 to 65 or 60, it is likely 
 that that amount would be a sum sufficiently 
 large to affect the amount of wage that men
 
 THE ECONOMICS OF CHARITY 357 
 
 over 60 or 55 could earn. This would be likely 
 to be the more effective to that end, if, as at 
 present, the Workmen's Compensation Act ex- 
 cluded the elder men from employment more 
 and more. In that case employers, who needed 
 the services of such men, might compute the 
 wage so as to include all or a great part of the 
 pension ; and if the men (and women) over 60 
 or 65 wanted the work greatly, if, for instance, 
 they were unable to live, according to their 
 standard of life, without it, the wage would fall 
 to be regulated in part by the supplementation 
 of it afforded by the pension. Already where a 
 man has an army or any other similar pension, it is 
 constantly taken into account in fixing his wage. 
 In this case, to make the supplementation 
 effective, there would be a conjunction of the 
 interests of the employers and the employees ; 
 and the market area of the wage would be 
 limited by the group of old age pensioners able 
 to work to the satisfaction of employers. 
 
 It has been thought that outdoor relief given 
 here and there or alms given in a town from 
 endowed charities or from societies or from 
 private donors reduced wage by supplementing 
 it. But this is not the case unless the condi- 
 tions that we have mentioned prevail. The 
 employer as a rule does not know whether
 
 358 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 such and such a hand is in receipt of outdoor 
 relief; and accordingly he or she receives a 
 wage on the same basis as other employees. 
 The relief is not taken into account. The sums 
 are relatively small and scattered ; and there 
 is no conjunction of donors with the employers, 
 as in the case of outdoor relief before 1834, or 
 of donors or home-pensioners with the employees, 
 as in the case of women. 
 
 But there is another aspect of the question to 
 be considered. Much is said of the ' sweated ' 
 industries. Two factors affect this. The supply 
 of women's labour, more particularly, may be 
 large. A notice put up at a workshop may at 
 any moment bring a far larger number of appli- 
 cants forward than can obtain employment. The 
 work may be, and often is, comparatively unskilled 
 work. The market area of competition for it is 
 accordingly comparatively large. In these circum- 
 stances the labour is cheap, and, according to the 
 employers' standard, sufficiently effective : other- 
 wise he would not employ it. Wages which are 
 low on account of mere competition can hardly 
 be called ' sweated.' So far as ' sweated ' has a 
 meaning, it implies that another element influ- 
 ences the contract, namely, that the employer, 
 finding that he has an overwhelming advantage 
 in contracting, and has practically a limited
 
 THE ECONOMICS OF CHARITY 359 
 
 market area in which he can dominate, obliges 
 the employee to take less than that to which he 
 or she would be entitled if there were approxi- 
 mate equivalence of bargaining power on both 
 sides. The limited market area, in this case, 
 is the class of persons so hardly driven by fear 
 of immediate hunger and distress that they 
 must on any terms accept work of some kind. 
 
 THE REGULATION OF WAGE. 
 
 In fact, however, it would seem that the 
 regulating power the selection of a higher or of 
 a lower grade of persons suitable for compara- 
 tively unskilled work, turns on other issues. 
 It turns largely on the class of management in 
 the factory or workshop. Some employers take 
 only better or more respectable workers. In 
 their factories there may be slight differences in 
 the method of payment, or in fines, or on some 
 other point. There is probably a closer discip- 
 line and, in point of standing, the factory may 
 be recognized locally as of a higher grade. In 
 these factories, to a great extent, not the 
 possible industrial capacity of a worker merely 
 is taken into account, but those important but 
 relatively subordinate qualities, of cleanliness, 
 trustworthiness, and respectability, which have 
 also their industrial value. Other factories take
 
 360 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 a lower class. Their standard of selection 
 is low, or non-existent, if only the work can 
 be done. In these circumstances the wage is 
 lowest, and the conditions of work and its con- 
 tinuance or discontinuance most uncertain. In 
 one sense, these are conditions that must imply 
 ' sweating ' ; but the sweating, the ' sweated ' 
 work, so called, is usually done at the home, 
 and it depends, it must be noted, on the terms 
 of a contract from which all economic considera- 
 tions are abstracted, except the single one- 
 performance of a task of great simplicity at a 
 wage settled on the basis of there being a certain 
 number of persons who must take that work on 
 the employers' terms or be famished. This is 
 then the lowest stage. In it economic qualities, 
 above those that are merely mechanic, disappear 
 or disappear almost entirely. But in the higher 
 stages of poorly skilled work the qualification 
 of the economic contract is found in the terms 
 of a contract that lies largely outside this econo- 
 mic issue pure and simple in respectability 
 and other qualities, that have a social and 
 indirectly also an economic value, which tends 
 to betterment and self-respect. 
 
 This must be so in the lower grades of labour 
 at all times. In those grades there is no alter- 
 native but to qualify the conditions of the
 
 THE ECONOMICS OF CHARITY 361 
 
 labour contract by social considerations. To some 
 extent Factory Acts tend to introduce these 
 social considerations, but primarily they depend 
 on the employer. We have no slave or even 
 industrial villein class, if one may use such a 
 phrase. There is, as yet, at least, no order of 
 society which is required to furnish cheap labour 
 on the condition that the necessaries of life are 
 provided for it. We have to consider the state 
 of things otherwise, as of a number of economic 
 groups socially affected for good or ill by the 
 conditions on which they are employed. On this 
 plan there is an endless variety of conditions in 
 factory or other employment, and much possi- 
 bility of change. On the other plan that of 
 creating a new industrial villein class a pri- 
 vileged ' sweated ' class, dependent on wages 
 fixed by statutory committees, the conditions are 
 reduced to a common level with no scope for 
 change. A breach of rules may amount almost 
 to a breach of social order. Accordingly, the 
 alternative before us, if we wish to intervene, is 
 to legislate on lines that will tend to create and 
 make permanent a new industrial class, con- 
 sidered as a class, and so provided for in the eye 
 of the law ; or to foster such social conditions as 
 will tend to qualify more and more effectually the 
 economic conditions of the market of the lower
 
 362 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 grades of unskilled labour. Of progress in the 
 latter direction there is no question. The 
 economic conditions of relatively unskilled work 
 in many directions tend to be qualified by 
 improvement and by social considerations that 
 affect it very largely. 
 
 But to revert to the alternative method, that 
 of legislation. We do not here refer to the 
 legislation that may prevent distress on the 
 lines of mutual insurance and labour exchanges. 
 To it we allude later (p. 460). The question of 
 legislation here under consideration is solely 
 that of a regulation of wage in lieu of the 
 settlement of wage for unskilled labour on the 
 terms of supply and demand, qualified by social 
 considerations. 
 
 Trades Unions, by the convenience they 
 afford in settling wages where large numbers of 
 men are concerned, and in view of the great 
 difficulties that arise if the terms of wage con- 
 tracts in regard to large masses of workers are 
 upset if they do not raise wages materially, 
 tend at least to maintain wages, and to a certain 
 extent to keep up the number of men employed. 
 That is a form of what may be called negative 
 co-operation. They co-operate with employers 
 to provide them with labour. They stand aloof 
 from employers as to any results of the non-
 
 THE ECONOMICS OF CHARITY 363 
 
 provision of labour by strikes or otherwise. 
 This is inconsistent. Logically Trades Unionism 
 should be a step to positive co-operative methods 
 of production. Perhaps it is tending in that 
 direction. So far as it does so, the difficulties 
 of relatively unskilled labour, if it finds a place 
 in such a co-operative organization, are largely 
 met. It receives a kind of protection and 
 stability that it does not now possess. But 
 apart from co-operation, in the case of the 
 poorly skilled there is no protection, such as 
 that which a Trades Union supplies for its own 
 members. In so far then as Trades Unionism 
 is tending to co-operation there is no reason 
 for legislation ; and in such matters it is better 
 to trust to economic solutions than legislative 
 interference. 1 
 
 In the Sweated Industries Act (1909), how- 
 ever, an attempt is made to provide this 
 industrial protection by the imposition of a 
 state organization. In certain trades wages are 
 to be settled by boards consisting of employing 
 and other members of the trade and of repre- 
 
 1 Cf. the evidence given before the Royal Commission on the 
 Poor Laws and Relief of Distress by the late Sir George 
 Livesey, Mr. Vivian, M.P. ; also the views of employers and 
 workmen on the question of masters and men ; also the co- 
 partnery scheme introduced by Sir Christopher Furness into 
 his shipbuilding works (Times, 30 Dec., 1909).
 
 364 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 sentatives of the Board of Trade. The Local 
 Industries Board thus takes the place of a 
 Trades Union, and, associating the parties con- 
 cerned, is to fix the wage. Then, if on the 
 employers' part there is a sufficient margin of 
 profit on the ' sweated ' wage, the wage of the 
 employees may be raised by the action of the 
 Board. But if there is not this margin, the em- 
 ployees would to that extent have to be dismissed 
 from their work, and would have to be supported 
 by the community. At present many who 
 receive a ' sweated ' wage, are, as inquiry shows, 
 known to their employers, and receive their work 
 out of good will, in spite of age and increasing 
 incapacity. In view of the new law this social 
 protection will be abandoned. The result of the 
 measure, therefore, can hardly be otherwise than 
 this. A class of unskilled industry will become 
 economically a regulated body required tc receive 
 work at a fixed ' Board ' wage, and deprived of 
 work if they cannot do so. That wage, as 
 Australian experience shows, whether it be called 
 a minimum wage or not, will become the ruling 
 wage ; and the unskilled class will thus tend to 
 become an economic caste. In fact we return to 
 a fixture of wage by Boards instead of by 
 magistrates, as it prevailed under Elizabethan 
 law. As before, the management of the poor by
 
 THE ECONOMICS OF CHARITY 365 
 
 the Poor Law was an adj uiict to the management 
 of the industrial classes by the fixture of their 
 wage, so, logically, a poor law, organized to make 
 good the deficiencies of industry and the diffi- 
 culties of regulating the ' national demand for 
 labour' must be established on Elizabethan lines 
 brought up to date and furnished with new 
 theoretic, restrictive or concessive, contrivances. 
 
 There is no evidence to show that the 
 community of the present day is capable of 
 undertaking such a task, without great disaster, 
 even if, for purposes of social advancement, 
 it were, the right task to undertake. The 
 danger of the new Act lies in the responsibili- 
 ties that it is creating for the future. If it 
 fail, it is quite possible that it will be extended, 
 both to screen its own failure and to prevent 
 it. Step by step, as the Act itself suggests, it 
 may extend its sphere. As it does so, it will 
 create a fixed industrial class, a new proletariate 
 of industry, for the economic regulation of which 
 it will have made itself responsible. Despite 
 many drawbacks, the social advance of labour 
 has been great. Would it not have been better 
 to have promoted it, on the lines upon which 
 experience shows that it could most successfully 
 be promoted ? 
 
 Always it has to be remembered that the
 
 366 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 mere increase of wage is not the sole, possibly 
 not even the principal issue. With an increase 
 of income there has to be an increase in the 
 power to use income intelligently. Whatever 
 is not so used reacts on the family to its 
 undoing. Constantly when the wife can earn 
 a few shillings a week, the husband will every 
 week idle for two or three days. So also, 
 if the husband finds that in a few days he 
 can earn enough to meet what he considers to 
 be his requirements for the week. In these 
 circumstances the standard of well-being falls 
 below the standard of wage ; the wage is in 
 excess of the energy and intelligence necessary 
 to its economic use, and in these cases ulti- 
 mately pauperism often ensues. The family is 
 demoralized. Thus, with a view to the pre- 
 vention of distress in good times, when there 
 is the less poverty there is the more need 
 of charity, rightly understood ; for charity 
 would strive to promote the right use of 
 wage, as the best means of preventing dis- 
 tress and preserving the economic well-being 
 of the family. 
 
 CHARITY AND SOCIALISM. 
 
 The theory of charity separates it entirely 
 from socialism, as that word is commonly used.
 
 THE ECONOMICS OF CHARITY 367 
 
 Strictly socialism means, in questions affecting 
 the community, a dominant regard for the 
 common or social good in so far as it is con- 
 trary to private or individual advantage. But 
 even so the antithesis is misleading, for the two 
 need not be inconsistent. On the contrary, the 
 common good is really and ultimately only 
 individual good (not advantage) harmonized to 
 a common end. The issue, indeed, is that of 
 old Greek days, and the conditions of a settle- 
 ment of jt are not substantially different. 
 Using modern terms one may say that charity 
 is ' interventionist. ' It has sought to transform 
 the world by the transformation of the will and 
 the inward life in the individual and in society. 
 It would intensify the spirit and feeling of mem- 
 bership in society, and would aim at improving 
 social conditions, as science makes clear what the 
 lines of reform should be. So it has constantly 
 intervened in all kinds of ways, and, in the 
 last century, for instance, it has initiated many 
 movements afterwards taken up by public 
 authorities such as prison reform, industrial 
 schools, child protection, housing, food reform, 
 etc. and it has been a friendly ally in many 
 reforms that affect industry very closely, as for 
 instance in the introduction of the Factory Acts. 
 But it has never aimed at recasting society
 
 368 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 itself on a new non-economic plan, as does 
 socialism. 
 
 Socialism, indeed, offers the people a new 
 state of social security. It recognizes that the 
 annona civica and the old poor law may have 
 been bad, but it would meet the objection made 
 against them by insisting on the gradual creation 
 of a new industrial society, in which wage would 
 be regulated and all would be supported, some 
 by wage in adult life, some by allowance in old 
 age, and others by maintenance in childhood. 
 Accordingly for it all schemes for the state 
 maintenance of school children, old age pensions, 
 and state provision for the unemployed are, like 
 municipal trading, steps towards a final stage, 
 in which none shall want because all shall be 
 supported by society, or be dependent on it 
 industrially. To charity this position seems to 
 exclude the ethical element in life, and to treat 
 the people, primarily or chiefly, as social 
 animals. It seems also to exclude the motives 
 for energy and endeavour that come from self- 
 maintenance. Against this, on the other hand, 
 socialism would urge that only by close regula- 
 tion and by the provision of special opportunities 
 and by the imposition of corresponding penalties 
 will the lowest classes be improved, and that only 
 the society that maintains them can control them.
 
 Charity from its experience is assured of the 
 impossibility of such control without a fatal loss 
 of initiative on the part of those controlled, and 
 it believes both that there is constant improve- 
 ment on the present conditions of society and 
 that there will be constantly more, as science 
 grows and its conclusions are put in force. Its 
 appeal to the individual is different, an appeal 
 to personal duty and to thought. Thus charity 
 and socialism, in the usual meaning of the word, 
 imply ultimately two quite different theories of 
 social life. The one would recast industrial 
 society, and place it on a new basis, the other 
 would develop society and allow it to develop 
 on the lines of constant and progressive self- 
 support. 
 
 2A
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 THE SOCIAL SCIENCES AND SOCIOLOGY. 
 
 WE should perhaps consider the relation of social 
 progress and charity in the larger sense in which 
 we have used the latter word to social science. 
 Laws and customs mark so many attempts to 
 understand society and to suggest methods for 
 preserving and improving it. They are evidence 
 in the main of a conscious regard for the develop- 
 ment of society as a whole, and not merely of 
 casual modes of thought and regulation which 
 are the outcome of passing and particular needs. 
 The folk-lore the less conscious stage passes 
 slowly away, rather indeed clothed upon by other 
 thought that gradually takes its place than cast 
 out and exiled. And at later stages of social 
 growth, probably owing to some uneasy convic- 
 tion that social life is not achieving the good that 
 seems to be within its reach, men are drawn to 
 scrutinize it and so pass to analysis, comparison, 
 inference, and suggestion.
 
 SOCIAL SCIENCES AND SOCIOLOGY 371 
 
 " The conscious regard for the development of 
 society as a whole " thus necessitates limitation 
 and definition. 
 
 We may make our attempt to understand 
 society from the ethical side, from the religious 
 side, from the side of political science, from the 
 economic side, or from that of social science and 
 of sociology. But no study of society as a whole 
 can dispense with some consideration of all these 
 and, if special considerations require it, of other 
 sciences also; and the right judgment that may 
 result from this study will take account of them 
 all. Thus, in point of fact, we cannot proceed 
 without some ideal, some conception of society 
 in which these various views of life, as indicated 
 by the several sciences, are, not neutralized, but 
 associated and adjusted. 
 
 In the statement which we have made in 
 regard to past thought, two main positions 
 appear. According to one theory, progress in 
 social life, as a whole, depends on justice leaven- 
 ing the community in alliance with courage and 
 temperance ; for these must be considered not as 
 words merely, but as active and, possibly, pre- 
 ponderant moods, in the general mind effective 
 states of being. 
 
 Next there is the Christian theory of society. 
 It accepts the structure of social life as it finds
 
 372 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 it, and takes for its representative word Charity. 
 In justice the stress is laid on the claim or right 
 of membership with its consequent duty, just 
 dealing social obligation. In charity, the stress 
 is laid on the inherent interdependence of mem- 
 bership, on the function of each member, and his 
 consequent service, on friendly dealing social 
 solidarity ; and this is linked to the Christ ideal. 
 These two views are not passed and gone. Each 
 lives now. Each is sociological, for though we 
 take different routes we come at last to the 
 primary thoughts out of which society is built, 
 which make for the progress of society and of 
 its membership. For the conception of a living 
 whole, and living parts or members, we may in 
 these days use the word ' organism/ and explain 
 that we do not mean an organism in which, as 
 in the animal, part and part are visibly united, 
 but an organism the members of which find their 
 common unity in thoughts and words in the 
 invisible. But the idea that we have formed of 
 society and express in the metaphor remains 
 strangely unaltered. Practically it remains the 
 same. 
 
 MODERN ECONOMICS AND THE GENERAL WILL. 
 
 So it is, we might almost say, till the 
 eighteenth century. Then is harvested the after-
 
 SOCIAL SCIENCES AND SOCIOLOGY 373 
 
 math of the Reformation. Once again the pre- 
 sence of a practical social dilemma gives the 
 impulse to scientific investigation and defines 
 the problem. Modern economics may be said 
 to have resulted from the discussion of the 
 question why the inhabitants of a rich and 
 fertile country like France suffered continually 
 from want and misery. Should there not be 
 some science of exchange and economic manage- 
 ment by which plenty (euporia) may be attained ? 
 In general the answer was in the affirmative. 
 Free methods of exchange produced plenty : and 
 plenty was cheapness ; and cheapness was general 
 wealth. Very naturally, as it affected far-reaching 
 interests, the science of economics became in itself 
 tvLi^ust the social science, assuming an overwhelm- 
 ing position in the minds of thoughtful people ; 
 and, as we shall see, social science, when again 
 it asserts itself, appears as an appendage to 
 political economy, crouching in a kind of dissent 
 under its wing. 
 
 Parallel to this comes the doctrine of Rousseau 
 (1712-1788) the doctrine of the general will. 
 Society considered as a working organization 
 represents, he argues, a tacitly accepted under- 
 standing between its members individually and 
 its members acting together or collectively. As 
 individuals " each of us puts to the common use
 
 374 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 his person and all his powers under the supreme 
 direction of the general will ; and, on the other 
 hand, we recognize each member as an indivisible 
 part of the whole." The words represented a 
 reaction and a reformation. All parts of the 
 social whole were taken as equally indispensable 
 to the whole ; the principle of membership was 
 restated. In this sense the words represented 
 a reaction ; but they also represented a reforma- 
 tion. Instead of Justice as the master- thought 
 of society, and instead of Charity and the Christ 
 ideal, the general will of the community was 
 accepted as the master-force. The community 
 thus became self-sufficient and self-explanatory ; 
 and the problem, How does the community grow 
 or what is social growth ? became a burning 
 question. 
 
 Two developments we must follow. One is 
 represented by this argument. The general will 
 makes society. Only as it came into being and 
 by degrees found its fuller expression, did society, 
 strictly speaking, come into existence and grow. 
 It is inalienable that is to say, it is a condition 
 of social life ; and if we abstract it from life, 
 society disappears. So the sovereignty of the 
 people expressed by the general will represents a 
 transference of the whole conception of the State 
 to a new point of view. The external construe-
 
 SOCIAL SCIENCES AND SOCIOLOGY 375 
 
 tion which we may call the ' constitution ' of 
 the State is nothing, if it ceases to express the 
 general will, and to be consistent with it. Only 
 vitalized by its breath does it acquire and retain 
 effective social reality. We have thus on the 
 political side a doctrine of laissez faire : laissez 
 faire la volonte generate. 
 
 But further, naturally a country hampered by 
 antiquated restrictions and seeking to free itself 
 found salvation in an economic laissez faire 
 the counterpart of this. In this relation it 
 meant that the external structure of the mer- 
 cantile system had lost its touch of life ; that 
 its purpose and the purpose of commerce the 
 outcome of economic experiences were no longer 
 consistent ; that its purpose had been found to 
 be wrong, to be based on a misconception. And 
 so, instead of the endless restrictions to which 
 Gournay (1712-1759) so successfully objected, 
 in commerce one could rely, it was argued, on 
 the general will of groups of consumers who 
 demand or are ready to demand, and groups 
 of producers who supply or are ready to supply 
 their wants. 
 
 ' Let do ' ; this does not mean seek your own 
 ends only regardless of all moral considerations ; 
 it means in the science or the department of life 
 to which the science (in this case the science of
 
 376 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 economics) refers, " Do not bind the mind that 
 does." The appeal is from regulation to self- 
 adjustment, from letter to spirit. If the mind 
 is lacking, or in so far as it is lacking, it has not 
 liberty ; and so, we of a later age may say to 
 reach liberty and prepare for it, to create a 
 sufficient mind let regulation come in. But in 
 the main, on the view of self-adjusted expansion, 
 one may expect the mind of the group more and 
 more to grasp not merely, for instance, the 
 economic conditions, but the whole of the con- 
 ditions of the question or issue that lies before 
 it, and so to live by a rule as broad as its grasp. 
 But it may fail to do this. Then we may say 
 * Laissez faire ' fails, which in a sense is true ; 
 but it is only another way of saying the ' mind ' 
 is not up to the ' doing.' 
 
 This view of social development, it will be 
 seen, accentuated the importance of the study 
 of social conditions. Every part of the problem 
 became vital ; a positive philosophy in some 
 form could not but be its outcome on this side. 
 Thus, as a result, on the one hand, history under 
 Saint Simon (1760-1825), Comte (1798-1857) 
 and others was recast into stages of development, 
 more or less real. On the other hand the method 
 of observation was evoked. For instance, once 
 again a social difficulty challenged analysis. In
 
 SOCIAL SCIENCES AND SOCIOLOGY 377 
 
 a small country like England, where there is 
 frequent want coupled with widespread poor 
 relief, what is the relation of population to the 
 supply of food ? This brought Malthus into the 
 field ; and of these and other investigations such 
 sciences as demography and statistics are the 
 outcome, as are also the methods of observation 
 which in the course of time were elaborated by 
 Le Play (d. 1888) and his special form of 
 " Science Sociale." 
 
 At the same time, at first the scope of social 
 observation was limited. In spite of some pro- 
 tests, the merely economic interest in social life 
 was dominant. Some departments, the ethical, 
 for instance, and the religious fell out of sight. 
 The biological and the psychological, as modern 
 sciences of observation, were yet unborn. The 
 philosophy of the useful was made the basis of 
 economic thought, and dealing with material 
 wealth it was naturally applicable to it. It was 
 also applied to ethics, and it practically de- 
 socialized them, and obscured the nature and 
 importance of social habit. It overlooked the 
 finer elements of thought that stimulate social 
 action and give unity of feeling to society, and 
 train its responsiveness to higher appeals. Thus, 
 in ethics it tended to give predominance to 
 material ends, social and individual, as though
 
 378 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 men could live on bread alone, and the idealism 
 of Justice as a chief element in social advance 
 was well-nigh forgotten. 
 
 SOCIAL ECONOMICS. 
 
 The reaction came from under the very wing 
 of economics. The phrase ' social economics ' 
 is evidence of it ; and, incongruous as the ex- 
 pression really is, the term suggested the actual 
 state of thought. The substantive was economics; 
 it was the actual and effective movement. The 
 question was how to socialise it : the adjective 
 was 'social.' Sismondi (1773-1842) was the 
 introducer of this change, the representative of 
 the movement, the opponent of laissez faire as 
 he understood it, at a time when laissez faire was 
 an economic dictum elevated to a social principle. 
 
 Social science Sismondi deals with as a sister 
 that an errant and aggressive economic has for- 
 gotten. He says : " La science e'conomique sera 
 to uj ours courte par quelque endroit et aura besoin 
 d'etre rehaussee par la charite' I " " Economics 
 will always fall short at some place, and must 
 be made good by charity." In effect, he argues 
 that " Economic science does not supply the key 
 to the social problem ; it has been pre-occupied 
 with things rather than with men ; it has sought 
 only how to increase wealth ; it has become
 
 SOCIAL SCIENCES AND SOCIOLOGY 379 
 
 merely chrematistic. It must add a piece to its 
 raiment and become social. It is the art of 
 social economy to make men happy, materially 
 and morally." On this understanding Sismondi 
 proceeds to deal with our modern questions, 
 adopting, as his successors have done, the theory 
 of wages, as it was then and till recently accepted, 
 by which wage was conceived as perpetually 
 hovering about the line of minimum subsistence, 
 and tending constantly to that minimum. So, 
 to quote one or two instances, property, he 
 argues, is rightly private ; but when it assumes 
 large proportions held in one ownership, if it 
 becomes an instrument of oppression, the State 
 should interfere. So competition unbridled 
 favours la grande Industrie, and the workman 
 becomes mere social dust, la poussiere sociale. 
 Social equality does not exist. Such an evil he 
 would remedy in part by a revision of taxation. 
 It should be made progressive from that point 
 at which the individual cannot pay a tax at all 
 up to the maximum income, and there should 
 be a trade guarantee (garantie professionnelle) 
 to assure to the labourer subsistence when he 
 cannot work or is ill or old. There would thus 
 be in industry as in politics a Constitution. In 
 political life the constitution produces public 
 liberty. In industrial life the guarantee would
 
 380 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 cover all industrial conditions, and in one form 
 or another would be incidental to contracts of 
 labour between employer and employee. Here, 
 clearly, we have the germ of so-called ' pension ' 
 and ' insurance ' schemes. 
 
 These and other points which might be quoted 
 illustrate what may be called the first position 
 in the modern development of social science. 
 At this stage it is not separate from economics 
 and independent of it. It is economics rather 
 crudely socialized. It is socialist rather social- 
 scientific ; it is socialism and not social science. 
 It represents no sufficient study of social habit, 
 no co-ordinated principles in science, but a policy 
 of more or less interference on the lines of com- 
 pensation and reconstruction in view of the 
 pressure of economic laws. It occupies the place 
 which socialism has generally occupied even up 
 to the present time of being a modifying force 
 in economic theory and practice, not as being a 
 science in itself, but a factor of intervention, 
 a skid put on the quick-rolling wheels of com- 
 petition. Slowly since then social science has 
 set itself free from economics, and is now assum- 
 ing a new position, and incidentally at the same 
 time social science properly speaking does, and 
 should, take the place of socialism.
 
 SOCIAL SCIENCES AND SOCIOLOGY 381 
 
 SOCIOLOGY AND 'SOCIAL FACTS.' 
 
 In what follows some may think, perhaps, that 
 more stress should be laid on the work of Comte 
 and Herbert Spencer. In justification of the 
 line we have adopted, however, we would quote 
 the words of M. Durkheim in the introduction 
 to his Regies de la Methode Sociologique. 1 
 
 " Up to the present time the sociologists have 
 been little interested in describing or defining 
 the method which they apply to the study of 
 social facts. Thus the problem of the science 
 of method has no place in the works of Herbert 
 Spencer. The Introduction to Social Science 
 might by its title seem to indicate that it would 
 deal with a study of method, but it is devoted 
 to demonstrating the difficulties of sociology and 
 its possibilities, not to setting forth the procedure 
 which it should adopt." Mill, he adds, passes 
 the conclusions of Comte through the sieve of 
 his dialectic, but adds to them nothing of his 
 own ; and he concludes that " Comte 's single 
 chapter in his Cours de philosophie positive is 
 
 1 Sociology may be taken as meaning more than social science. 
 Ethics, economics, etc., may be considered social sciences, and 
 sociology may be considered the science of society in which the 
 conclusions of the several sciences are brought together and 
 adjusted.
 
 382 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 nearly the only original and important study we 
 possess on the subject " now, a far too sweeping 
 conclusion. 
 
 Two processes follow, observation, the ascer- 
 tainment of the universal the constant under- 
 lying laws which observation suggests and 
 induction establishes ; and in the case of society 
 the reference of such laws to some ideal, as the 
 standard of their measurement and value in 
 relation to life. In regard to these processes 
 very much remains to be done, but a beginning 
 has been made. 
 
 To submit first a short note about Le Play in 
 regard to his method of observation and social 
 habit. 
 
 Le Play, noticing the anomaly of increasing 
 wealth and weakened manners, and the variety of 
 conditions that prevailed in the lives of families, 
 investigated the actual circumstances of people 
 in different countries, not from the side of their 
 wage or remuneration only and their ability to 
 earn wages and produce goods, but also from the 
 point of view of their life as members of society 
 and of the groups into which society divides 
 itself. Thus, for him, the place with its geogra- 
 phical characteristics, the home, the family and 
 its relationships, the earnings of its members, 
 their means of social preservation, industry,
 
 SOCIAL SCIENCES AND SOCIOLOGY 383 
 
 thrift, property, habits, manners, education, 
 religion, their relations to the village or town 
 or state all that was actual and formative in 
 their lives was brought under one survey ; and 
 matters economic, in fact or by inference, came 
 to be treated as but a part of the whole, as the 
 part that was concerned with exchange and 
 exchange value in relation to the supply and 
 demand of goods and labour. This method of 
 observation led the way to classification to a 
 definition of groups of people by type, and drew 
 into juxtaposition the formative elements of social 
 life. To questions respecting the anomalies of 
 competition and the conflict between wealth and 
 desire, it gave the answer, " What are the facts 
 of social habit ? That is right which strengthens 
 social habit consistently with the strengthening 
 of the structure of society the individual, the 
 family, the group, in relation to themselves and 
 the general good." According to this view, on 
 the results obtained and submitted by social 
 science, judgment might be given, that what is 
 desired by way of reform or improvement should, 
 on the ground of the formation of social habit, 
 be dealt with either by law or by the influence 
 of custom or by the influence of religion, as a kind 
 of authoritative ethic ; or, on the other hand, by 
 the processes of well-considered social change
 
 384 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 adjusting itself to economic movements on 
 lines which are suggested by the nature of the 
 social habits in question and the method of their 
 growth. Thus, instead of merely empiric social- 
 ism we have the beginnings of science. 
 
 But social science has now gone further. By 
 observation and statistic what M. Durkheim 
 calls 'social facts' are being gradually collected 
 and grouped on lines outlying the province of 
 observation which Le Play chose as his own ; 
 and they supplement it in various ways. These 
 social facts are inductions from observation in 
 many collateral departments of life. They repre- 
 sent a further stage in the working of the mind in 
 relation to facts. So M. Durkheim, in his own 
 phraseology, argues that the mere incidents of 
 life are not social facts ; also that personal habits 
 and the like, considered by themselves, are not 
 necessarily social facts ; that the social fact has 
 in its nature something of a force exterior to the 
 individual and tends to control him ; and that, 
 finally, the social fact is " a fact which is general 
 throughout any given society and retains its own 
 characteristic independently of its manifestations 
 in individual instances." And so, arguing his 
 way to the conception of the ' form ' or the 
 ' idea,' but hardly perhaps realizing who is his 
 master in that craft, M. Durkheim rightly con-
 
 SOCIAL SCIENCES AND SOCIOLOGY 385 
 
 eludes that it is with this group of phenomena 
 that sociology concerns itself. 
 
 Of such ' social facts ' some instances may 
 be given. The rates of mortality on which 
 assurances are based are a social fact according 
 to the latter definition. The rate is general, and 
 under the conditions of the particular place and 
 population, normal at different ages. Accepting 
 it, the members of some classes of society submit 
 to the conditions of constraint that its con- 
 clusions impose upon them, and settle a large 
 department of their social life, in regard to 
 which they desire to have security, by saving 
 and investments, the amount and nature of 
 which are also largely dependent on these con- 
 clusions. The decrease of birth-rates in the case 
 of people of marriageable age, as it appears in 
 recent papers read on that subject at the 
 Statistical Society, is another social fact, which 
 appears to satisfy these definitions. Other 
 social facts very many remain for analysis 
 and verification. Such are the variation in 
 social habit in particular trades in relation to 
 the amount of the wage of the head of the 
 family and members of the family, for instance, 
 or variation in migration in relation to trade 
 conditions in a country, variation in the actual 
 purchase rates in poor or rich neighbourhoods, 
 
 2B
 
 386 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 and so on. And there is now scope for a statistic 
 of details in regard to social habit, which should 
 demonstrate with great clearness its relation to 
 conditions of health and social progress. 
 
 This ' social habit ' is indeed a ' social fact ' 
 that requires more detailed investigation. The 
 remarkable and well-known investigations of Mr. 
 Charles Booth and Mr. Seebohm Rowntree, 
 which have stirred public thought in many 
 circles, were in our judgment faulty from this 
 point of view. 1 They were not analytical of 
 social habit, but of relative poverty and riches. 
 They graded the population according as they 
 were ' poor ' or ' very poor,' or above a poverty 
 line. Their authors aimed at marking out such a 
 line of poverty, forgetful, as it seems to us, of the 
 fact that poverty is so entirely relative to use 
 and habit and potential ability of all kinds, 
 that it can never serve as a satisfactory basis 
 of social investigation or social reconstruction. 
 It is not the greater or lesser command of means 
 that makes the material difference in the con- 
 tentment and efficiency of social life, but the 
 use of means relative to station in life and its 
 possibilities. Nevertheless, in these investiga- 
 
 1 See " Some Recent Investigations as to the Number of the 
 Poor in the Community " (Appendix III., Report of the Inter- 
 departmental Committee on Physical Deterioration, 1904).
 
 SOCIAL SCIENCES AND SOCIOLOGY 387 
 
 tions it was on the possession of means that 
 stress was laid. Hence the suggestion that the 
 issue to be settled by the country the line of 
 social reform was the endowment of the class 
 or classes whose resources were considered 
 relatively insufficient. 
 
 But to transfer the wealth of one class to 
 another by taxation or otherwise is no solution 
 of social difficulty. The transfer is, and must 
 be, in the nature of an alms, an annona ; and it 
 cannot but weaken effort instead of strengthening 
 it. The evidence that it can have an opposite 
 effect, it is not too much to say, is nil. Every- 
 where one may see people of similar means 
 living under similar conditions, some successfully 
 and usefully, some with failure and social inutility. 
 The difference, it is clear, lies not in the 
 difference of resources, but in social habit. 
 Hence, not the relative riches or poverty of 
 the classes, or of the individuals that compose 
 them, are primarily of material importance, but 
 their social habit. 
 
 Drink in the case of a richer man is concealed ; 
 in the case of a poorer man it is quickly revealed 
 in disastrous want. But socially it is not less 
 harmful in the former. To society it is the 
 habit that matters ; and for it the fall of the 
 richer man, who is charged with larger responsi-
 
 388 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 bilities, may involve a greater evil. The results 
 of misdoing and misjudgment come on a poorer 
 man quickly and surely. His financial position 
 cannot parry them or hide them. He walks 
 in dangerous places without a parapet. He 
 may thus be educated and stimulated to greater 
 efforts, may be saved, socially speaking, and 
 made a man. 
 
 Here again is the difference between social 
 science and socialism. Social science works 
 from ' social facts ' and social habits, towards 
 a higher and completer standard, consistent 
 with the extension of competent and self- 
 developing habit. Socialism rests its faith on 
 the financial and economic reorganisation of 
 society, by which the poorer classes shall be 
 endowed, the stringency and stimulation of 
 competition removed by a state-controlled 
 labour market, and relief provided to all, subject 
 to their resources falling below some more or 
 less definite poverty line. That is the policy 
 of the Report of the Minority of the Royal 
 Commission on the Poor Law and Relief of 
 Distress. It is, as we have said, the policy of 
 creating a large dependent class, a huge in- 
 dustrial villeinage. 
 
 Thus has social investigation, divorced from 
 social science, led the people astray.
 
 SOCIAL SCIENCES AND SOCIOLOGY 389 
 
 THE STANDARD OF THE GOOD SOCIAL LIFE. 
 
 Another element in the development of social 
 science or sociology is the correlation of our 
 inductions and their reference to some standard, 
 which we may call the good social life. For, as 
 we have seen, it is characteristic of social science 
 that it should accumulate the facts in relation to 
 the structure of society from social observa- 
 tion and from other cognate sciences with a view 
 to the comparison of data, for the purposes of 
 induction, and thus ultimately for the formation 
 of society on lines consistent with knowledge. 
 There lies before us then the ideal of the 
 good social life, which, if our science be sound, 
 should be built up consistently with the con- 
 clusions and conceptions of social science. 
 
 This we may illustrate. It is made abundantly 
 clear by social science, as we have shown, that 
 unless the individual and the family be strong 
 and self-progressive, society cannot be strong. 
 The good social life depends on this. The indi- 
 vidual and the family are continually educated 
 by an imitative and also by a reasoned give-and- 
 take of thought and suggestion between other 
 individuals and families and themselves. Indi- 
 viduals have a dramatic instinct. Each, especially 
 in childhood and youth, thinks out what he
 
 390 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 observes, by associating it with a kind of other 
 or ' acting ' self. What others do he embodies 
 in an 'actor' self, and so he rejects or he 
 assimilates it. And then in turn what he has 
 assimilated, he uses for a kind of propaganda, 
 that underlies his statements and his actions. 
 What he believes, he disseminates, possibly, 
 overtly and consciously, but often in greatest 
 measure incidentally and unconsciously. "What 
 we do is always a function of what we think." 
 Thus social vitality is preserved and strengthened, 
 and social growth takes place at the formative 
 stages of life. Thus, too, the common education 
 of the members of society is enforced, and what 
 Professor Baldwin calls the social judgment is 
 acquired. (James M. Baldwin : Social and 
 Ethical Interpretation in Mental Development, 
 pp. 93, 80, 36) : " The eligible candidate for 
 social life," he says, " must have a good judgment, 
 as represented by the common standards of 
 judgment of his people." " The socially unfit 
 person is the person of poor judgment." 
 
 And so equally of the family considered as a 
 group of mutually related members. " The 
 interests of the family group are reflected in 
 the wants of each member of the group. . . . 
 Nothing but an upheaval of the foundations of 
 personality can eradicate the sense of social
 
 SOCIAL SCIENCES AND SOCIOLOGY 391 
 
 solidarity in every child in a family. And the 
 sanction for family life and its permanent safe- 
 guard is here." "To eradicate the family 
 instinct in the animal is to destroy his private 
 chance of survival." 
 
 Here we have the elements of a kind of 
 standard which may be considered in its com- 
 pleteness in relation to the data of the several 
 social sciences, economics, ethics, and so on. 
 Whatever proposal we may make, it must be 
 considered primarily in the light of complet- 
 ing the social ability of the family and the 
 individual as self-adjustive, self-expansive parts 
 of the social organism. That in one chief relation 
 sets our standard of the good social life according 
 to social science. And, further, the good social 
 judgment consists in a large degree in the ability 
 to make a kind of correlation of the several 
 scientific factors in any particular issue, and 
 in giving to each its due place in decision and 
 conduct. We say ' scientific factors,' but to 
 the normal mind the factors will hardly seem 
 connected each with its particular science. The 
 judgment is of a more elemental nature, partly 
 deliberative, partly, if one may so use the word, 
 instinctive. Throughout, however, the judgment 
 is steadied by a regard for the good social life, 
 conceived as a definite and attainable whole,
 
 392 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 according to the standing or outlook of the 
 individual. 
 
 But the view which socialism adopts, coupled 
 with the promises which it makes to the people, 
 is the opposite of all this. It ignores the 
 standard that social science would suggest. To 
 it practically the question is one of more or less 
 want, more or less poverty, more or less riches. 
 If the gaps be filled up the evils will be met. 
 In this sense it may be promised, as the sup- 
 porters of the Minority Report of the Commission 
 promise, that there shall be no more destitution. 
 For everybody whose means are less than a cer- 
 tain amount becomes qualified for a subsidy, be it 
 medical relief, an aliment, or a pension, coupled 
 with whatever conditions a liberal state may 
 impose. This ignores all the self-acting elements 
 of society, all its springs of growth. The liberal 
 supply of relief (for after all it is that) which is 
 to smother destitution so that it shall appear no 
 longer, will of itself destroy the structure of 
 society. The pressure of life makes for the 
 strength of life. No conditions attached to 
 relief given to all who seek it or to all who are 
 to be sought out in order that they may accept 
 it, can be vital, as the conditions which social 
 life itself imposes are vital, for the reinforcement 
 of character and the prevention of decadence.
 
 SOCIAL SCIENCES AND SOCIOLOGY 393 
 
 That, again, so far as our knowledge goes, may 
 be said to be proven. We want, therefore, not 
 an enormous and much enlarged institutionalism, 
 and a yet larger system of allowances, but, what 
 leads us to quite other methods, the reinforce- 
 ment of social habit, as far as may be, without 
 relief, and, when assistance is necessary, still to 
 keep that end clearly in view. Destitution 
 cannot disappear. Every group of competing 
 men is continually producing it. The man who 
 fails passes down along the road to destitution, 
 whether he can stop himself or be stopped before 
 he reaches it or not. 
 
 Quite akin to these promises for the "aboli- 
 tion " of destitution is the proposal that those in 
 distress should be treated by several authorities 
 according to the age of the claimant instead of 
 according to his condition individually and in 
 relation to the family of which he is a member. 
 Social experience has shown that the treatment 
 of the family as a whole is productive of the best 
 results, and that this should be the rule, and any 
 other method the exception. This method is 
 consistent with the structure and purposes of the 
 family, and it leads to the strengthening of social 
 judgment and capacity. But there seems to be 
 a kind of completeness in setting out, for children 
 one authority, be they in want or not in want ;
 
 394 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 for the able-bodied one authority, be they 
 unemployed, or vagrant, or criminally idle ; for 
 the aged one authority, and for the sick and 
 infirm one authority. Yet socially no scheme 
 could be less complete. In accordance with 
 it the child is treated without regard to the 
 father or mother, the grandmother without 
 regard to either, and the family, on the mutual 
 relations of which each alike rests, is ignored. 
 Here, indeed, we have a wrong standard. The 
 method affords no basis for social advance or 
 reconstruction. It sets aside a main condition 
 of the good social life by running counter to the 
 lines of social structure, and promoting indi- 
 vidual relief apart from the stimulation of the 
 social judgment. This, again, is socialism. 
 
 We have referred to the general will and its 
 identification with justice. There is always fear 
 lest the general will itself be brought down to 
 injustice. It may be warped by the pressure of 
 the counsellors of the nation. They may appeal 
 to the weakness of the people, and may carry by 
 vote an enfeebling policy a policy that consists 
 of a distribution of goods to the people under 
 new forms and new disguises, but which is not 
 just. It is not just because it contravenes the 
 ordered structure and the growth of society 
 itself. For justice lies not in the distribution
 
 SOCIAL SCIENCES AND SOCIOLOGY 395 
 
 or non-distribution of means with a view to 
 equality, but in the development and enforce- 
 ment of function with a view to the fulfilment 
 of duty. 
 
 If this sketch of the growth of sociology be 
 correct, sociology, as it becomes more complete, 
 is pointing out with ever more emphatic clearness 
 the conditions of social progress. It is, for those 
 who will seek it, drawing together the several 
 social sciences and co-ordinating their conclusions 
 as the science of the structure and development 
 of society and of the groups that compose it and 
 of social well-being. 
 
 For Charity a new position is gained. It finds 
 in the social sciences and sociology new allies and 
 counsellors. To them it now becomes definitely 
 related.
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 THE ORGANIZATION OF CHARITY. 
 
 THE springs of charity lie in sympathy and 
 religion, and, one would now add, in science. 
 To organize it is to give to it the 'ordered 
 nature ' of an organic whole, to give it a 
 definite social purpose, and to associate the 
 members of the community with it for the ful- 
 filment of that purpose. This in turn depends 
 on the recognition of common principles, the 
 adoption of a common method, self-discipline and 
 training, and co-operation. In a mass of people 
 there may be a large variation in motives coin- 
 cident with much unity in action. Thus in 
 charity there may be an acceptance of a com- 
 mon social purpose, though one may be stirred 
 to fulfil it by impulses such as moved St. Francis 
 or George Herbert, and others by motives such 
 as influenced Howard or Dr. Chalmers, a modern 
 poor-law reformer like Sir George Nicholls, or 
 a pioneer of modern charitable thought such as 
 Edward Denison. The method of charity as now
 
 THE ORGANIZATION OF CHARITY 397 
 
 understood may be judged by its fruits. So 
 tested, it does best. Socially this is the plain and 
 actual justification of it as right. Accepting, then, 
 the principles of charity, we pass to its method 
 in relation to assistance and relief. Details 
 may vary, but on the following points there is 
 general agreement among students and workers : 
 
 THE COMMITTEE OR CONFERENCE. 
 
 There are usually three kinds of local relief: 
 the public or poor-law relief, and relief connected 
 with religious agencies ; and besides these, there 
 is the relief of endowments, societies, and charit- 
 able persons. Therefore, as a condition precedent 
 to all organization, there must be some local 
 centre of association for information and common 
 help. A town should be divided for this purpose 
 into manageable areas coincident with parishes 
 or poor-law divisions, or other districts. Subject 
 to an acceptance of general principles, those 
 engaged in charity should be members of a local 
 conference or committee, or allied to it. The 
 committee would thus be the rallying-point of a 
 large and somewhat loosely knit association of 
 friends and workers. 
 
 For the discussion of large general questions 
 a larger and somewhat representative body or 
 council of social welfare may be of service. It
 
 398 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 may canvass new projects and consider measures 
 for the assistance of particular classes or the 
 suppression of particular evils. This method, so 
 far as it has gone, has proved useful. 
 
 INQUIRY, AID, AND REGISTRATION. 
 
 The object of inquiry is to ascertain the 
 actual causes of distress or dependence ; and 
 to carry on the work there must usually be a 
 staff of several honorary and one or two paid 
 workers. Two methods may be adopted : to 
 inquire in regard to applications for help with 
 a view to forming some plan of material help 
 or friendly aid, or both, which will lead to the 
 ultimate self-support of the family and its 
 members, and, under certain conditions, in the 
 case of the aged or sick, to their continuous 
 or their sufficient help ; or to ascertain the facts 
 partly at once, partly by degrees, and then to 
 form and carry out some plan of help, or to 
 continue to befriend the family in need of 
 help, in the hope of bringing them to condi- 
 tions of self-support, leaving the work of relief 
 entirely to other agencies. The committee in 
 neither case should be a relief committee 
 itself a direct source of relief. On the former 
 method it has usually no relief fund, but it 
 raises from relations, employers, charities, and
 
 THE ORGANIZATION OF CHARITY 399 
 
 charitable persons the relief required, according 
 to the plan of help agreed upon, unless, indeed, it 
 is better not to relieve the case, or to leave it to 
 the poor-law. The committee thus makes itself 
 responsible for endeavouring to the best of its 
 ability to raise the necessary relief, and acts as 
 trustee for those who co-operate with it from the 
 outside, in such a way as to keep all the natural 
 obligations that lie within the inner circles of a 
 self-supporting community intact and to give 
 them full scope. On the latter method the work 
 of relief is left to general charity, or to private 
 persons, or to the poor-law ; and the effort is 
 made to help the family to self-support by a 
 friendly visitor. This procedure is that adopted 
 by the associated charities in Boston, Mass., 
 and other similar societies in America and 
 elsewhere. It is akin also to that adopted in 
 the municipal system of relief in Elberfeld 
 which has become, with many variations in 
 detail, the standard method of poor relief in 
 Germany. The method of associated help, 
 combined with personal work, represents the 
 usual practice of charity organization societies. 
 Mutatis mutandis, the plan can be adopted on 
 the simplest scale in parochial or other relief 
 committees, subject to the safeguards of 
 sufficient training and settled method.
 
 400 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 In general the inquiry should cover the 
 following points : names and address, the nature 
 and causes of the distress, slight or serious, 
 affecting the family as a whole or any member 
 of the family, the ages of the family, previous 
 addresses, past employment and wages, present 
 income, rent and liabilities, membership of 
 friendly or other society, and savings, rela- 
 tions, relief (if any) from any source. These 
 points should be verified, and reference should 
 be made to the clergy, the poor-law authorities, 
 and others, to ascertain if they know the 
 applicant. The result should be to show how 
 the applicant has been living, and what are the 
 sources of possible help, and also what is his 
 character. The problem, however, is not whether 
 the person is ' deserving ' or ' undeserving,' but 
 whether, granted the facts, the distress can be 
 stayed and self-support attained. If the help 
 can be given privately from within the circle 
 of the family, so much the better. Sometimes it 
 may be best to advise, but not to interfere. In 
 some cases but little help may be necessary ; 
 in others again the friendly relation between 
 applicant and friend may last for months and 
 even years. Usually in charitable work the 
 question of the kind of relief available money, 
 tickets, clothes, etc. governs the decision how
 
 THE ORGANIZATION OF CHARITY 401 
 
 the case should be assisted. But this is quite 
 wrong : the opposite is the true rule. The 
 wants of the case, rightly understood, should 
 govern the decision as to what charity should do 
 and what it should provide. 
 
 Cases at some centres are overwhelming in 
 number, as at the out-patient and casualty de- 
 partments of a hospital or at a ' shelter,' where 
 the admissions are made without inquiry, and 
 subject practically to no restrictions ; but when 
 there is inquiry, and each case is seriously 
 considered and aided with a view to self-support, 
 the numbers will seldom be overwhelming. On 
 this plan appeal is made to the strength of 
 the applicant, and requires an effort on his 
 part. Indiscriminate relief, on the other hand, 
 attracts the applicant by an appeal to his 
 weakness, and it requires of him no effort. 
 Hence, apart even from the differentiating 
 effect of inquiry, one method makes applicants, 
 the other limits their number, although on 
 the latter plan much more strenuous endea- 
 vours be made to assist the lesser number of 
 claimants. 
 
 For the routine work of the office an extremely 
 simple system of records with card index, etc., 
 has been devised. In some cities, particularly 
 
 in the United States of America, there is a 
 
 2c
 
 402 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 central registration of cases, 1 notified by indi- 
 vidual charities, poor-relief authorities, and 
 private persons. This should be adopted 
 generally. The system of charity organization 
 or associated charity, it will be seen, allows 
 of the utmost variety of treatment, according 
 to the difficulties in each instance and the 
 remedies available, and gives the utmost scope 
 for personal work. 
 
 TRAINING. 
 
 If charitable work is an art, those who 
 undertake it must needs be trained both in 
 practice and method and in judgment. It 
 requires, too, that self-discipline which blends 
 intelligence with emotion, and so endows 
 emotion with strength and purpose. In times 
 of distress a reserve of trained workers is of 
 the utmost service. At all times they do more 
 than others and produce, socially, better results ; 
 and when there is general distress of any kind 
 they do not lose their heads like new recruits, 
 but prevent at least some of the mischief that 
 comes of the panic which often takes possession 
 of a community, when distress is apprehended, 
 and leads to wild distributions of relief. Also 
 
 lr The system is now growing apace in London in connexion 
 with the London Charity Organization Society.
 
 THE ORGANIZATION OF CHARITY 403 
 
 trained workers make the most useful poor- 
 law guardians, health visitors, school visitors, 
 trustees of charities, secretaries of charitable 
 societies, and district visitors. All clergy and 
 ministers, and all medical men who have to be 
 engaged in the administration of medical relief, 
 should learn the art of charity. Poor-law 
 guardians are usually elected on political or 
 general grounds, and, generally speaking, have 
 no special knowledge of good methods of charity ; 
 and trustees are seldom appointed on the score 
 of their qualifications on this head. To provide 
 the necessary education in charity there should 
 be competent helpers and teachers at charity 
 organization committees and elsewhere, and an 
 alliance for this purpose should be formed 
 between them and professors and teachers of 
 moral science and economics and the ' Settle- 
 ments.' This is now being done in London 
 and Liverpool, Boston and New York, and 
 elsewhere. Those who study social problems in 
 connexion with what a doctor would call ' cases ' 
 or ' practice ' see the limits and the falsity of 
 schemes that on paper seem logical enough. 
 This puts a check on the influence of scheme- 
 building and that literary sensationalism which 
 makes capital out of social conditions.
 
 404 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 CO-OPERATION. 
 
 Organization in charity depends on extensive 
 co-operation, and ultimately on the acceptance 
 of common views. This comes but slowly. But 
 with much tribulation the goal may be reached, 
 if in case after case the effort is made to provide 
 friendly help through charities and private 
 persons, unless, as may well be, it should seem 
 best not to interfere, but to leave the applicant 
 to apply to the administrators of public relief. 
 Experience of what is right and wrong in charity 
 is thus gained on both sides. Many sources 
 may have to be utilized for aid of different 
 kinds even in a single case, and for the 
 prevention of distress co-operation with municipal 
 authorities, poor-law authorities, with members 
 of friendly societies and with provident and 
 thrift agencies is indispensable. But the whole 
 question has now been stated and discussed 
 anew in the Majority Report of the Royal Com- 
 mission on the Poor Laws and Relief of Distress. 
 
 One point, however, may be overlooked, and 
 should be definitely stated. Charities are judged 
 of in the gross so much money what number 
 relieved ? Or so many societies should they 
 not be recast and many of them combined ? 
 This criticism, as a rule, is superficial and mis-
 
 THE ORGANIZATION OF CHARITY 405 
 
 leading. Charities represent so many social 
 endeavours made to meet social needs ; and they 
 concentrate a certain definite amount of force. 
 They draw together groups of friends and fellow- 
 workers. They are not mere material units 
 that can be cut and divided and glued together. 
 The number of the charities is not in itself 
 necessarily an evil. They are, as a rule, econo- 
 mically managed, and they fulfil different func- 
 tions. They naturally group themselves, and 
 out of this grouping there naturally arises 
 organization. This movement in this direction 
 is now constant. But the most valuable organi- 
 zation is that which grows out of case work. 
 In this way new relations are continually created 
 between charity and charity, and there is a 
 growing unity of endeavour and an increased 
 usefulness, of which most people are usually 
 quite ignorant. To force amalgamation or ampli- 
 fication is merely to create difficulties and to 
 fail to organize. Each society naturally claims 
 to be the master of its own existence. If, 
 however, there is association in work a far more 
 valuable unity arises, a unity that is founded 
 on friendship and a dominant common interest. 
 The advance in this kind of organization in 
 London during the past thirty years has been 
 very marked.
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII 
 
 PARTICULAR QUESTIONS OF CHARITABLE 
 ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 CHARITY AND THE POOR-LAW. 
 
 WHERE there is accord between charity and 
 the poor-law pauperism, unnecessary and in- 
 jurious dependence, may be largely reduced. 
 The poor-law in most countries has at its 
 disposal certain institutional relief and out-door 
 allowances, but it has no means of devising 
 plans of help which may prevent application 
 to the rates or 'take' people 'off the rates.' 
 Thus a widow in the first days of widowhood 
 applies and receives an allowance according to 
 the number of her children. Helped at the 
 outset by charity on some definite plan, she 
 may become self-supporting ; and if her family 
 be large one or two of her children may be 
 placed in schools by the guardians, while she 
 maintains the remaining children and herself. 
 As far as possible there should be a division
 
 CHARITABLE ADMINISTRATION 407 
 
 
 
 of labour between the poor-law and charity. 
 Except where some plan such as that just 
 mentioned is adopted, one or the other should 
 take whole charge of the case relieved. There 
 should be no supplementation of poor-law relief 
 by charity. This will weaken the strength and 
 dissipate the resources of charity without adding 
 to the efficiency of the poor-law. Unless the 
 guardians adopt an out-door relief policy, 
 rightly restrictive and yet directed to the pro- 
 per and sufficient treatment of the individual 
 case, there is no scope for any useful division 
 of labour between them and charity ; for 
 the many cases which, taken in time, charity 
 might save from pauperism, they will draw 
 into chronic dependence by mere allowances a 
 very much larger number. But if there is 
 a restrictive out-door policy, so far as relief is 
 necessary, charity may undertake to meet on 
 its own lines distress which the poor-law would 
 otherwise have met by allowances, and, subject 
 to the assistance of urgent cases, poor-law relief 
 may thus by degrees become institutional only. 
 Then, in the main, natural social forces would 
 come into play, and dependence on any form 
 of annona civica would cease.
 
 408 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 MEDICAL RELIEF. 
 
 Hospitals are of the greatest service to the 
 poor and to those who want to help them 
 thoroughly. Yet their unrestricted admission of 
 all-comers cannot but have injurious results. 
 Open-handed hospitality always creates mendi- 
 cants. This is what the hospitals and free 
 dispensaries offer in the out-patient and casualty 
 departments, and they have created a class 
 of hospital mendicants. The cases are quickly 
 dealt with, without inquiry and without regard 
 to home conditions. The medical man in the 
 hospital does not co-operate with any fellow- 
 workers outside the hospital. Where his physic 
 or advice ceases to operate his usefulness ceases. 
 He regards no conditions of morality. In a large 
 number of cases drink or vice is the cause 
 of application, and the cure of the patient is 
 dependent on moral conditions ; but he returns 
 home, drinks, and may beat his wife, and then 
 on another visit to the hospital he will again 
 be physicked, and so on. The man is not 
 even referred to the poor-law infirmary for 
 relief. Nor are conditions of home sanitation 
 regarded. One cause of constant sickness is 
 thus entirely overlooked, while drugs, other- 
 wise unnecessary, are constantly given at the
 
 CHARITABLE ADMINISTRATION 409 
 
 hospital. The hospitals are thus large isolated 
 relief stations which are creating a new kind 
 of pauperism. So far as the patients can pay 
 and many can do so the general practi- 
 tioners, to whom they would otherwise go, 
 are deprived of their gains. Still worse is it* 
 when the hospital itself charges a fee in its 
 out-patient department. The relief is then 
 claimed even more absolutely as a right, and 
 the general practitioners are still further injured. 
 The doctors, as a medical staff, are not only 
 medical men, but, whether they recognize the 
 fact or not, they are also almsgivers or almoners ; 
 what they give is relief. Yet few or none of 
 them have ever been trained for that work, 
 and consequently they do not realize how very 
 advantageous, even for the cure of their own 
 patients, would be a thorough treatment of 
 each case both at the hospital and outside it. 
 Nor can they understand how their methods 
 at present protract sickness and promote habi- 
 tual dependence. Were this side of their work 
 studied by them in any way they would be 
 the first, probably, to press upon the governors 
 of their hospitals the necessity for a change. 
 Unfortunately, at present the governors are 
 themselves untrained, and to finance the 
 hospital and to make it a good institution is
 
 410 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 their sole object. Hospitals, however, are, 
 after all, only a part of the general administra- 
 tion of charity, though as they are now managed 
 they have seldom any systematic connexion with 
 that administration. Nor is there any co-ordi- 
 nation between the several hospitals and dis- 
 pensaries. If one rightly refuses further 
 treatment to certain applicants, they have 
 only to wander to some other hospital, there 
 to be admitted with little or no scrutiny. 
 For usually out-patients and casualty patients are 
 not even registered, nor can they be identified 
 if they apply' again. Practically they come and 
 go at will. The definite limitation of cases, 
 according to some standard of effectual work, 
 association with general charity, the employ- 
 ment of a sufficient number of trained almoners l 
 for attending to the out-patients and casualty 
 patients at the Hospital, inquiry, and a just 
 regard for the interests of general practitioners, 
 are stepping-stones to reform. In towns where 
 medical charities are numerous a representa- 
 tive board would promote mutual help and 
 organization. 
 
 The Poor Law Commission (1909) has in its 
 
 1 For details as to the aims and work of Hospital Almoners 
 see papers published by the London Charity Organization 
 Society.
 
 CHARITABLE ADMINISTRATION 411 
 
 Majority Report proposed very useful measures 
 for the co-ordination of medical assistance, public, 
 voluntary, and provident, which, if adopted, 
 should put an end to many pressing evils in this 
 branch of work. 1 
 
 ENDOWED CHARITIES. 
 
 Like the poor-law, endowed charities may be 
 permanent institutions established to meet what 
 should be passing and decreasing needs. Ad- 
 ministered as they usually are in isolation 
 apart from the living voluntary charities of 
 the generation, and consisting often of small 
 trusts difficult to utilize satisfactorily, they 
 tend to create a permanent demand which 
 they meet by fixed quantities of relief. Also, 
 as a rule, they make no systematic inquiries 
 with a view to the verification of the state- 
 ments of the applicants, for they have no 
 staff for these purposes ; nor have they the 
 assistance of almoners or friendly visitors. Nor 
 does the relief which they give form part of 
 any plan of help in conjunction with other 
 aid from without ; nor is the administration 
 subject to frequent inspection, as in the case 
 of the poor-law. All these conditions have 
 led to a want of progress in the actual admini- 
 
 1 See below, p. 450.
 
 412 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 stration of endowed charities, in regard to which 
 it is often very difficult to prevent the exercise 
 of an undue patronage. But there is no 
 reason why these charities, should not become 
 a responsible but voluntary colleague in the 
 country's administration. It was never intended 
 that the poor-law should extinguish the 
 endowed charities, still less, as statistics now 
 prove, that where endowments abound the 
 rate of pauperism should often be considerably 
 above the average of the rest of the country. 
 This shows that these charities often foster 
 pauperism instead of preventing it. As a 
 step to reform, the publication of an annual 
 register of endowed charities in England and 
 Wales is greatly needed. The consolidating 
 schemes of the charity commissioners have 
 done much good ; still more may be done in 
 some counties by extending to the county the 
 benefits of the charities of well-endowed towns, 
 as has been accomplished by the extension 
 of the eleemosynary endowments of the City 
 of London to the metropolitan police area. 
 Nor, again, until quite lately, and that as yet 
 only in a few schemes, has the principle been 
 adopted that pensions or other relief should 
 be given only in supplementation of the relief 
 of relations, former employers, and friends, and
 
 CHARITABLE ADMINISTRATION 413 
 
 not in substitution of it. This, coupled with 
 good methods of inquiry and supervision, has 
 proved very beneficial. Hitherto, however, to 
 a large extent endowed charities, it must be 
 admitted, have tended to weaken the family 
 and to pauperize. 
 
 THE RELIEF OF SCHOOL CHILDREN. 
 
 In many places funds used to be raised for the 
 relief of school children by the supply of meals 
 during the winter and spring, subject to the 
 authorization of the Board of Education, the 
 Elementary Education (Provision of Meals) Act, 
 1906, now enables the Education Authorities to 
 supply meals out of the rates ; and what was 
 formerly a voluntary charge has now become a 
 charge on the rates. Frequently a very large 
 number of the children at a school are said 
 to be underfed, but inquiry shows that such 
 statements may be taken as altogether excessive. 
 They are sometimes based on information drawn 
 from the children at school, or sometimes on 
 general deductions ; they are seldom founded 
 on any systematic and competent inquiry at the 
 homes. When this has been made, the num- 
 bers dwindle to comparatively small proportions. 
 Teachers of experience have noted the effect 
 of the meals in weakening the independence
 
 414 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 of the family. While they are forthcoming, 
 women sometimes give up cooking meals at 
 home, use their money for other things, 
 and tell the child he can get his meal at 
 school. Great temptations are put before a 
 parent to neglect her family, and very much 
 distress is due to this. The meals stimulate 
 this neglect just at a time when, owing to the 
 age of her children, the mother's care is most 
 needed, and just in those families where the 
 temptation is greatest, and where the family 
 instinct should be strengthened. Considered 
 from the point of view of meeting, by eleemosy- 
 nary provision, a normal economic demand for 
 food, intervention can only have one result. 
 The demand must continue to outstrip the 
 supply, so long as there are resources available 
 on the one side, and until, on the other side, 
 the desire of the social class, that is chiefly 
 exposed to the temptations of dependence in 
 relation to such relief, has been satisfied. If 
 the provision be made from the resources of 
 local or general taxation, the largeness of the 
 fund available will allow practically of an 
 unlimited expansion of the supply of food. If 
 the provision be made from voluntary sources, 
 in some measure limited, therefore, and less 
 certain, this very fact will tend to circumscribe
 
 CHARITABLE ADMINISTRATION 415 
 
 demand and limit the offer of relief. It is 
 indeed the problem of poor-law relief in 1832 
 over again. The relief provided by local taxa- 
 tion practically unlimited will create a mass of 
 constant claimants, with a kind of assumed 
 right to aid based on the payment of rates ; 
 while voluntary relief, whatever its short- 
 comings, will be less injurious, because it is 
 less amply endowed. In Paris the municipal 
 subvention for meals rose from 545,900 francs 
 in 1892 to 1,000,000 in 1904. Between 1894 
 and 1904 there was an increase of nine per 
 cent, in the school population ; and an increase 
 of twenty-eight per cent, in the municipal grant. 
 In that period the contributions from the local 
 school funds (caisses des ecoles) decreased 
 thirty-six per cent. ; while the voluntary con- 
 tributions otherwise received were insignificant, 
 and the payments for meals increased two 
 per cent. 1 
 
 But the subject has been lately considered 
 from a somewhat different standpoint (cf. the 
 Reports of the Scottish Royal Commission on 
 Physical Education, 1903 ; of the Interdepart- 
 
 1 London experience confirms this. In 1909-10 (March 31), 
 as against the previous year, the meals provided under the 
 Elementary Education (Supply of Meals) Act rose seventy per 
 cent. to 7,702,526, and cost 62,260 plus establishment 
 expenses.
 
 416 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 mental Committees on Physical Deterioration, 
 1905 ; and on Medical Inspection and the Feed- 
 ing of School Children, 1905 ; also the report of 
 the Special Committee of the Charity Organi- 
 zation Society on " the Assistance of School 
 Children," 1893). After careful investigations, 
 medical officers especially have drawn attention 
 to the low physical condition of children in 
 schools in the poorer parts of our large towns, 
 their low stature, their physical defects, the 
 improper food supplied to them at home, their 
 uncleanliness, their want of decent bringing up, 
 and sometimes their want of food. Other 
 inquiries have shown that, as women more 
 usually became breadwinners, their children 
 received less attention, and the home and its 
 duties were neglected, while in the lowest 
 sections of the poorer classes social irresponsi- 
 bility reached its maximum. Cheap, but often 
 quite improper food, is provided, and infant 
 mortality, which is largely preventable, remains 
 as high as ever, though adult life is longer. 
 This, with a marked decrease in the birth-rate 
 in recent years has, it may be said, opened 
 out a new field for charitable effort and social 
 work. Science is, at each revision of the 
 problem, making its task more definite. Actu- 
 ally the mere demand for meals stands for less ;
 
 CHARITABLE ADMINISTRATION 417 
 
 the reform of the conditions of the home for more. 
 So it was hoped that instead of making school 
 meals a charge on the rates, as Parliament has 
 done, it would be content to leave it a voluntary 
 charge, while the medical inspection of elemen- 
 tary schools would be made universal ; that re- 
 presentative relief committees would be formed 
 for schools or groups of schools ; that cases of 
 want or distress among the school children 
 would be dealt with individually in connexion 
 with their families, and that where necessary 
 day schools should be established on the lines 
 of day industrial schools. There is a hope 
 that in London the Children's Care Committees 
 working in these lines and co-operating closely 
 with general and personal charity, and, when 
 necessary, with the Poor Law, may save the 
 situation. 1 
 
 EXCEPTIONAL DISTRESS. 
 
 At a time of exceptional distress the follow- 
 ing suggestions, founded on much English 
 experience, may be of service. (Cf. Report of 
 Special Committee of the Charity Organization 
 Society on the best means of dealing with 
 exceptional distress, 1886.) Usually at such 
 
 1 The present difficulties would probably disappear, if school 
 relief were included in the system of Public Assistance recom- 
 mended by the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws. 
 
 2D
 
 418 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 a time proposals are made to establish special 
 funds, and to provide employment to men and 
 women out of work. But it is best, if possible, 
 and as long as possible, to rely on existing 
 agencies and to strengthen them. Round them 
 there are usually workers more or less trained. 
 A new fund usually draws to it new people, 
 many of whom may not have had any special 
 experience at all. If a new fund is inevitable, 
 it is best that it should make its grants to 
 existing agencies after consultation with them. 
 In any case a clear policy should be adopted, 
 and people should keep their heads. The 
 exaggeration of feeling at a time of apprehended 
 or actual distress is sometimes extraordinary, 
 and the unwise action which it prompts is often 
 a cause of continuing pauperism afterwards. 
 
 Where there is public or poor-law relief the 
 following plan may be adopted : In any large 
 town there are usually different recognized 
 poor-law, charitable, or other areas. The local 
 people already at work in these areas should 
 be formed into local committees. In each case 
 a quick inquiry should be made, and the re- 
 lieving officer communicated with, some central 
 facts verified, and the home visited. Roughly, 
 cases may be divided into three classes : the 
 irresponsible casual labouring class ; a middle
 
 CHARITABLE ADMINISTRATION 419 
 
 class of men with decent homes, who have 
 made no provision for the future, and are 
 not members of either friendly society or trades 
 union ; and a third class, who have made some 
 provision. These usually are affected last of 
 all ; at all hazards they should be kept from 
 receiving public relief, and should be helped, 
 as far as possible, privately and personally. 
 If there are public works, the second class 
 might be referred to them ; if there are not, 
 probably some should be left to the poor-law, 
 some assisted in the same way as members of 
 class three. Much would turn upon the family 
 and the home. The first class should be left 
 to the poor-law. 
 
 Working men of independent position, who, 
 as members of a friendly society or are other- 
 wise well qualified for the task, should be called 
 into consultation. The relief should be settled 
 according to the requirements of each case, 
 but, if the pressure is great, at first at 
 least it may be necessary to make grants 
 according to some generally sufficient scale. 
 There should be as constant a revision of cases 
 as time permits. Great care should be taken 
 to stop the relief as soon as possible, and to 
 do nothing to make it the stepping-stone to 
 permanent dependence.
 
 420 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 If employment be provided it should be work 
 within the skill of all ; it should be fairly 
 remunerated, so that at least the scantiness of 
 the pay may not be an excuse for neglect ; 
 and it should be paid for according to measured 
 or piece work. The discipline should be strict, 
 though due regard should be paid at first to 
 those unaccustomed to digging or earthwork. 
 In England and Wales the guardians have power 
 to open labour yards. These, like charities 
 which provide work, tend to attract and keep 
 in employment a low class of labourer or work- 
 man, who finds it pays him to use the institution 
 as a convenience. It is best, therefore, to avoid 
 the opening of a labour yard if possible. If 
 it is opened, the discipline should be very 
 strict, and when there is laziness or insubordina- 
 tion, relief in the workhouse should at once 
 be offered. The relief furnished to men em- 
 ployed in a labour yard, of which in England 
 at least half has to be given in kind, should, 
 it has been said, be dealt 'out from day to day. 
 This leads to the men giving up the work 
 sooner than they otherwise would. They have 
 less to spend at a time. 1 
 
 ir This paragraph represents a practice found useful in the 
 past in emergencies. Important changes in regard to the kind 
 and variety of offer available for able-bodied persons in con-
 
 CHARITABLE ADMINISTRATION 421 
 
 EMPLOYMENT RELIEF. 
 
 In the last few years in Great Britain a 
 great change has taken place in regard to the 
 provision of employment in connexion with 
 the state. Since about 1890 there has been a 
 feeling that men in distress from want of 
 employment should not be dealt with by the 
 poor-law. A circular letter issued by the Local 
 Government Board in 1886, and subsequently 
 in 1895, coincided with this feeling. It was 
 addressed to town councils and other local 
 authorities, asking them to provide work (l) 
 which will not involve the stigma of pauperism ; 
 (2) which all can perform, whatever may have 
 been their previous avocations ; and (3) which 
 does not compete with that of other labourers 
 at present in employment. This circular led 
 to the vestries, and subsequently the borough 
 councils, in many districts becoming partially 
 recognized relief authorities for the unemployed, 
 concurrently with the poor-law. It was a 
 fatal step. If there was difficulty, it should 
 have been met by a revision of the Poor Law, 
 
 nexion with the Poor Law are recommended by the Royal 
 Commission on the Poor Laws and Relief of Distress in the 
 Majority Report. The adoption of these would alter the con- 
 ditions of such relief materially in some directions. (See p. 452.)
 
 422 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 in relation to the kind of offer which it made 
 to persons in distress, through want of em- 
 ployment, not by the establishment of what 
 were practically new relief authorities outside 
 the Poor Law. Much confusion resulted. The 
 local authorities had seldom any suitable 
 organization for the investigation of applica- 
 tions. It was difficult to supply work on 
 the terms required ; and the work was often 
 ill done and costly. Also it was found that 
 the same set of people would apply year after 
 year, unskilled labourers usually out of work 
 part of the winter or men habitually ' unem- 
 ployed.' As on other occasions when public 
 work was provided, very few of the applicants 
 were found to be artisans, or members of trades 
 unions or of friendly societies. 
 
 In 1904 Mr. Long, then President of the 
 Local Government Board, proposed that local 
 voluntary distress committees should be estab- 
 lished in London, consisting of poor-law 
 guardians and members of town councils and 
 others, supervised more or less by a central 
 committee and ultimately by the Local Govern- 
 ment Board. This organization was set on foot, 
 and large sums were subscribed for its work. The 
 report on the results of the movement was some- 
 what doubtful (Report, London Unemployed
 
 CHARITABLE ADMINISTRATION 423 
 
 Fund, 1904-5, p. 101, etc.), but in 1905 the 
 Unemployed Workmen's Act was passed, and in 
 London and elsewhere distress committees, like 
 the voluntary committees of the previous year, 
 were established by statute. It was enacted 
 that for establishment expenses, emigration and 
 removal, labour exchanges, and the acquisition 
 of land a halfpenny rate might be levied, but 
 that the rate would not be available for the 
 remuneration of men employed. For this 
 purpose (1905-6) a large charitable fund was 
 raised. The Act has been passed for three 
 years. A training farm at Hollesley Bay has 
 been acquired, and it has been hoped to train 
 Londoners there to become fit for agricultural 
 work. The evidence upon which the whole 
 experiment may be judged is perhaps hardly 
 complete. The experiment has been subjected 
 to several changes of policy ; and partly 
 perhaps on that ground it cannot be said to 
 be satisfactory, judged by results. But one 
 or two points are important: (l) Something 
 very like the ' right to labour ' has been 
 granted by the legislature ; (2) this has been 
 done apart from the conditions required 
 by the poor-laws and orders of the Local 
 Government Board on poor relief and without 
 imposing disfranchisement on the men em-
 
 424 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 ployed; (3) a labour rate has not been levied, 
 but a rate has been levied in aid of the 
 provision of employment; (4) if the line of 
 development that the Act suggests be followed, 
 it will tend to create a class of ' unemployed,' 
 unskilled labourers of varying grades of industry 
 who may become the dependent and state- 
 supported proletarians of modern urban life. 
 Thus, unless the administration be extremely 
 rigorous, once more will a kind of serfdom be 
 established, to be, as some would say, taken 
 over hereafter by the socialist state. 
 
 The Royal Commission on the Poor Laws in 
 its Majority Report recommend several important 
 changes in Poor Law administration to meet the 
 needs of our modern society. To this reference 
 is made in the next chapter. They have alto- 
 gether discountenanced the policy of opening new 
 relief departments outside ' Public Assistance,' 
 the policy initiated by Mr. Chamberlain. Its 
 inutility and unsatisfactory results have become 
 self-evident. (Report: Comm., Part VI.) The 
 establishment of ' Colonies,' managed on the 
 lines of industrial employment and prison dis- 
 cipline, for the reception of vagrants and various 
 classes of offenders, such, for instance, as those 
 who keep going in and out of the workhouses, 
 is almost universally admitted to be necessary.
 
 425 
 
 (Report: Comm. on Poor Laws (1909), and 
 Report of the Labour Colonies Committee of 
 the Commission.) 
 
 VAGRANCY. 
 
 In some of the English colonies Homeric 
 hospitality still prevails, but by degrees the 
 station-house or some refuge for wayfarers and 
 vagrants is established in the towns as they 
 grow more populous. Finally, some system of 
 labour in exchange for relief is evolved. At 
 first this is voluntary, afterwards it is officially 
 recognized, and finally it may become part of 
 the system of public relief. As bad years come, 
 these changes are made step by step. In 
 England the vagrant or wayfarer is tolerated 
 and discouraged, but not kept employed. He 
 should be under greater pressure to maintain 
 himself, it is thought. The provision made 
 for him in different parts of the country is 
 far from uniform, but now, usually, at least in 
 the larger towns, after he has had a bath and 
 food, he is admitted to a separate room or cell 
 in a casual ward. Before he leaves he has to 
 do a task of work, and, subject to the dis- 
 cretion of the master, he is detained two 
 nights. This plan has reduced local vagrancy, 
 and, if it were universally adopted, clean accom-
 
 426 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 modation would everywhere be provided for 
 the vagrant without the attractions of a common 
 or ' associate ' ward ; and probably vagrancy 
 would diminish still further. 1 It seems almost 
 needless to say that in these circumstances, at 
 any rate, casual alms should not be given to 
 vagrants. They know much better how to 
 provide for themselves than the almsgiver 
 imagines, for vagrancy is in the main a mode 
 of life, not the result of any casual difficulty. 
 Vagrancy and criminality are also nearly allied. 
 The magistrate, therefore, rather than the alms- 
 giver, should usually interfere ; and, as a rule, 
 where the magistrates are strict, vagrancy in 
 a county diminishes. An interdepartmental 
 committee (1906), taking generally this line, 
 has reported in favour of vagrants being placed 
 entirely under police control, and it has recom- 
 mended a system of wayfarers' tickets for men 
 on the roads who are not habitual vagrants 
 and the committal of men likely to become 
 habitual vagrants to certified labour colonies 
 for not less than six months. Still undoubtedly 
 
 1 Since 1894 the figures of vagrancy have been higher ; and 
 the increase has held good to the present day. A night count, 
 the best test, was introduced in 1897. The count of January 1 
 in that year was 6922. In 1908 it was 9747. This count refers 
 only to vagrants relieved by the poor-law. There are no doubt 
 other vagrants, but of them it is not possible to do more than 
 make rough estimates.
 
 CHARITABLE ADMINISTRATION 427 
 
 vagrancy has its economic side. In a bad year 
 the number of tramps is increased by the 
 addition of unskilled labourers, who are soonest 
 discharged when work is slack. As a part- 
 voluntary system under official recognition the 
 German Arbeiter-Kolonien are of interest. This 
 in a measure has led to the introduction of 
 labour homes in England, the justification 
 of which should be that they recruit the 
 energy of the men who find their way to 
 them, and enable them to earn a living which 
 they could not do otherwise. In a small per- 
 centage of cases this result may be achieved. 
 Charitable refuges or philanthropic common 
 lodging-houses, usually established in districts 
 where this class already congregate, only 
 aggravate the difficulty. They give additional 
 attractions to a vagrant and casual life, and 
 make it more endurable. They also make it 
 comparatively easy to avoid the responsibilities 
 of family life, and, in so far as they do this, 
 they are clearly injurious to the community. 
 
 There are thus two ways of treating vagrants. 
 One is to tolerate them. To assume, rightly or 
 wrongly, that the vagrant cannot be bettered 
 by treatment, and to let him have the facilities 
 of the road and necessary relief and a task of 
 work. If he comes under the law to punish
 
 428 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 him, and so far to deter him. This method 
 takes no count of the voluntary provision for the 
 vagrant, which on a large scale is of compara- 
 tively recent growth. Its success preceded this 
 significant development. 
 
 The other way is that of treatment with 
 employment and with or without detention. 
 This is the modern method, and it has yet to 
 be more fully tried to justify itself. This 
 method in a limited form that of labour colonies 
 with detention, the Departmental Committee has 
 advocated. Without detention it is the method 
 of the Arbeiter-Kolonien, the labour homes of 
 the Church Army, and the shelters and other in- 
 stitutions of the Salvation Army. These societies 
 have now been active for many years, but they 
 have made no impression on the vagrancy of 
 the country, which has increased since 1897. 
 In London and in some cities the state of 
 vagrancy, nightly wandering, and homelessness 
 calls for some decision. The number of casual 
 paupers relieved in the casual wards of the 
 Metropolis has hardly increased, but the volun- 
 tary provision made for vagrants and casuals is 
 very large, and seems ever to increase in order 
 to meet an increasing demand. In these cir- 
 cumstances it may be well to treat the vagrant 
 and homeless of the Metropolis by the method
 
 CHARITABLE ADMINISTRATION 429 
 
 of labour colonies, experimentally at least, as 
 suggested by the Departmental Committee, even 
 if provision were not at once made with that 
 object for the country generally. Certainly in 
 the Metropolis a strong and unified administra- 
 tion is necessary, and thorough interchange of 
 information and regular co-operation between the 
 administrators of casual wards and the managers 
 of voluntary homes and refuges. Every case 
 should be dealt with, as it arises, in connexion 
 with some single central office, or a few with 
 organized local centres ; and according to the 
 circumstances penal labour colonies, voluntary 
 refuges and colonies, and the poor-law, should 
 each be turned to account. A positive policy 
 of this kind might lead us back to realities 
 and prove whether the extension of voluntary 
 interference has been a disservice or not. The 
 perpetual circulation of the vagrant in London 
 would be stopped. Any that could be helped 
 properly would be helped.
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 
 THE REPORT OF THE ROYAL COMMISSION ON THE 
 POOR LAWS AND RELIEF OF DISTRESS. 
 
 SINCE the above paragraphs were written, almost 
 in their present form, the report of the Royal 
 Commission on the Poor Laws has been 
 published, and it has been thought well to 
 conclude these notes with a statement of our 
 subject as it stands in the light of that report. 
 
 Our notes have touched on various phases of 
 a movement of thought which at different times 
 has had to cope with what in these days we call 
 the problem of city life. Among many questions 
 this one stands conspicuous : and the report of 
 the Commission is to a large extent a report on 
 the means of dealing with want and distress in 
 cities. It is in regard to this that some policy, 
 some solution, is desired. 
 
 THE EXPERIENCE OF THE PAST. 
 
 It may be argued that the past has no 
 suggestions for us : human nature has altered :
 
 COMMISSION ON THE POOR LAWS 431 
 
 economic and other conditions have changed : 
 we call the problem by the same name, but in 
 reality it is a different problem concealed under 
 mere similarity in the use of terms. But such a 
 view is superficial and hardly tenable. The 
 meaning of history depends upon an actual 
 continuity in human thought and understanding. 
 We could not repeat the words or appreciate the 
 value of the thought of past generations if it 
 were not so. In a sense human nature has 
 indeed changed. A Greek is not an Englishman. 
 But the change is as between members of the 
 same stock, and in spite of differences it is but a 
 variation within the lines of common kinship. 
 Nor is economic government so different as at 
 first sight it appears. The general methods of 
 trade and commerce remain very similar. Slavery, 
 it is true, has now given way to freedom, and the 
 conditions of industry and domestic life are 
 altered. But life in large cities has many 
 common characteristics, whether in ancient or 
 modern times. There is always the problem of 
 the prevention of dependence, social weakness, 
 and degradation in certain classes of the popula- 
 tion, or, if prevention and reform are impossible, 
 there remains the problem of the maintenance of 
 the less fit, and their preservation with the least 
 harm to the community at large. Thus, with
 
 432 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 many differences, there is an underlying unity of 
 experience. 
 
 At Athens the care of the large population of 
 slaves devolved on their masters. In old age 
 and sickness they were not a public charge, 
 though the masters may in their ailments have 
 taken advantage of free medical relief. The 
 great industrial concerns of the day were mostly 
 worked by slave labour, but in so far as this 
 was the case, industry bore its own burthens 
 and provided for its own workmen. For the 
 freemen the State provided by allowances which 
 enabled them to serve on juries, to attend the 
 assemblies, and to take part in the great festivals. 
 If they had property of less than 12 in value, 
 and were unable to support themselves owing to 
 bodily defects or infirmity, they might receive an 
 allowance sufficient for their maintenance, and 
 there were distributions of corn. 
 
 At Rome also the care of the large popula- 
 tion of slaves rested with their masters. They 
 were not a public charge. For the citizens 
 there was corn at half price, and subsequently 
 free corn, amounting practically to a mainten- 
 ance. Clients too received the sportula from 
 their patrons. The methods of slave labour, 
 it would seem, eventually ousted and ruined 
 the free industrial corporations, and these in
 
 COMMISSION ON THE POOR LAWS 433 
 
 their final development became rigidly managed 
 industrial castes. But no doubt in general the 
 demands of a large city required a large supply 
 of labour and induced much trading. A philan- 
 thropic care of the poor individually did not exist. 
 
 At Constantinople there were allowances of 
 corn, imperial gifts and allowances, and many 
 institutions : and there would appear to have 
 been an advance; but we lack information sadly. 
 With a decrease of slavery, unless coupled with 
 a growing independence, the maintenance of the 
 poor would become an additional charge on the 
 public and on the almsgiver. 
 
 At Athens and Rome there was found no way 
 of escape. The people drifted to the city became 
 unfit for work, were by degrees incurably de- 
 moralized, and in the process very many of them 
 had simply to be maintained. There was no 
 immediate and far-reaching reform : there were 
 only degrees of decay. Of course these changes 
 worked slowly : and probably nothing better 
 than a more or less contented dependence was 
 expected of the poor. 1 
 
 In all these great cities a large part of the 
 
 1 The picture of Greece after the Roman spoliations is that of 
 a country reduced to a disastrous poverty by depopulation. 
 Rome after the creation of Constantinople became a kind of 
 majestic provincial town. 
 
 2E
 
 434 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 people became pauperized. They lost their 
 sense of independence, their energy, and their 
 vitality. Prosperity brought changes, the effect 
 of which they were not strong enough to bear. 
 The community did not make one city. Rich and 
 poor did not come together. Neither could heal 
 or help the other. Our modern problem is urban, 
 and the question before the Royal Commission 
 was chiefly this : granted an urban population 
 with certain strata of weak and impoverished 
 members, how can their ruin be prevented, so 
 that they may rather advance than degenerate 
 as the generations succeed one another ? The 
 question affects most of our large towns, but 
 especially London the English Rome. Like 
 our predecessors, we who might help may go 
 through the phases of pity, relief, and indiffer- 
 ence, and then turning away from the problem, 
 some of us may pass to pleasure and extrava- 
 gance, and some may withdraw from the responsi- 
 bilities of life, a withdrawal which may take 
 many forms and may perhaps lead to a reaction- 
 ary asceticism. All these pathways may lead 
 away from the fulfilment and enforcement of 
 social obligation, may lead through indifference 
 down to mere social nullity and annihilation. 
 
 What, then, are the strata of the weak and 
 impoverished ? Mr. Charles Booth in 1889 classi-
 
 COMMISSION ON THE POOR LAWS 435 
 
 fied the London population. Class A, the lowest 
 class, he defined as consisting of " some occasional 
 labourers, street sellers, loafers, criminals, and 
 semi-criminals." This class, he said, is recruited 
 with adult men (and women) from all the other 
 classes. Class B he notes " Casual earnings 
 very poor." " This class, and especially the 
 labour part of it," he says, " is not one in which 
 men are born and live and die, so much as a 
 deposit of those who from mental, moral, and 
 physical reasons are incapable of better work." 
 Class C he marks as " Intermittent earnings " 
 " Labourers who usually work by the job or who 
 are in and out of work according to the season 
 or nature of their employment"- " with a large 
 contingent from the poorer artisans, street sellers, 
 and the smaller shops." Class D contains those 
 who receive "small regular earnings." "The 
 earnings are constant enough to be treated as a 
 regular income, which is not the case with the 
 earnings of C." " Of the whole section none can 
 be said to rise above poverty, unless by the 
 earnings of the children, nor are many to be 
 classed as very poor." The other classes, E and 
 F, are classed as in comfortable circumstances. 
 These classes, E and F, are returned as 69*3 of 
 the population. The classes " in poverty " at 
 307. Classes A (37,545) and B (316,838) the
 
 436 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 residual classes make 8*4 per cent, of the popu- 
 lation. This leaves classes C and D, 938,050 
 persons, or 22*3 per cent, of the population. 
 These two classes were enumerated separately 
 from East London and Hackney. In the count 
 of London as a whole they were merged. In East 
 London and Hackney class C (74,247 persons) 
 stood at 8*33 per cent. This percentage would 
 obviously be in excess of the population of this 
 class in London as a whole. Roughly perhaps 
 we may say that at least three-fourths of the 
 total of C and D may be entered under D ; 
 a fourth or, say, 234,512 people under C. This 
 gives us a general measure of the classes A, B, 
 and C, consisting of about 588,895 persons, or 
 13 '9 per cent, of the population, who may be 
 considered impoverished or specially exposed to 
 impoverishment in sickness or slackness of work. 
 
 Accepting these figures as generalizations 
 which have largely affected the estimate of the 
 social problem in this generation, we would 
 illustrate them by two pieces of evidence : 
 
 At the Royal Commission on the Aged Poor 
 in 1893 Miss Octavia Hill said: "One thing 
 bearing on thrift always strikes me very much 
 the immense difference between the country and 
 London in the accumulation of ' things. ' I do 
 not mean in regard to money in the savings
 
 COMMISSION ON THE POOR LAWS 437 
 
 bank, but in the things that make a person's 
 wealth. I go down into the country and I 
 find the people with half of the wages of the 
 Londoners have linen, they have crockery, 
 they have furniture, they have tools they have 
 many of them almost everything for domestic 
 comfort. I come straight up to London where 
 the wages are double, and I may go from end 
 to end of a poor street, and I hardly find an 
 atom of furniture ; there is no linen. If people 
 die there is nothing to wrap them in ; there is 
 no crockery, you could not get a hammer, hardly 
 a thimble, from end to end of the street. I 
 attribute it very much to the chance charities 
 of London. These people are never sure that 
 they must depend on themselves. Somebody 
 dies suddenly. I had a tailor living in a house 
 under my charge, earning 3 a week, and his 
 wife was working, and their mother died ; they 
 had nothing clean sheets or anything in the 
 place ; but they went straight round to the church, 
 or to the charitable ladies, or somebody, and 
 they said, 'poor things; they have nothing.' 
 Everything was supplied within an hour of that 
 woman's death. These people never feel that 
 they should rely on themselves ; and the more 
 miserable they look the more they get help. 
 " The houses are very different, if the people
 
 438 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 take care of them. One street I have specially 
 in my mind, where one notices it very much 
 indeed. There is money and money and money 
 being spent on the houses, and meantime every- 
 thing destroyed by the people, and where a 
 countryman would nail up his things and take 
 care of them, everything is broken and destroyed. 
 And the same house inhabited by different 
 tenants looks quite a different place. No doubt 
 bad accommodation is a drag on them, and it 
 has a tendency to make them drink. Then of 
 course that brings the misery. 
 
 " I suppose there are bad people and neglectful 
 people in the country too, but I think they are 
 worse in London ; many have lost all character 
 and feel they have none to keep up. There is 
 a large class of people they can appeal to with- 
 out the risk that they have known them before, 
 and the great curse of the people is the uncertainty 
 of the help that is coming to them. They never 
 know who will come in and help them or how ; 
 and the worse condition they get themselves 
 into the more chance they have of help." 
 
 Asked how she would set about an enquiry 
 that she thought might be desirable, she said : 
 " Well if you could get evidence from people 
 who have lived among them ; but a very good 
 plan is to take a few people and watch them for
 
 COMMISSION ON THE POOR LAWS 439 
 
 a few years, just see whether they are using 
 their powers as much as they can. You can tell 
 very well by then what the result of it must be ; 
 if you find people who lose their places because 
 they will not get up in the morning and go to 
 them, well, you know what that must lead to." 
 Asked : " Of course in an enquiry of this kind 
 you have to depend upon persons who have 
 made themselves familiar with the lives of the 
 people " ; she said : " Yes, but that is a different 
 thing, of course, from going to the poor them- 
 selves. I think it is a very difficult thing to 
 do, but I think you can do a good deal more 
 by common-sense than by any accumulation of 
 statistics. You can see the tendencies of the 
 people at work now, how many of their chances 
 they are losing all round." 
 
 Next, Dr. Lewis Hawkes at the Interdepart- 
 mental Committee on Physical Deterioration in 
 1894, speaking of families of the low class, said : 
 " Might I emphasize one point, the question of 
 control the teaching of self-control and self- 
 restraint. There is a great lack of training 
 children in this direction. A child by the time 
 he conies to school is often a most unruly and 
 intractable person. That is due more or less 
 to injudicious correction. There is coercion and 
 very injudicious correction. You find that the
 
 440 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 children of the poor from their earliest years 
 are a great deal more spoiled than children of 
 the better class. The home is largely dependent 
 upon what the woman has been before marriage. 
 If she has been a domestic servant in a decent 
 house she makes a good wife. Those who have 
 been general servants in small houses or shops 
 are often dirty and slatternly. Then the factory 
 girls, some of them make good wives, others are 
 ignorant and go from bad to worse. You have an 
 awful feeling of the want of thought and the want 
 of common-sense among them. It is the acting 
 on the impulse of the moment which is the 
 serious thing. If you live among them you find 
 that the love of excitement is the one thing 
 that keeps them going. There is so much said 
 about the kindness of the poor to one another. 
 Well, there is a great deal of kindness, but, of 
 course, that kindness does not last. It exists 
 for the time. When they are sympathetic, they 
 will do anything. They will all come in and 
 help and do anything, but if the illness extends 
 and you want something done, it will not be 
 done. I remember one case where the people 
 had to come to me at the dispensary about the 
 condition of a patient ; I used to find that some- 
 one else was sent, but that someone had to be 
 paid 2d. to come down. The kindness is only
 
 COMMISSION ON THE POOR LAWS 441 
 
 due to impulse and sympathy which is created 
 on the spur of the moment, but it passes away. 
 There is no parental control which is of any 
 value. And within certain limits the children 
 practically shift for themselves." 
 
 This is essentially the pauper life and temper, 
 and it represents the problem before us, or at 
 least the most difficult part of it. 
 
 THE PAUPERISM OF LONDON. 
 
 The mean number of paupers relieved in 
 London on 1st January, 1907, and 1st July, 
 1907, was 121,496, or 25'5 per thousand on the 
 population. In the year 1906-7 it was 71*3 per 
 thousand, and the number of persons relieved was 
 339,256. In the country at large, excluding 
 London, the corresponding ratios per thousand 
 are 22*3 and 45 '4. There is a constant migration 
 to London (Royal Commission on the Poor Laws. 
 Evidence, cf. e.g. Bury, vol. ix. p. 316). The 
 proportion of paupers (31st March, 1906) over 
 60 years of age in the population of that age 
 in London is 187'1 against 1577 in the rest 
 of the country. The corrected rate of pauperism 
 .on population in London on that date was 
 29*83 per thousand, as against 25 '11 in the rest 
 of the country. " London is maintaining 15,800 
 more paupers than in the eighties " : the
 
 442 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 larger number consist chiefly of men relieved 
 indoors, and relief in this form is relatively 
 greater in London than elsewhere. In the last 
 decade, 1895-6 to 1905-6, the number of able- 
 bodied men in health who received indoor relief 
 has increased 3 8 '4 per cent. ; and the number 
 who received outdoor relief 137 '9 per cent. 
 This is largely due to the policy of one or 
 two particular Unions. " Notwithstanding the 
 large number of medical charities in London the 
 proportion of paupers under medical relief in 
 London very largely exceeds the proportion of 
 such paupers in extra-Metropolitan Unions." 
 
 TREATMENT AND MAINTENANCE. 
 
 The wages of men in the building trade, coal 
 mining, engineering, textile and agricultural 
 industries, have risen, and the cost of living has 
 decreased. For comparative wages past and 
 present in casual unskilled trades there are no 
 trustworthy data. But there is reason for think- 
 ing that they are larger than they were. In 
 England and Wales pauperism has decreased. 
 Before 1872 it was always over 41 per thousand 
 of the population. Since 1881 it has never, 
 exceeded 3T3. 1 It now stands at 23'6 per 
 
 'This is according to the count on the last day of the last 
 week of January. It includes all forms of pauperism. The
 
 COMMISSION ON THE POOR LAWS 443 
 
 thousand. Yet in London, amongst the classes 
 exposed to pauperism, higher wages, it would 
 seem, have made but little difference, and neither 
 better sanitation, nor more widespread education 
 have reduced pauperism. To other cities also 
 this criticism would apply. There is thus a 
 clear disconnexion between the Poor Law and 
 ameliorative agencies, educational, sanitary and 
 other, and that social dependence of pauperism, 
 which may be taken as the final manifestation 
 of a process of decline. It shows that there 
 are before us evil effects of which we do not 
 know or do not touch the causes, or to which 
 none of our remedies, educational and the rest, 
 at present apply. In fact, especially of late, 
 apparently there has been a growth of a 
 population, dependent and pauper in spirit, which 
 we have not been able to prevent. 
 
 The question then is one of administrative 
 revision and reorganization on preventive lines. 
 We have shown (p. 348) how pauperism connects 
 itself with, not the community at large, but a 
 comparatively small section of it. Our methods 
 then if they are to be remedial must be such as 
 
 "mean number" of paupers on January 1 and July 1 was in 
 1885 28'6, exclusive of casual paupers and insane. It has never 
 reached that figure since. It is now 26'1 per thousand. The 
 London figures, however, have risen. In 1885 they were 25'4, 
 they are now 30'3.
 
 444 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 to affect the lower and lowest classes. Pauperism 
 is also geographical in many districts. There 
 are streets out of which a great part of the 
 pauperism comes. Our remedies, therefore, must 
 be such as to affect those streets. This means 
 that comparing the old cities with our modern 
 cities, treatment in some form must take the 
 place of maintenance or be allied with it ; and 
 this treatment must cover the critical periods of 
 life in the class exposed to pauperism, those who 
 are relieved in the course of the year some 
 339,256 persons. Treatment and not mere 
 maintenance is the key-note of the report of the 
 majority of the Commissioners. 
 
 THE CRITICAL PERIODS OF LIFE. 
 
 The critical periods of life are childhood and 
 adolescence, and periods of sickness especially 
 in earlier life. At these periods the method 
 of treatment requires that cases of distress- 
 applications for assistance should be dealt with 
 individually and thoroughly. Only in this way 
 is a nexus made between remedy and disease. 
 Only in this way can that course of action be 
 adopted which will take character into account 
 and not weaken it. The evidence of the past, all 
 the evidence, shows that relief without regard to 
 this is ultimately demoralizing. It tampers with
 
 COMMISSION ON THE POOR LAWS 445 
 
 the will and may eventually for all purposes of 
 self-reliance destroy it. 
 
 The Commission thus, very rightly in our view, 
 require that the conditions necessary for this 
 treatment should be observed thorough inquiry, 
 adequate aid, supervision, which should include 
 the supervision of moral and sanitary conditions, 
 and the use of voluntary personal care in the 
 individual case. So far as may be necessary 
 the family as a whole would be supervised. 
 Children would not be left possibly ill-cared 
 for and sickly while their parents were receiv- 
 ing relief. Treatment would take the place of 
 mere relief. The class ' applicant ' would become 
 a supervised class, treated in connexion with 
 their home. The family would not be forgotten 
 in the applicant. A new duty would devolve 
 upon Public Assistance Committees, which the 
 Commission propose should take the place of 
 Boards of Guardians. 
 
 But further the Voluntary Aid Committees, 
 which they propose should also be established, 
 would follow the same line of thorough treatment 
 in the individual case ; and if, as may be quite 
 practicable, this rule cannot prevail generally, 
 the partial relief from parochial agencies, 
 societies, ' Armies,' Hospitals, and Dispensaries 
 which now is often so ineffectual, and, from the
 
 446 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 point of view of co-operation, so elusive, might 
 be drawn into relation with a common centre. 
 Thoroughness of treatment might then become 
 to a far greater extent than at present, a means 
 of regeneration. 
 
 Thus that at least is the hope a large 
 number of those who are in danger of falling 
 into pauperism may be brought round to 
 better ways of life in the home. The relief 
 of children would become a part of Public 
 Assistance instead of being attached to educa- 
 tion, as a thing apart. Assistance, education, 
 sanitary and medical aid, instead of having 
 little or no influence on pauperism and de- 
 pendence would be definitely used to prevent 
 it. A new relation between them would be 
 created. 
 
 There comes next adolescence. Professor 
 Michael Sadler put the question of a preventive 
 use of education very well before the Commission. 
 He showed that a large proportion of the men 
 who applied for work through the Distress 
 Committees were under thirty years of age. 
 Some of the percentages were, Camberwell, 28*6; 
 Poplar, 37'8 ; Hornsey, 35'6; Manchester, 29'9; 
 Liverpool, 35 '5 : Warrington, 66; Sheffield, 
 32'9 ; Derby, 46'1 ; Sunderland, 44% and so 
 on. The cause of this was ascribed to " un-
 
 COMMISSION ON THE POOR LAWS 447 
 
 educative labour during adolescence " which was 
 believed to be on the increase. And the argu- 
 ment was that first the elementary education, 
 and then the after-school education, might to a 
 much larger extent than heretofore affect the 
 causes that produce dependence. There was 
 indeed, it was urged, a real relation between 
 the two. A ' more humane ' elementary educa- 
 tion would help to solve the problem " not only 
 by increasing technical dexterity and adaptive- 
 ness, but by giving a certain alertness of mind 
 and a sense of social responsibility and a new 
 ideal of life." But after school age there should 
 be graded continuation classes. In support of 
 this, it was stated that in an investigation 
 made at Manchester replies from persons well 
 acquainted with continuation schools in indus- 
 trial and commercial centres drew attention to 
 cheap mechanical factory work, service as 
 messenger boys, casual street employment, half- 
 time in textile factories, as occupations " socially 
 deteriorating and physically deteriorating." 
 These occupations led neither to better wage 
 in the future nor to steadier work ; but later 
 in life they left the worker stranded, in the 
 receipt only of the pay of a casual unskilled 
 labourer. In these circumstances the Commission 
 recommended :
 
 448 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 That boys should be kept at school until the 
 age of fifteen, instead of fourteen ; that exemp- 
 tion below this age should be granted only for 
 boys leaving to learn a skilled trade ; that there 
 should be school supervision till sixteen and 
 the replacing in school of boys not properly 
 employed. 
 
 The next critical period is that of sickness. 
 Here again we will refer principally to London. 
 The supply of medical, institutional and home 
 relief is without unity or organization. There is 
 a large and increasing demand for relief in Poor 
 Law Infirmaries and Sick Asylums. They are 
 many of them built according to the latest 
 standards of completeness, are well provided 
 with nurses, and are under the single manage- 
 ment of the Medical Superintendent. Unlike the 
 Voluntary Hospitals they suffer from no lack of 
 funds, and taken altogether they accommodated 
 in London 15,912 patients on the single day, and 
 in the course of the year (1905-6) 88,193 (vol. ii. 
 Royal Commission on the Poor Laws, Evidence, 
 Appendix XIII. (B)) ; while the Voluntary 
 Hospitals, 97 in number, have 10,601 available 
 beds, and deal with 119,099 patients in the 
 course of a year (vol. iii. Evidence, Royal 
 Commission on the Poor Laws, p. 720). These 
 Hospitals also deal with about a million and a
 
 COMMISSION ON THE POOR LAWS 449 
 
 half out-patients in the year. There is no co- 
 ordination between their out-patient relief and 
 that of the Poor Law authorities ; and none 
 between the out-patient relief of the Free Dis- 
 pensaries, of which there are several that are 
 important, and the same authorities. Some 38 
 per cent, of those who attend Hospitals as out- 
 patients are of the same class as those who 
 receive the Poor Law medical relief. Conditions 
 such as these prevail not only in London but 
 in many large towns. In some instances the 
 Poor Law Infirmary, large and rate- supported, 
 receives the larger number of cases, and ranks 
 as an Hospital. Usually the Hospitals have the 
 pre-eminence. For infectious cases the Sanitary 
 authorities make separate provision, more or 
 less complete, supported by the rates. In 
 London this provision is made by a special 
 Board the Metropolitan Asylums Board. The 
 annual expenditure on voluntary medical relief 
 at Hospitals in London amounts to 1,175,512. 
 That of the rate-supported Poor Law Infirmaries 
 and Sick Asylums is 925,614. And with all 
 this there is the constant and well-supported 
 complaint of medical practitioners that these 
 institutions but especially the voluntary in- 
 stitutions come between them and their patients, 
 and prevent a remuneration reaching them which 
 
 2F
 
 450 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 would otherwise come to them in the ordinary 
 course of their work. Thus a process of con- 
 cealed and unscrutinized pauperization is in 
 progress. 
 
 THE ORGANIZATION OF MEDICAL ASSISTANCE. 
 
 To meet these difficulties the Commission 
 makes practically two suggestions. The first is 
 that there should be in every County and 
 County Borough a County Medical Assistance 
 Committee appointed by the Public Assistance 
 Authority, to bring into co-ordination this variety 
 of agencies, and to supplement in any way that 
 may seem desirable the medical requirements of 
 the County. And the second is that the principle 
 should by degrees be adopted that medical out- 
 door relief should for the most part be placed 
 on provident lines remunerative to the medical 
 practitioner, and should by arrangement be 
 supplemented in suitable cases by assistance in 
 Voluntary Hospitals, as the authorities may 
 arrange. Local Medical Assistance Committees 
 would carry out the scheme in detail. 
 
 Thus new forces would be brought into the 
 field. There would be an official authority 
 whose business it would be to co-ordinate and 
 to organize and to supplement. Failing this 
 there would seem to be no alternative but to
 
 COMMISSION ON THE POOR LAWS 451 
 
 adopt a scheme of medical insurance, and 
 through it to come to terms with the Friendly 
 Societies, the Hospitals, Infirmaries and Dis- 
 pensaries, as far as may be. It is true that a 
 scheme for a separate public health and medical 
 department has been suggested, but in that 
 case the chief problem, the co-ordination and 
 expansion of medical agencies, would remain the 
 same. Its evolution would only be transferred to 
 another body. The public health and sanitary 
 organization of the country is at present too 
 weak to be the centre of this co-ordination. It 
 serves another purpose, and is preventive not 
 curative ; and its reorganization as a department 
 of public health and medical relief apart from 
 the general treatment of cases of distress would 
 not remove our present difficulties, but would 
 add to them. The County Medical Assistance 
 Committee would give a unity to the whole 
 group of medical institutions more effectively 
 than any separate medical department. 
 
 Thus, for the time of sickness, another of the 
 times of difficulty in life, a provision would 
 be made on new lines that would aid those 
 in sickness without the removal of personal 
 obligation where it can be rightly imposed.
 
 452 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 UNEMPLOYMENT. 
 
 Yet another time of difficulty another critical 
 period is unemployment. The word natur- 
 ally covers many different things ; and the 
 differences are obvious. Some are out of work 
 only at periods of trade depression which come 
 in somewhat irregular cycles. Some are out of 
 work casually, especially in trades the demand 
 in which is very variable, as in the building 
 trade. Some are out of work more or less regu- 
 larly for a part of the year. Some are engaged 
 in casual or job labour ; and their work depends 
 on the piecing up of many comparatively short 
 or day by day engagements. Some are insuf- 
 ficiently employed habitually and live in part on 
 their families. 
 
 It is clear that for these several classes the 
 treatment in great measure should be different. 
 On the other hand, there is a great difference 
 in number between those who will apply to 
 the present Poor Law Guardians and those who 
 would register their names for employment 
 under some other authority such as the Dis- 
 tress Committees which have been formed under 
 the Unemployed Workmen's Act. Thus in Eng- 
 land and Wales, the year ending 31st March,
 
 COMMISSION ON THE POOR LAWS 453 
 
 1909, out of 196,757 persons who entered their 
 names as unemployed in the Distress Com- 
 mittee's registers, work was found for only 
 26,320. But the increase of able-bodied pau- 
 perism due to inability to find work would 
 appear to be very small. The difference between 
 1901 (before the Boer war) and 1907 is on the 
 day count only 2882. 
 
 The Royal Commissioners, who reported in 
 1834, reviewed the position of the able-bodied 
 especially. They recommended that an offer of 
 useful work under conditions less eligible than 
 those of the life of an ordinary labourer should 
 be placed within the reach of any destitute 
 able-bodied man who desired to accept it ; and 
 " that, except as to medical attendance, and, 
 subject to the exception respecting apprentice- 
 ship hereinafter stated, all relief whatever to 
 able-bodied persons or to their families, other- 
 wise than in well-regulated Workhouses (i.e. 
 places where they may be set to work accord- 
 ing to the spirit and intention of the Act of 
 Elizabeth) shall be declared unlawful, and 
 shall cease in manner and at periods hereafter 
 specified." They believed that below the rank 
 of the ordinary self-supporting labourer able- 
 bodied men could support themselves under 
 institutional conditions ; and they were prepared
 
 454 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 for that emergency. And undoubtedly the 
 experience of the Industrial Colony at Merx 
 Plas confirms this view. The Commissioners 
 also proposed that there should be, not one 
 Workhouse in the Union, but Workhouses as 
 might be needed for the various requirements 
 of the administration. Classification and special 
 management would thus become possible. 
 
 The Commissioners that have just reported 
 adopt this view of their predecessors : but for 
 Workhouses they propose for the treatment of 
 the able-bodied several institutions, which would 
 afford what may be called a graduated system 
 of intervention, a discriminative test, and more 
 real and varied employment. According to the 
 character and circumstances of the applicant, 
 for some there would be work, under conditions, 
 merely as for unemployed persons, who might 
 return home each night. For others there would 
 be definite industrial work and training in an 
 institution. For some a Farm Colony, and for 
 some detention in a Labour Colony instituted 
 for that purpose. There would not be payment 
 by wage, but the applicant could earn a peculium 
 as they often do in institutions abroad, which 
 would act as an incentive to his working, and 
 would provide him with a sum for use when 
 he leaves.
 
 COMMISSION ON THE POOR LAWS 455 
 
 Two questions arise : one is whether this plan 
 is better than a frank acceptance of the right 
 to work and, instead of relief, a payment of 
 wages to the worker by the State at the ordinary 
 rates : the other is whether there is evidence to 
 show that the institutional or colony system, 
 diversified, as is suggested, will produce satis- 
 factory results. 
 
 In regard to the first a matter of vital im- 
 portance is at stake. An open offer of work 
 to unemployed persons will create a very large 
 demand. It will not matter whether inquiry 
 is made, as under the Distress Committees in 
 London, or whether the engagements for employ- 
 ment are made under conditions which would 
 allow of the contractor turning away all un- 
 suitable men. The inquiry will lead to results 
 similar to those that have taken place in 
 London. If it sifts it will exclude. But in 
 these circumstances all the excluded will have 
 a right to work. Thus a populace might make 
 the demand, a demand that no State provision 
 could meet without as a result the transference 
 to State agencies of a large control over the 
 labour market. In these circumstances, as the 
 numbers would be so great, the bias of responsi- 
 bility for supplying work and obtaining work 
 would to a very large extent be moved from the
 
 456 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 members of the community, who employ others 
 and are themselves employed in the course of 
 their daily transactions, to a department directly 
 dependent on the Exchequer. Industry would 
 not bear its own burthens but would transfer 
 them to the State. The result would be an 
 industrial revolution, but a revolution that 
 tended to weakness of will and the destruction 
 of self-support. It could hardly be otherwise. 
 And the financial burthen would be excessive. 
 It is true that work at ordinary wages would not 
 have to be supplied for all, that other means 
 might be used for the less capable, special 
 colonies, training homes, and places of detention. 
 But these institutions would be overwhelmed by 
 the mere mass of applicants, and discrimination 
 and treatment would alike become impossible. 
 On the other hand, work provided on what are 
 called commercial lines would tend inevitably 
 to become ' relief works.' Started at a time of 
 pressure, or in expectation of pressure, public 
 sentiment would tend to weaken the manage- 
 ment ; and the claimants attracted from all 
 quarters it would seem hard to repel and send 
 away ; and indulgence would prevail. These 
 are the general conclusions of experience. 
 
 Only those can desire the overt or veiled 
 acceptance of the right to work who wish to
 
 COMMISSION ON THE POOR LAWS 457 
 
 place industry on a new footing, dependent on 
 the State and adjusted by it, or who do not 
 fear a relapse under modern and urban condi- 
 tions into evident economic and social derange- 
 ments, such as the old Poor Law introduced 
 into the old parishes. The limitations in the 
 Unemployed Workmen's Act and in its ad- 
 ministration, insufficient as they have proved 
 to be, have at least saved us from such a 
 catastrophe. But it might well have been other- 
 wise. 
 
 The other question what are the results of 
 the Colony system is one of evidence. The 
 desire that that system should be adopted 
 received overwhelming support. Of results one 
 or two references may be given from witnesses. 
 In England the evidence of the Lingfield Colony 
 in Surrey was very favourable ; and so far as 
 it went that respecting Mayland in Essex a 
 permanent allotment colony. To turn to foreign 
 evidence : at Schaferhof, near Hamburg, the free 
 farm colony "is distinguished from the majority 
 of the German Labour Colonies by the earnest 
 efforts which it makes to induce its inmates to 
 stay there long enough to make it possible to 
 effect a substantial change in their moral and in- 
 dustrial character": and "reclamation is effected," 
 the Director states, in the case of about ten
 
 458 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 per cent, of the inmates. 1 At another free 
 Colony, that at Tannenhof, near Berne, it was 
 said that many men there improved so much 
 that they became self-supporting. Of the forced 
 labour farms at Witzwyl and St. Johannsen, 
 near Berne, it was said that speaking generally 
 every year, from one or other of these two 
 colonies, about 35 men came from there to a 
 * Shelter ' at Berne, and about eight or ten of 
 these were " reformed, made a decent living and 
 did not get into trouble: the others turned out 
 badly and ultimately fell again into the hands 
 of the police." At Merx Plas in Belgium the 
 numbers reclaimed were said to be very few, 
 but on discharge very little was done in the way 
 of placing them in situations. On the other 
 hand, the work to which the men were put was 
 most diverse and the influence of it upon the 
 men was good. " While in the establishment 
 the men did well, but many were recidivists." 
 Dr. Muensterberg of Berlin said that the utility 
 of the free colonies in Germany was, he thought, 
 considerable in promoting reclamation. Yet, 
 when all is said, it is clear we can expect no 
 large or general transformation of character from 
 
 1 See Reports on visits paid by the Labour Colonies Com- 
 mission to certain institutions ia Holland, Belgium, Germany, 
 and Switzerland : Royal Commission on the Poor Laws and 
 Relief of Distress, 1909.
 
 COMMISSION ON THE POOR LAWS 459 
 
 the adoption of the Colony system, and that if 
 it is to become really serviceable it must be 
 most carefully worked. Able-bodied applicants 
 are of different classes, industrially and other- 
 wise, and if the single Workhouse is to be given 
 up, as the Commissioners recommend, it is 
 necessary that institutions such as the farm 
 colony, the industrial workshop, and the labour 
 colony should take its place. Public assistance 
 is a broader term than ' Poor Law ' and should 
 carry with it a new meaning a meaning that 
 has not attached to the Poor Law hitherto 
 the discriminative treatment of the individual 
 case. On this method all municipal and other 
 relief works should become unnecessary. Neces- 
 sitous men who are unemployed and cannot 
 support themselves and their families should 
 be able, through it, to find under the condition 
 " less of eligibility," the general principle pro- 
 pounded by the Commissioners of 1832, such 
 treatment as is right and fair in their difficulty. 
 
 PREVENTION. 
 
 But chiefly reliance should be placed on 
 prevention. Methods of relief, especially relief 
 works, have their inherent disadvantages, by 
 whatever name we call them. Methods of 
 prevention, which now or soon after further
 
 460 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 experiment are likely to be available, are that 
 of the Labour Exchange and of Insurance. 
 The Labour Exchange if it becomes the resort 
 of both masters and men in the search for 
 purposes of employment should prevent much 
 irregularity of work, consolidate the demand 
 for labour, and save much waste of effort in 
 seeking work. Unemployed insurance might 
 be introduced in connexion with groups of 
 men of similar trades, even in part unskilled 
 trades. The future all depends on foresight 
 and saving. The free pensions now paid to 
 persons over 70, under the Old Age Pensions 
 Act of 1908, have created a new status of 
 dependence for the aged. This is a deplorable 
 departure from the principle of treatment and 
 help as against that of State almsgiving. The 
 effects of the Act cannot yet be stated, and 
 under our present system of administration it 
 will be very difficult to ascertain them. In 
 many cases, as far as one can now judge, the 
 Act touches the very heart of family obligation 
 and weakens it. Many who could have gone 
 on well, as they have done hitherto, are now 
 made dependent. The relations sometimes 
 quite well off, will do less, and others will do 
 less. So much of the supply of friendly energy 
 and thoughtfulness has been cut off. This is
 
 COMMISSION ON THE POOR LAWS 461 
 
 not to say that in many instances the pensions 
 have not reached people who have been living 
 on the verge of destitution. Undoubtedly that 
 has been the case. But it indicates a great lack 
 of administrative ability on the part of the State 
 to make close and well-defined adjustments, 
 that, in order to help persons who may really be 
 in need of pensions, it has to include in the class 
 of pensioners a large number of persons who are 
 able to keep themselves in one way or another 
 and could do without the assistance. 
 
 In these circumstances there is the more 
 reason now for contributory, and, if necessary, 
 compulsory insurance. The people should provide 
 for themselves, ' C and D ' as well as the other 
 classes ; and by insurance money that now often 
 goes amiss may perhaps be diverted to self- 
 support. 
 
 If the report of the Commission in its main 
 features passes into a Statute there will be a 
 strong Central Public Assistance 'Division,' 
 organized in connexion with Public Assistance 
 Authorities in Counties and County Boroughs, 
 and so locally in districts. But there would be 
 also a further change. Voluntary aid, which we 
 saw had fallen apart from the Poor Law, would 
 be brought into line with Public Assistance. On
 
 462 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 the lines of the Friendly Societies Act, which 
 would give them a kind of status and require of 
 them proper accountancy, charities would have 
 the option of registering under the Charities 
 Commission, as the Charity Commission would 
 be then called. The Commission would be in 
 part reorganized, and would have a Voluntary 
 Societies Department ; and it would be attached 
 to the Local Government Board. Registered 
 charities would be able to be of service in the 
 administration of Public Assistance by receiving 
 and helping cases for which voluntary institu- 
 tions could better provide than the institutions 
 of an official body. Under schemes passed by 
 the Commission there would be Voluntary Aid 
 Councils in the Counties and County Boroughs 
 and Voluntary Aid Committees. It is also 
 recommended that by a general clause in a 
 statute the trustees of doles for the poor should 
 be authorized to use them for the relief of dis- 
 tress, irrespective of obsolete and now purpose- 
 less conditions. The doles would thus come 
 once more into the active operations of charity 
 and, associated with other aid and help, would 
 serve a new purpose. 
 
 If the principle of future administration be 
 treatment, not gifts and maintenance, new forces 
 must come into the field. The trained volunteer
 
 COMMISSION ON THE POOR LAWS 463 
 
 must intervene. Something like an Elberfeld 
 system modified to meet English conditions must 
 be introduced as a friendly partner of the Public 
 Assistance Authorities. This is a vital change ; 
 and it is well to consider the conditions on 
 which its success depends. 
 
 CONDITIONS OF FRIENDLY VISITING IN A 
 LARGE CITY. 
 
 Its success depends mainly on two conditions : 
 the possibility of giving to voluntary work a 
 coherent organic existence, and thus making it a 
 responsible instrument in the bettering of the 
 individual and his family ; and, next, the simpli- 
 fication of the duties which the voluntary worker 
 may undertake, so that it may not exceed the 
 time which he has at his disposal or his ability. 
 
 Hitherto the Poor Law system and differences 
 of religion and class distinctions have held people 
 apart ; and no central rallying point for volun- 
 tary administration has been created by the 
 State or under Statutory approval. The Poor 
 Law has become a self-contained and more or less 
 isolated body. It has taken little or no heed of 
 means or methods which lie outside its own organ- 
 ization. In general its relief has been the indoor 
 relief provided within the walls of its Work- 
 houses and Workhouse institutions ; its outdoor
 
 464 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 relief has consisted mainly of mere allowances 
 given through the Relieving Officers. Differ- 
 ences in religion have in great measure made 
 void the utility of the parish as a recognized 
 centre for common work. And till lately many 
 may have despaired of any such fusion of 
 thought in charity as would bring together as 
 fellow-helpers in that work people who differ 
 greatly in their views about creeds and dogmata. 
 But religion has a social faith which no doubt 
 cannot be cut away from its theologic faith, 
 isolated and treated apart from it, but which 
 nevertheless is grounded largely on the facts of 
 life, on its obvious needs and deficiencies, and on 
 the claims of humanity. There are many things 
 about which there can be no righteous quarrel of 
 dissident religions. The quarrel, if there be one, 
 cannot be righteous. To help the weak, to make 
 the intemperate sober, to clean the room, to help 
 the sick and to prevent sickness to do all these, 
 and many other things, is to act on the prompt- 
 ings of a humanity that underlies the social faith 
 of all religions. This our survey of the past has 
 clearly shown. And now, in view, not, we think, 
 of the unequal conditions of life, the greater 
 wealth of some, the lesser means of others, but 
 at the sight of those who are dirty in home and 
 person, careless of themselves and their children,
 
 COMMISSION ON THE POOR LAWS 465 
 
 and unequipped for the demands that duty may 
 rightly impose on them, there has arisen in many 
 classes a new or enlarged sense of responsibility. 
 And this is broad as society itself is broad. It 
 sets minor questions aside, and it demands of 
 the individual who gives his thought to these 
 matters at all the realization of a social faith at 
 least as wide as the extent of the evils with 
 which he has to deal. There is a freedom of 
 charity a great liberty of endeavour, which, 
 though religious in conviction and feeling, is 
 not bound down by religious exclusiveness, and 
 which is characteristic of those courageous spirits 
 who would fain contend with the evils of their 
 time, and, if it may be, conquer them. 
 
 There is no danger to a man that knows 
 What life and death is ; there's not any law 
 Exceeds his knowledge ; neither is it lawful 
 That he should stoop to any other law : 
 He goes before them and commands them all, 
 That to himself is a law rational. 
 
 And the other difficulty is the difference of 
 class. We have seen how the rural slave became 
 the colonus, how the serf long halted in a position 
 half-way between servility and freedom, how 
 the dependence of feudalism gave way to 
 freedom and contract, and then again how in 
 
 England the later dependence upon the Poor 
 
 2c
 
 466 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 Law and upon wages assessed by the Magistrates 
 passed once more into industrial freedom and a 
 minimized or at least a greatly reduced pauperism. 
 In all these stages there has been a large class of 
 unfranchised people living in a society in which, 
 rightly or wrongly, they had no political partici- 
 pation. But now a further step is reached. 
 With social freedom comes the franchise. Not 
 the middle classes only, but the poor are brought 
 into the body politic. And if there is to be a 
 reform of charitable method on such a scale as 
 will, where needful, necessitate the supervision 
 as well as the relief of those who are assisted, 
 the army of helpers must be recruited at least 
 from the tradesman and the artisan class, as well 
 as from the class of those who can serve their 
 country with their leisure. Social and political 
 freedom brings with it new social duties. 
 
 The other condition to which reference has 
 been made is the simplification of the respon- 
 sibilities imposed on the voluntary worker. The 
 report of the Royal Commission shows by its 
 analysis of the system of relief at Hamburg that, 
 for any widespread and yet personal assistance, 
 two things are necessary a reduction of personal 
 duties, of supervision and visiting, to their 
 simplest form, and a strong centralization of 
 control, especially in regard to all those other
 
 COMMISSION ON THE POOR LAWS 467 
 
 duties petty accounts, letter writing, etc. 
 which accompany personal work, but do not 
 necessarily form part of it. The two positions 
 are correlated. The policy of dealing with 
 distress by treatment necessitates both. The 
 friendly visitor must be set free for the particular 
 task which he has to accomplish in the limited 
 time of his available leisure. To free him for 
 this task there must be a corresponding local 
 centralization. All correspondence, accounts, and 
 all, or at least all preliminary, investigation, 
 must be taken off his hands; and the supervising 
 authority must do all that he cannot do well, 
 reserving also to itself power to intervene at any 
 point where there is danger of misjudgment and 
 consequent wreckage. With all visiting, whether 
 in connexion with health and sanitary matters, 
 or with general assistance, this is equally indis- 
 pensable. Further, supervision rightly used will 
 lead to the training of the worker. 
 
 But though the right treatment of the indi- 
 vidual case in all its aspects is a method most 
 preventive of distress, there are other measures 
 besides those mentioned above which should be 
 considered. 
 
 INSURANCE. 
 
 The contingencies with which we have to deal 
 are of two kinds. Some are general and cal-
 
 468 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 culable : some are personal, and fall within the 
 range of no sufficient statistic. The natural way 
 of dealing with all general and calculable contin- 
 gencies is by association. Our Clubs, and the 
 elaborate insurances which cover so large a part 
 of the risks we incur in civilized countries, are 
 evidence of this. To extend the circle, of those 
 who are in some way insured is to improve the 
 position of a larger number of the population; 
 and if its methods are brought into relation with 
 the class that is most exposed to dependence, to 
 reduce largely the chances of such people falling 
 on the community for maintenance. In fact, 
 insurance may be pushed as far as it will go. 
 Sickness, old age, death, accidents, recurrent 
 unemployment, indeed a large number of the 
 critical periods which we have been discussing 
 from the point of view of assistance, may be 
 equally well discussed from that of insurance. 
 And insurance should reduce the need of public 
 relief to a minimum. But there are drawbacks. 
 The first may be stated as a question. Can the 
 necessary premiums be paid by the parties 
 concerned ? To this the answer is alike, in the 
 case of skilled or unskilled labour: Yes, or Yes 
 in great part. The question is largely one of 
 machinery. Next, Can the means of making his 
 payment be brought to the doors of the insurer ?
 
 COMMISSION ON THE POOR LAWS 469 
 
 The answer again is, Yes or Yes in great part. 
 The enormous organization of the Prudential 
 Insurance Company shows that it can be done, 
 and can be done to a profit. In 1907 that Com- 
 pany had in its ordinary life insurance business 
 funds amounting to 34,103,669 ; and in its 
 industrial branch 26,366,235. If it is possible, 
 why, we ask, cannot this method be applied in 
 other directions? The answer is that there is no 
 efficient effort made to do it. A man aged 
 twenty-one, in good health and employed in a 
 healthy occupation, could insure for the receipt 
 of 10s. 6d. a week during the first twenty-six 
 weeks of illness, and 7s. 6d. during the remainder 
 of illness up to the age of sixty-five, on a pay- 
 ment of little more than 3d. a week. Most 
 working men could meet this charge in normal 
 times. But if such an offer is to reach the great 
 mass of the people, it must be organized on a 
 very broad basis, brought to their houses, and 
 somehow be quickened by a deeply felt demand, 
 such, for instance, as the popular demand for 
 " burial money." 
 
 Next, it may be demurred that this is but one 
 contingency, whereas in fact there are several ; 
 and to meet these it may be said no sufficient 
 premiums will be forthcoming from the artisan 
 and labouring class. These contingencies are
 
 470 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 accidents, old age, death, unemployment. Two 
 of these, accidents and unemployment, are con- 
 nected with the industrial life ; and industry 
 should bear its own burthens. On that principle 
 already accident insurance falls on employers, 
 and unemployment insurance might fairly be 
 met by premiums paid by employers and 
 employed. What would be the effect of this on 
 wages ? If the wage of the employee and the 
 profits of the employer remained the same, each 
 would continue to bear his share of the premium. 
 If wages rose, the employer, it might be said, 
 would pay the workman's share. If profits rose, 
 and the employer sold his goods at higher prices, 
 the customer would pay. And if the wages rose 
 and profits rose the whole charge would fall on 
 the customer. 
 
 The premiums for old age and life insurance 
 may be considered personal rather than indus- 
 trial. Old age is now largely met by the State. 
 Life insurance reduces itself to payments for 
 funeral benefit and payments for a sum payable 
 at death to the widow. Insurance for funeral 
 benefit is so widespread that it might be left to 
 the people to continue it on the present lines. 
 A system of optional extra premiums for the 
 widow might be on foot to meet the contingency 
 of widowhood.
 
 COMMISSION ON THE POOR LAWS 471 
 
 There would thus be an insurance system 
 parallel to the contingencies of life ; and if it 
 were a convenience that the various risks should 
 be met by the same premium however dis- 
 tributed, that too might be arranged. Probably 
 the insurance against unemployment should be 
 kept apart from others : the conditions of the 
 risk are very different, the decision as to who 
 is unemployed and who is not would depend on 
 the skilled supervision of managers and men, 
 while the insurance pay was given on some test 
 sufficiently exact to prevent malfeasance. Such 
 a test might be like that at Strassburg, where, 
 to verify the fact that an alleged unemployed 
 person is really unemployed, he is required to 
 report himself at the Labour Exchange daily at 
 a time frequently varied and not necessarily 
 during the usual working hours. But indeed 
 this development of insurance is still in the 
 experimental stage ; and only experiments will 
 show how far and under what conditions it may 
 be applied. Employment by way of relief is 
 open to so much criticism that any method by 
 which it can be avoided should be put in opera- 
 tion and tested. 
 
 But objection may be made that, though it be 
 true that only on the lines of self-support can 
 progress be made, the less skilled wage-earners
 
 472 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 have not means to pay towards insurance. 
 Certainly the pictures of industrial life which are 
 drawn by witnesses are miserable enough, in those 
 districts in which work is irregular and largely 
 of an unskilled kind, where the head of the 
 family learns to depend on the wife, and the 
 household becomes the mere room-hold, and life 
 becomes not life, but a day to day, even hour to 
 hour, existence, with little or no property, and 
 for furniture mere ' sticks.' Yet this, it must 
 be remembered, is the lowest rung of the 
 ladder. By degrees higher rungs may be reached. 
 A reserve of some small amount collected weekly 
 and paid to a Post Office or other account on 
 the part of the individual, and, as a first step, 
 made available, for instance, for the off-season of 
 the winter would be of the utmost service. It 
 might provide a good part at least of what 
 would meet the need of that time after all 
 usually only a short period, from the end of 
 January till the middle of March. 
 
 A plan would be to associate the skilled and 
 Unionist with the unskilled and non-Unionist in 
 one scheme, grading the advantages according 
 to the payments which the men made to any 
 unemployment fund. But this would entail 
 State grants, or grants from somewhere, from 
 some large endowed fund perhaps, such as that
 
 COMMISSION ON THE POOR LAWS 473 
 
 of the City Parochial Charities, if they were 
 applied, as they might be applied most usefully, 
 to limited and well-considered experimental 
 work of social utility. And there are no doubt 
 many other possible plans. But the first step 
 is to form the nuclei of organization for social 
 advance. These nuclei exist in the case of 
 the unemployed funds of Trade Unions, or, for 
 other purposes, in the case of Friendly Societies. 
 If they could take root in a lower social grade 
 a new social growth within the lower ranks of 
 industry might spring up. 
 
 But it may be said that it is best to leave 
 people to spend their money as they will, and to 
 let them suffer if they misuse it, or that these 
 suggestions will not touch the lowest ranks of 
 industry. The former argument, however, will 
 hardly carry if, to put it commercially, we are 
 dealing with human material of value to the 
 country. The argument is that of factory 
 interference over again. The interference is 
 justified by the prevention of sickness or prema- 
 ture weakness and death among those who would 
 not otherwise be strong and self-maintaining. 
 The community on many grounds is interested 
 in the preservation of its own members in health 
 and fitness; and so long as its action tends to 
 strengthen effort and ability and independence
 
 474 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 it may well make enactments to effect such a 
 purpose. At present the irregularity and uncer- 
 tainty of life in class C would seem to im- 
 poverish them unnecessarily. So far as this is 
 due to economic causes a remedy may be found 
 in some form of insurance or saving. 
 
 But, again, the lowest ranks of industry, it 
 may be said, would remain unaffected those 
 classed A and B, to use Mr. Booth's classification. 
 In their class, and in the case of all those who 
 come within the line of ' treatment,' resort may 
 be had to many means varying with the case, 
 means in part placed at the disposal of the 
 community by the institutions of Public Assist- 
 ance. For one great difference between past 
 urban conditions and our own is that we have a 
 large organization and staff for public aid, which 
 should to a large extent be used remedially. 
 Some of this class may be withdrawn from 
 society drunkards and vicious men and women, 
 the real and inevitable paupers of society, for 
 pauperism or dependence is only in part economic. 
 If we subtract all those whose trouble is due to 
 economic causes wholly or chiefly, we have a 
 large preponderant mass, as the inquiries made 
 during the last twenty years show us, in which 
 the difficulty is not economic but, in the larger 
 sense of the word, moral. It is the fashion to
 
 COMMISSION ON THE POOR LAWS 475 
 
 ignore this, and to say that the drink and the 
 vice are due to environment. Of course in a 
 degree that is true ; but not less is it true 
 that it is due to want of central-ment to 
 want of the good will, the central preservative 
 force of the individual soul. And one plea for 
 the application of methods of helping and treat- 
 ment by friendly visiting is that they may touch 
 this inner heart of the trouble. 1 Pauperism in 
 its final state is indeed a residue, and so far 
 possibly to be prevented, hardly to be cured. 
 It has been stated that no teetotallers become 
 paupers, because their lives are ' good lives ' 
 (as the Temperance Insurance Societies prove), 
 and their health is better and their money goes 
 further. That is at least an indication of the 
 bearing of the argument for prevention. It 
 shows where the stress of conflict lies. 
 
 THE MAIN ISSUE. 
 
 The consideration of industrial questions, such 
 as the effect of municipal action or municipaliza- 
 tion on industry and invention, and, on the 
 other hand, the growth and importance of co- 
 partnership in industry a solution of many 
 
 J Cf. the line suggested by the recent studies in heredity, 
 made in connexion with the Galton Laboratory for National 
 Eugenics. They point to the outstanding importance of 
 heredity as against environment. (Cf. p. 40 above.)
 
 476 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 difficulties which is only now receiving more 
 general attention and a wide application, lies 
 beyond the scope of this book. 
 
 The report of the Majority of the Royal 
 Commission on the Poor Laws and Relief of 
 Distress consists practically of two arguments. 
 One argument is that, by the treatment of the 
 individual case with the means and appliances 
 which are at the disposal of the community, or 
 may be placed at its disposal, those who are in 
 distress may be assisted without an increase of 
 their dependence upon the community ; the 
 other argument is that there is a large scope 
 for general methods of prevention, to which at 
 this stage of society it is necessary to resort to 
 prevent decadence and to raise the standard of 
 foresight and self-support among the poorer 
 classes. 
 
 Both of these arguments are, in the sense in 
 which we have used the word, distinctively 
 ' charitable.' Charity represents a mood which 
 is very constant in social life and which expresses 
 itself in many ways. We have tried to show 
 the compass of its thought, how there meet in 
 it religion and reverence and sympathy and 
 many-sided social endeavour ; how it has 
 prompted the thought of the best minds in 
 many states and stages of society ; and how it
 
 COMMISSION ON THE POOR LAWS 477 
 
 ever stands as an advocate for the social good 
 and as a protestant against the social evil of 
 the day. 
 
 Charity is the very life of religion, above 
 all of Christianity. The great revolution of 
 thought in the fourth century yielded to 
 Christianity the amplest victory. Since then 
 Christianity has had the mastery. No other 
 religion has competed with it. It has had its 
 divisions and sects and its reformations. But 
 whatever the differences of individuals may have 
 been the world at large has been encircled by it. 
 The religious ceremonies of birth and death have 
 been in its hands, and the preaching of the 
 spiritual life. Religions change slowly in 
 thought, though they may not in formula. The 
 change is constantly progressive in conception 
 and in endeavour ; and the appeal of charity 
 to the passing generation is always more in- 
 sistent, as science shows the ever greater results 
 that it can produce. Is it not possible, then', 
 for those who, by their religious faith are be- 
 lievers in charity, to unite, as they have never 
 yet done, for the true and honourable fulfilment 
 of the task which their faith imposes on them 
 Levite, priest, and Samaritan conforming, 
 non-conforming, cleric and lay, men and women? 
 The future in this great branch of work depends
 
 478 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 on them. All rests as in science, so in charity 
 on the right handling and helping of those 
 who are, or may fall, into distress. Good 
 citizenship, no less than faithfulness to religious 
 ideals, demands this. Cannot all, putting aside 
 lesser matters of difference, try to find an 
 orthodoxy in charity and charitable method ? 
 In the hope that now or some day this may 
 be possible, and that there may be a new 
 unity in this vital social faith, this book has 
 been written.
 
 APPENDIX I. 
 
 CHARITY AND VOLUNTARY AID. 
 
 NOTE. The Roman figures at the end of each recommendation 
 refer to the parts of the report, the Arabic figures to the 
 paragraphs in those parts. 
 
 THE following statement is taken from the 
 Majority Report of the Royal Commission on 
 the Poor Law and relief of distress. 
 
 Our recommendations in regard to the 
 organization of Voluntary Aid are as follows 
 (Part VII. 237) : 
 
 ESTABLISHMENT OF VOLUNTARY AID COUNCILS 
 AND COMMITTEES. 
 
 (173) That in the area of each Public Assist- 
 ance Authority, that is, in each County or 
 County Borough, there be formed a Voluntary 
 Aid Council, consisting in part of trustees of 
 endowed charities, of members of registered 
 voluntary charities, as defined below, of some 
 members of the Public Assistance Authority, and
 
 480 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 of such persons as members of friendly societies 
 and trade associations, of clergy and ministers, 
 and of other persons being co-opted members, as 
 may be settled in schemes approved by the 
 Charities Commission. 1 
 
 (174) That a statutory obligation be imposed 
 upon the Lords Lieutenants, the Chairmen of 
 County Councils, the Lord Mayors, and Mayors 
 of County Boroughs to take steps, within a given 
 period, and after consultation with the managers 
 of charitable societies, trustees of endowed 
 charities, and members of the Public Assistance 
 Authority, for drawing up schemes in accordance 
 with the preceding recommendation, which 
 schemes must be submitted to the Charities 
 Commission for approval. 
 
 (175) That the Voluntary Aid Council submit 
 to the Charities Commission proposals for the 
 formation of Voluntary Aid Committees to be 
 drawn up in the form of schemes to be approved 
 by the Commission, and that the Voluntary Aid 
 Council under such schemes appoint as members 
 of the Voluntary Aid Committees persons such 
 as those mentioned in Recommendation 173. 
 
 (176) That Voluntary Societies and Charities, 
 as defined in Recommendation 189, be entitled 
 
 1 See p. 273 as to the proposed change in name of the Charity 
 Commission.
 
 CHARITY AND VOLUNTARY AID 481 
 
 to register at the Charities Commission on lines 
 similar to those of the registration of Friendly 
 Societies under the Friendly Societies' Act. 
 
 (177) That a registered Voluntary Society be 
 entitled to nominate members of its own body 
 for appointment to the Voluntary Aid Council 
 and to the Voluntary Aid Committee of the 
 district in which either its institution or any 
 branch of its institution has an office. 
 
 (178) That it is desirable that the Voluntary 
 Aid Committee have its offices in the same 
 building as the Committee of Public Assistance. 
 
 FUNCTIONS OF THE VOLUNTARY AID COUNCIL. 
 
 (179) The duties of the Voluntary Aid Coun- 
 cils would be for the most part not executive, but 
 supervisory. The executive work would be 
 assigned to the Voluntary Aid Committees. The 
 Voluntary Aid Council would supervise the 
 operations of these Committees generally, and 
 would, as far as possible, maintain the same 
 principles of help and relief throughout County 
 or County Boroughs. They would collect funds 
 for distribution to Voluntary Aid Committees, 
 and they would allocate funds to poor districts. 
 The County is already the accepted area for 
 many benevolent and philanthropic purposes. 
 
 The local Infirmary or Hospital is frequently a 
 
 2n
 
 482 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 County institution. There are County Nursing 
 Associations, and the County is the recognised 
 centre in connection with various naval and 
 military charitable associations. We propose 
 that the Voluntary Aid Council, acting for the 
 County, should promote any voluntary institu- 
 tions, associations, or societies for which the 
 County, as a whole, has need. Its duties would 
 thus be important and distinctive. 
 
 FUNCTIONS OF THE VOLUNTARY AID COMMITTEE. 
 
 (180) That the Voluntary Aid Committee aid 
 (1) persons in distress, whose cases do not appear 
 to be suitable for treatment by the Public 
 Assistance Committee, and (2) applicants for 
 Public Assistance, whose cases have been referred 
 to the Committee by the Public Assistance 
 Committee. 
 
 (181) That, with a view to the thorough 
 treatment of individual cases, the Voluntary Aid 
 Committee make such arrangements for the 
 investigation of the applications made to them as 
 the Charities Commission may deem necessary 
 and sufficient. 
 
 (182) That, in dealing with persons in distress 
 for whom it is desired to provide aid by way of 
 monetary relief, it shall be the duty of the 
 Voluntary Aid Committee to obtain such sums
 
 CHARITY AND VOLUNTARY AID 483 
 
 as may be possible from relations of the appli- 
 cant, from friends, and from charitable sources 
 generally, for the aid of individual cases. 
 
 (183) That, with the administration of aid on 
 the part of the Voluntary Aid Committee, there 
 should be associated such a system of voluntary 
 visitation as the Committee may deem advisable 
 in view of the responsibilities of their work in 
 providing effectual aid, and in view of the 
 physical needs and the habits of those whom 
 they decide to assist. 
 
 (184) That the Voluntary Aid Committee be 
 empowered to appoint such Local Committees 
 as it may deem necessary, subject to the 
 approval of the Voluntary Aid Council. 
 
 (185) That a Voluntary Aid Committee shall, 
 as far as possible, register the cases dealt with 
 by the Public Assistance Committee and by the 
 charitable societies and institutions in the district. 
 
 (186) That Voluntary Aid Committees receive 
 the support of the Public Assistance Committee, 
 and of the Inspectors of the Local Government 
 Board, with a view to systematizing the relations 
 between the Public Assistance and Voluntary 
 Aid Committees and promoting co-operation 
 between them. 
 
 (187) That Voluntary Aid Councils or Com- 
 mittees be eligible for subscriptions from the
 
 484 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 Public Assistance Authority, on the lines of 42 
 and 43 Viet., cap. 54, section 10. 
 
 THE CHARITIES COMMISSION. 
 
 (188) That the Charity Commission be at- 
 tached to the Local Government Board, and that 
 the Commissioners and Assistant Commissioners, 
 permanent or temporary, be appointed by the 
 Local Government Board, whose President should 
 represent it in the House of Commons. 
 
 (189) That the Charity Commission be en- 
 larged, and that there be assigned to it two 
 departments of work, the supervision of endowed 
 charities on the lines of the Charitable Trusts 
 Acts, and the registration of Voluntary Charities 
 or Societies which hold any property in land 
 or houses by purchase, or by leasehold, or are 
 the tenants of any property under yearly or 
 other agreements. 
 
 (190) That the name of the Charity Commis- 
 sion be the Charities Commission. 
 
 (191) That the staff of the Commission be 
 strengthened so as to fulfil all the various 
 additional duties that may devolve upon them : 
 
 (1) As a centre for the registration of 
 
 voluntary charities. 
 
 (2) In assisting in the preparation of schemes 
 
 for the establishment of Voluntary Aid
 
 CHARITY AND VOLUNTARY AID 485 
 
 Councils and for registering such 
 schemes. 
 
 (3) In assisting in the preparation of schemes 
 
 for the establishment of Voluntary Aid 
 Committees, and for registering and 
 supervising their administration. 
 
 (4) In the scrutiny of accounts and state- 
 
 ments relating to Voluntary Aid 
 Councils and Committees. 
 
 (5) In the supervision of other schemes ; and 
 
 (6) In the scrutiny of the accounts of 
 
 endowed and registered charities. 
 
 (192) That section 30 of the Endowed Schools 
 Act, 1869, by which certain charities founded 
 for purposes of relief may be applied to purposes 
 of education, be repealed. 
 
 (193) That it be provided in a Statute 
 amending the Charitable Trusts Acts that, by 
 Order of the Charities Commission, any charities, 
 as defined in section 30 of the Endowed Schools 
 Act, 1869, exclusive of Loan Charities, Appren- 
 ticeship Charities, and Charities for Advance- 
 ment in Life, may be used for the relief of 
 distress, subject to such conditions respecting 
 enquiry and other matters as the Commissioners 
 may determine under a general order.
 
 APPENDIX II. 
 
 THE CHARITABLE EXPENDITURE OP THE 
 METROPOLIS. 
 
 LONDON has, within what is known as the 
 Metropolitan area, a population of 4,833,938. 
 The Larger London, consisting of a circle of 15 
 miles from Charing Cross, contains a population 
 of 7,233,563. Outside this circle, but not far 
 from it, are towns and populated districts. The 
 charities of London thus serve a very large 
 population. 
 
 In addition to this, to London institutions, 
 hospitals, and homes are admitted persons from 
 all parts of the country, and in general charitable 
 work, societies and committees, in the central 
 part of London especially, deal continually with 
 non-Londoners who are in distress. If therefore 
 the total income of London charities has to be 
 considered, it must be considered in relation to 
 the large population of which London is the 
 centre, and in relation to these large claims.
 
 CHARITABLE EXPENDITURE 487 
 
 But there are further considerations. London 
 is the centre of many societies which have 
 branches throughout the country, e.g. the Church 
 of England Homes for Waifs and Strays, Dr. 
 Barnardo's Homes, the Royal National Lifeboat 
 Institution. Consequently the receipts of those 
 societies, though credited to London, are but 
 banked in London, and are in fact to a very 
 large extent applicable to the country at large, 
 or to the places where these decentralized 
 societies have their branch agencies. 
 
 It has been said that the income of the 
 charities of London is ten millions. This is a 
 serious mistake especially when it is stated 
 without regard to the limitations to which refer- 
 ence has been made. 
 
 The following statement in regard to the year 
 1908 represents the facts as far as they can be 
 ascertained : 
 
 The voluntary contributions of London chari- 
 ties, which would represent in general terms what 
 is called " income," amount to about 3,430,000. 
 Nearly 900,000 represents income from in- 
 vested funds, the possession of which is desirable 
 in many, and essential in some, institutions, 
 as, for instance, pension societies. A sum of 
 1,060,000, equivalent to almost one- third of 
 the voluntary income, is due to payments made
 
 488 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 by or on behalf of beneficiaries, and such pay- 
 ments, while charitable in intention, are obviously 
 dependent upon the existence of agencies which 
 form convenient channels for the assistance of 
 particular individuals. Legacies amount to 
 nearly 1,090,000, and the receipts from this 
 source, a fluctuating one at the best, are in 
 many cases treated as far as possible as capital. 
 Nearly 543,000 represents the outcome of in- 
 dustrial work done by inmates of Homes, or of 
 trading operations undertaken by charitable 
 agencies. A sum of 25,000 is not classifiable 
 under any of the foregoing heads. It will be 
 seen, therefore, that the total "turnover" is 
 under 7,000,000, of which as nearly as possible 
 one-half is represented by voluntary contribu- 
 tions. This figure has to be considered in 
 relation to the circumstances stated above, 
 which affect the conditions of London voluntary 
 administration.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Abbey of St. Germain-des-Pres, 
 
 240-241. 
 Acts of Parliament referred to : 
 
 Artificers and Labourers Act 
 (1563), 310, 312-314, 317. 
 
 Charitable Trusts Act of 1853, 
 320, 323, 325. 
 
 Charitable Uses Act of Queen 
 Elizabeth, 251, 261. 
 
 City of London Parochial Char- 
 ities Act of 1883, 325. 
 
 Education Act of 1870, 337. 
 
 Elementary Education (Pro- 
 vision of Meals) Act, 413. 
 
 Factory Acts, 367. 
 
 Friendly Societies Act, 330, 462. 
 
 House-tax Act of 1808, 327. 
 
 Law of Settlement of Charles II. , 
 312, 314, 342. 
 
 Local Government Acts of 1892 
 and 1894, 326. 
 
 Poor Act of 1845, 307. 
 
 Poor Law Amendment Act of 
 1834, 344. 
 
 Poor Relief Act of Queen Eliza- 
 beth (1601), 307, 308, 314-316, 
 318, 320-321,324. 
 
 Poor Kehef Act of James I. , 307. 
 
 Poor Relief Act of 1662, 312. 
 
 Sweated Industries Act, 363-365. 
 
 Toleration Act of 1688, 322. 
 
 Unemployed Workmen's Act, 
 
 1905, 423, 452-453, 455. 
 Ambrose, Saint, 197, 214-217. 
 
 Anastasius, Pope, Charity Organi- 
 zation by, 211-212. 
 " Annona Civica," The. (See 
 
 under Rome.) 
 Antoninus Pius, 108. 
 "Arbeiter-Kolonien," The, 427. 
 
 428. 
 
 Areopagus, The, 26, 32. 
 Aristotle, social reform and, 33- 
 
 34, 35, 81, 197-209. 
 Views of, compared with those 
 
 of St. Paul, 197-209. 
 Association for Befriending Young 
 
 Servants, 344. 
 
 Augustine, Saint, quoted re : 
 Charity, 179-180, 231,252-254. 
 Cicero, praise of, 131. 
 Pagan religion, 156. 
 Augustus Caesar, 95, 102. 
 
 B 
 
 Bakuena, The, 12-13. 
 Baptists, The, Charities of, 340. 
 Barnardo Homes, App. II., 487. 
 Barnett, Canon, Toynbee Hall 
 
 Settlement established by,340. 
 Basil, Saint, Charity Organization 
 
 by, 224. 
 Belgium, Merx Plas Colony in, 
 
 46-47. 
 Bentham, Jeremy, Poor Relief 
 
 reforms suggested by, 342. 
 Bernard, Saint, Charitable and 
 
 religious theories of, 180, 253- 
 
 255, 263.
 
 490 
 
 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 Bernard, Sir T. Referred to, 343. 
 
 Board of Trade Labour Depart- 
 ment referred to, 345. 
 
 Boeotia, 19. 
 
 Booth, Charles Investigations re 
 the Poor, 345, 386-387. 
 
 Brougham, Lord Referred to,319. 
 
 Caius Gracchus, " Annona Civica " 
 
 founded by, 93, 94. 
 Caligula, 102. 
 Carpenter, Miss Mary Referred 
 
 to, 337. 
 Cecil (Lord Burleigh) quoted re 
 
 legislation, 309. 
 Chalmers, Dr. Teaching of, 198, 
 
 345-347. 
 
 Charity. (See also Poor Relief, 
 Monasteries, Names of Coun- 
 tries, etc.) 
 
 Definitions and divisions of, 1-7. 
 Economics of, 352-369. 
 Jewish and Christian compared, 
 
 183-196. 
 
 Main issue, The, 475-478. 
 Mediaeval revision of theory of, 
 
 252-263. 
 Pre-Christian religion and, 155- 
 
 167. 
 
 Primitive, 8-19. 
 Reformation, The, influence on 
 
 methods of relief, 299-303. 
 Social Sciences and Sociology in 
 
 relation to, 395. 
 
 Socialism and. (See Socialism.) 
 Charity Commissioners, Adminis- 
 tration by, 320, 323, 324-7. 
 Charity Organization Societies 
 
 founded, 344. 
 Charity School, The, 337. 
 Charlemagne Charitable organi- 
 zation by, 247-249. 
 Children. (See also under Poor 
 
 Relief.) 
 "Alimentation" of, in early 
 
 Roman days, 107-109. 
 Foundling movement, 335-336. 
 Infant mortality, 335-336, 416. 
 
 Children : 
 
 Primitive attitude towards, 
 
 9-12. 
 Christianity : 
 
 Advent, conception and influ- 
 ence of, 168-182. 
 Christian and Jewish charity 
 
 compared, 183-196. 
 Church, The. (See that Title.) 
 Effect of, on other religions and 
 
 vice versa, 166. 
 Greek the language of, in early 
 
 times, 174-175. 
 
 Chrysostom, St. Charity Organi- 
 zation by, 218-221. 
 Church, The : 
 
 Charitable functions of, gradu- 
 ally assumed by towns, 287. 
 Church rate in Thirteenth Cen- 
 tury, 272. 
 Endowments of, 221-229, 246- 
 
 249, 280-281. 
 Scarcity of Churches in the 
 
 Third Century, 246. 
 Taxation and, 281. 
 Church Army, The Referred to, 
 
 428. 
 
 Church of England Homes for 
 Waifs and Strays, App. II., 
 487. 
 
 Cicero Philosophical, etc., views 
 of, quoted, 48, 80, 101, 112- 
 131,216; Death of, 118. 
 Clan-family, The : 
 Bakuena tribe, 12-13. 
 Eighth Century, in, 13-14. 
 Greece, 21-22, 24, 29. 
 Rome, 88-89, 
 
 Coinage, The Debasement of, 294. 
 "Collegia, "The, 105, 107. 
 Colquhoun, Patrick Referred to, 
 
 343. 
 
 Committees and Royal Commis- 
 sions referred to : 
 Aged Poor, Royal Commission 
 
 on, 436-439. 
 
 Charity Organization Society : 
 Special Committee on the 
 " Assistance of School Child- 
 ren " (1893), 416; Special
 
 INDEX 
 
 491 
 
 Committee on the best means 
 of dealing with exceptional 
 distress, 417. 
 
 Children's Care Committees, 417. 
 
 Medical Inspection and the 
 Feeding of School Children, 
 Committee on (1905), 416. 
 
 Physical Deterioration, Depart- 
 mental Committees on (1905), 
 415-416, 439-441. 
 
 Physical Education, Scottish 
 Royal Commission on (1903), 
 415. 
 
 Poor Laws and Relief of Dis- 
 tress, Royal Commission on. 
 (See under Poor Law. ) 
 Comte, Auguste Referred to, 376, 
 
 381. 
 Constantinople : 
 
 " Annona civica " introduced 
 into, 97, 98. 
 
 Poor relief organization, 218- 
 221, 433. 
 
 Social conditions in early times, 
 
 229. 
 Court of Chancery Jurisdiction 
 
 over charities, 323. 
 Crassus, 112. 
 
 D 
 
 Denison, Edward Referred to, 
 
 396. 
 
 Dispensary movement, 338. 
 Durkheim, M., quoted re Sociology, 
 
 381, 384. 
 
 E 
 
 Education. (See also under Poor 
 
 Law.) 
 England, Schools established 
 
 end of Eighteenth Century, 
 
 337. 
 
 Greece, 38-40. 
 Edward VI. Municipal Charity 
 
 promoted by, 306. 
 Elberfeld System of Municipal 
 
 Relief, 344-45, 399, 4G3. 
 " Eleemosynary Corporations," 
 
 definition of, 323. 
 
 Employment. (See under Labour. ) 
 Epictetus Stoic Philosophy of, 
 
 48, 141, 143-54. 
 Epicureanism, 125. 
 
 Family, The : 
 
 Greece in, review of early con- 
 ditions, 8, 22-25. 
 Importance of the development 
 
 of, 389-92. 
 
 Mediaeval conditions, 265-67. 
 Monasticism, effect upon, 232-33. 
 Rome in early times, 81-84. 
 Feudalism and the tribal system, 
 
 236-43. 
 Foundling Hospital established, 
 
 335. 
 France Poor relief in : 
 
 " Bureaux de bienfaisance," 334. 
 " Enfauts trouv^s " homes, 335. 
 Hospitals or " Maisons Dien," 
 
 335. 
 
 Municipal relief, 306, 307. 
 Provision of meals to school 
 
 children, 415. 
 Francis, Saint, 197-98, 255-57, 263, 
 
 302 ; Canticle quoted, 179. 
 Franciscans, The, 279.. 
 
 G 
 
 Germany : 
 
 "Arbeiter-Kolonien," 427, 428. 
 
 Elberfeld system of municipal 
 relief. (See Elberfeld. ) 
 
 "Schaferhof Colony," 457, 466. 
 Greece : 
 
 City life, Plato quoted concern- 
 ing, 22, 24, 25, 35-48, 50, 54. 
 
 Clan-family, historical review, 
 21-22, 24, 29. 
 
 Education, 38-40. 
 
 Emigration in early times, 26, 
 27. 
 
 Family, The, early conditions, 
 8, 22-25. 
 
 Franchise, The, in early times, 
 26,29.
 
 492 
 
 Greece : 
 
 Greek, the language of early 
 Christianity, 174-175. 
 
 Mutual help societies, primitive, 
 33. 
 
 Phrabry, The, 13-14, 21-22, 29. 
 
 Poor relief, methods of, 20-34, 
 432, 433. 
 
 Religion, Development and in- 
 fluence of, 56-76. 
 
 Slavery in, 20-21, 77-79. 
 
 Strangers and the sick, provi- 
 sion for, 49-55. 
 
 Gregory, Saint, Charity organiza- 
 tion by, 211, 212-214, 230. 
 Guild Charities in mediaeval times, 
 285-286. 
 
 Hanway, Jonas Referred to, 336. 
 Hawkes, Dr. Lewis Quoted re, 
 
 the poor in London, 439-441. 
 Hesiod, 13, 17-19, 23, 184. 
 Hill, Miss Octavia Quoted re, the 
 poor in London and the coun- 
 try, 345, 436-39. 
 
 Hospitals. (See aim under Poor 
 Relief.) 
 
 Bridewell, 306. 
 
 Canterbury, 277. 
 
 Christ's, 306, 338. 
 
 Foundling, 335. 
 
 Free ' ' Letters " System estab- 
 lished, 338. 
 
 Guy's, 338. 
 
 Hospital Funds established, 338- 
 339. 
 
 Hospital Orders, 278-279. 
 
 Hospital System Result, 408- 
 410. 
 
 King Edward's Hospital Fund, 
 339. 
 
 Mediaeval times in, 277-79, 283- 
 85. 
 
 Statistics, 339-40, 448-49. 
 
 St. Bartholomew's, 278, 337, 338. 
 
 St. Thomas's, 278, 337, 338. 
 Howard, John Prison reforms by, 
 337, 342. 
 
 Industrial and Reformatory 
 
 schools established, 337. 
 Insurance, 467-75. 
 
 Jewish and Christian charity com- 
 pared, 183-96. 
 
 Julius Caesar, 95, 118. 
 
 Justices of the Peace Institution 
 and duties of, 310-11. 
 
 Labour. (See also under Poor Law 
 
 Commission.) 
 Employment relief, 421-425, 454, 
 
 457-459. 
 Labour Department of Board of 
 
 Trade referred to, 345. 
 Organization of, in Fourteenth 
 Century and onwards, 288- 
 290, 295. 
 Statutes concerning, 288, 310- 
 
 314, 317, 342, 343. 
 Trades Unions, 362-363. 
 Wages, Regulation of, 359-366 ; 
 Supplementation of, 354-359 ; 
 Women's work, 356 ; ' ' Sweat- 
 ing," 358-364. 
 Land Origin of enclosing, 291- 
 
 294. 
 
 Law, Edmund Religious concep- 
 tion of charity, 341-342. 
 Law of Settlement, 312, 314, 342. 
 Le Play Investigations in Social 
 
 Science, 377, 382-384. 
 Lettsom, Dr. Referred to, 343. 
 Lingfield Col&ny, 457- 
 Local Government Board Out- 
 door relief policy, 344 ; Un- 
 employment and, 421-422, 423. 
 London. (See alxo Poor Laws, etc.) 
 Charitable expenditure, App. 
 
 II., 486-488. 
 
 Population, Classification of 
 working classes, by Mr. 
 Charles Booth, 434-436.
 
 INDEX 
 
 493 
 
 London Charity Organization 
 Society Registration system 
 adopted by, 402 (note). 
 
 London Unemployed Fund, 1904-5, 
 Report on, 422. 
 
 Long, Walter, Proposition re Un- 
 employment, 422. 
 
 M 
 
 Malthus Referred to, 377. 
 Manor, The In mediaeval times, 
 
 267-268. 
 
 Marcus Aurelius, 108. 
 Mayland Colony, 457. 
 Merx Plas Belgium Industrial 
 
 Colony, 46-47, 454, 458. 
 Metropolitan Asylums Board, 449. 
 Mithraism, 155, 165-166. 
 Monasteries : 
 
 Alienation of, from public in- 
 terests and charity, 296. 
 Charitable organization of, 274- 
 
 277. 
 
 Croyland Abbey, 274. 
 Glastonbury, 274. 
 Monastic charity in early Chris- 
 tian times, 223, 230-235. 
 Population of, in mediaeval 
 
 times, 276. 
 Restoration of discipline in, 253- 
 
 254. 
 
 St. Albahs, 274. 
 Muensterberg, Dr. , quoted re free 
 
 Colonies, 458. 
 
 Municipal Relief. (See under Poor 
 Relief.) 
 
 N 
 
 Neald, James Referred to, 343. 
 Nero, 105. 
 Nerva, 107. 
 
 Nicholls, Sir George, and Poor 
 Law Reform, 396. 
 
 O 
 
 Odyssey," The, Charity in the 
 period covered by, 13-17. 
 
 Old Age Pensions, establishment 
 and probable result of, 349- 
 351, 356 357, 460. 
 
 Oriel College, Oxford, 283. 
 
 Orphan Working Home, 337. 
 
 Orphanage Movement of 1758, 337. 
 
 Panoetius, Stoic view of charity, 
 
 80, 197. 
 Parish Relief. (See under Poor 
 
 Relief.) 
 
 Peisistratus, 26, 91. 
 Pericles, 27. 
 
 Phratry, The, 13-14. 21-22, 29. 
 Plato Quoted concerning social 
 and religious problems, etc., 
 22, 24, 25, 35-48, 50, 54, 69, 
 157-8. 
 
 Pliny, quoted, 176, 226. 
 Plutarch, re Religion, 65, 155-7. 
 Pompey, 112, 118. 
 Poor Law : 
 
 Charitable supplementation and, 
 
 407. 
 Endowed Charities and, 328-331 , 
 
 411-13. 
 Medical System, Hospitals and, 
 
 338, 339, 448-51. 
 Origin and result of, in Six- 
 teenth Century, 290-98, SH- 
 IT. 
 Poor Law Commission of 1834, 
 
 314, 315, 317. 
 
 Poor Laws and Relief of Distress, 
 Royal Commission on, 1909.: 
 Charities Commission pro- 
 posed, 330, 462, App. I., 
 484-85. 
 Children and Education, 
 
 444-48. 
 Friendly visiting in a large 
 
 city, 463-67, 475. 
 Insurance, 467-75. 
 Labour Colonies, Committee 
 
 on, 425. 
 Majority Report, 404, 410- 
 
 11, 421 (note), 424. 
 Minority Report, 388, 392.
 
 494 
 
 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 Poor Law : 
 
 Poor Laws and Relief of Distress, 
 Royal Commission on, 1909 : 
 Pauperism in London, 441- 
 
 444. 
 
 Public Assistance Authori- 
 ties proposed, 461-46,3. 
 Treatment and Mainten- 
 ance, 442-444. 
 Unemployment and Pre- 
 vention, 452-61. 
 Voluntary Aid Councils and 
 Committees proposed, 
 331, 445, 462, App. I., 
 479-84. 
 
 Workhouses, 453-54. 
 Result of Administration in 
 
 Modern Days, 348-49. 
 Select Committee of 1894, 329- 
 
 30. 
 
 Poor Relief. (See also Poor Law. ) 
 Age qualification considered, 
 
 393-94. 
 Charitable movements after 
 
 1601, 335-40. 
 Children, Provision of meals to 
 
 school children, 413-17. 
 Endowed charities : 
 Commissioners to inquire 
 
 into, 319-320. 
 Estimated income, 327-28. 
 Mediaeval times, 280-87. 
 Organization of, 318-331. 
 " Visitor, The," 323-24. 
 Exceptional Distress, 417-20. 
 Greece. (See that title.) 
 Medical Relief. (See Hospitals 
 
 and Poor Law. ) 
 Monasteries. (See that title.) 
 Municipal Relief : 
 
 Elberfeld System, 344-45, 399, 
 
 463. 
 
 Organization of, 304-8. 
 Vives' Scheme, 305-7. 
 Old Age Pensions. (See that 
 
 title.) 
 Organization : 
 
 Committee or Conference, 
 
 397-98. 
 Co-operation, 404-5. 
 
 Poor Relief : 
 Organization : . 
 
 Inquiry, Aid and Registra- 
 tion, 398-402. 
 Training, 402-3. 
 Parish Relief from Early Chris- 
 tian times, 210-17, 244-51, 
 269-74, 332-34. 
 Pauperism in the Nineteenth 
 
 Century, 343, 344. 
 Primitive Methods, 13, 14, 16- 
 
 17. 
 
 Progress of thought in the 
 Eighteenth and Nineteenth 
 Centuries, 341-51. 
 Rome. (See that title. ) 
 Statutory, 309-17. (See alo 
 
 Acts of Parliament. ) 
 Population of England to Four- 
 teenth Century, 264. 
 Poverty Plato's views on, 43-47. 
 Prudential Insurance Co. Re- 
 ferred to, 469. 
 Puckerman, Joseph, 345. 
 Pythagoras, 72-76. 
 
 R 
 
 Ragged School Union, 337. 
 Reformation, The, Charitable 
 methods influenced by, 299- 
 303. 
 
 Reformatory Schools, 337. 
 Religion Christianity. (See that 
 
 title. ) 
 
 Greece in early days, 56-76. 
 Prechristian, 155-167. 
 Rome : 
 
 " Annona civica," The, 84, 94- 
 
 103, 213, 218, 219. 
 Charity organization in Early 
 Christian times, 210-217, 234- 
 235. 
 Children, " Alimentation " of, 
 
 107-109. 
 Cicero's philosophy and policy 
 
 concerning, 112-113. 
 Clan-family, The, 88-89. 
 "Collegia, "The, 105-107. 
 Family, The, 81-84.
 
 INDEX 
 
 495 
 
 Rome : 
 
 "Plebs,"The, 84, 87. 
 
 Slavery, 84-86, 89. 
 
 Social life and methods of Poor 
 
 Relief, 80-109, 432-433. 
 " Spot-tula," The, 104-105, 213. 
 Rousseau, Doctrines of, 341, 373- 
 
 374. 
 
 Rowntree, Seebohm, Investiga- 
 tions re the Poor, 386-7. 
 Royal Commissions. (See under 
 
 Committees, etc.) 
 Royal National Lifeboat Institu- 
 tion, App. II., 487. 
 Rumford, Count Referred to, 
 343. 
 
 S 
 
 Sadler, Professor Michael Re- 
 ferred to, 446. 
 St. Johannsen Colony, 458. 
 Saint Simon, Count De Referred 
 
 to, 376. 
 Salvation Army, The Referred 
 
 to, 428. 
 
 School of Industry (1788), 337. 
 Scipio, 112-113. 
 Scotland, Poor Relief in, 307. 
 Seneca 
 
 Charity and Beneficence, views 
 
 on, 132-143. 
 Similarity of thought with St. 
 
 Paul, 141. 
 
 Severus, 106-107, 108. 
 Sismondi and Social Economics, 
 
 378-380. 
 Slavery 
 
 Constantinople, 229. 
 Greece, 20-21, 77-79. 
 Rome, 84-86, 89. 
 Social Science, Socialism and, 
 
 compared, 388, 392-4. 
 Social Sciences and Sociology, 376- 
 
 395. 
 Socialism 
 
 Charity and, 366-369. 
 
 Social science and, 388, 392- 
 
 394. 
 
 Society for Bettering the Condi- 
 tion of the Poor, 343. 
 
 Society of Friends, Charities of 
 
 the, 340. 
 
 Sociology. (See Social Sciences. ) 
 Socrates, 28. 
 Solon, Laws of, referred to, 23, 24, 
 
 26, 91. 
 
 Speenhamland Scale, The, 99. 
 Spencer, Herbert Quoted re 
 
 Social Science, 381. 
 " Sportula," The. (See under 
 
 Rome. ) 
 Stoicism : Epictetus, 141, 143-154; 
 
 Panoetius, 80, 197 ; Seneca, 
 
 132 143. 
 Sunday School Movement, 1780, 
 
 337. 
 " Sweating." (See under Labour. ) 
 
 Tannenhof Colony, 458. 
 
 Teetotallers and Pauperism, 475. 
 
 Theodore, Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury, Parochial organization 
 by, 270. 
 
 Thomas Aquinas, Saint, 181, 257- 
 263. 
 
 Tiberius, 102. 
 
 Tiberius Gracchus, 91, 92, 93, 
 112-113. 
 
 Tithe, The, Allocation of, 249-250, 
 271-272; Jewish law concern- 
 ing, 189-190; Payment of, 
 enforced by Charlemagne, 
 248. 
 
 Toynbee, Arnold, 345. 
 
 Toynbee Hall, 340. 
 
 Trades Unions, 362-363. 
 
 Trajan, 107. 
 
 U 
 
 Unemployment. (See under 
 Labour and Poor Laws Com- 
 mission. ) 
 
 V 
 
 Vagrancy, 425-429 ; Plato's re- 
 commendations concerning,
 
 496 CHARITY AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 w 
 
 44-47 ; Preventive organiza- 
 tion in Sixteenth Century, 
 289-290 ; Primitive charity 
 to vagrants, 14-17. 
 
 Valentinian, Law of, 96-97- 
 
 Vespasian, Poor Relief granted 
 by, 103. 
 
 Vincent de Paul, Saint, 335. 
 
 Vives, Book by, on the manage- 
 ment of the Poor, 305-7. 
 
 Wesleyans, The, Charities of, 340. 
 Witzwyl Colony, 458. 
 Workhouses, 315, 344, 453-454. 
 
 IX 
 
 "Xenodocheion," The, 196. 
 Xenophon Referred to, 22, 24, 
 50. 
 
 GLASGOW : PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS BY ROBERT MACLEHOSE AND CO. LTD.
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO.'S 
 
 Works on Social Economy 
 
 Edited by C. S. LOCH. 
 
 METHODS OF SOCIAL ADVANCE. Short Studies 
 in Social Practice by various Authors. Crown 8vo. 35. 6d. 
 net. 
 
 OLD-AGE PENSIONS. The Case against Old-Age 
 Pension Schemes. A Collection of Short Papers. Extra 
 crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. net. 
 
 By HELEN BOSANQUET. 
 RICH AND POOR. Crown 8vo. 35. 6d. net. 
 
 THE STRENGTH OF THE PEOPLE. Svo. 8s. 6d. 
 net. 
 
 THE STANDARD OF LIFE AND OTHER RE- 
 PRINTED ESSAYS. Svo. 8s. 6d. net. 
 
 THE FAMILY. Svo. 8s. 6d. net. 
 
 THE POOR LAW REPORT OF 1909. A Summary 
 explaining the Defects of the Present System and the 
 Principal Recommendations of the Commission so far as 
 relates to England and Wales. Crown Svo. 33. 6d. net. 
 
 LONDON: MACMILLAN AND CO. LTD.
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO.'S 
 
 Works on Social Economy 
 
 By THE RIGHT HON. CHARLES BOOTH 
 
 LIFE AND LABOUR OF THE PEOPLE IN LONDON. 
 
 In 17 volumes. Extra crown 8vo. 
 
 First Series : Poverty. In 4 vols. New edition. 55. 
 net each; or the set complete, 155. net. [The original 
 Maps in Case. 2s. 6d. net.] 
 
 Second Series : Industry. In S^vols. New edition. 
 53. net each ; or the set complete, 2os. net. 
 
 Third Series : Religious Influences. In 7 vols. ss.net 
 each ; or the set complete, 305. net. 
 
 Final Volume : Notes on Social Influences and Con- 
 clusions. 55. net. 
 
 Third Series: Religious Influences. In 7 vols. Special 
 cheap issue. I5s.net the set; or, separately, 2s. 6d. net 
 per vol. 
 
 POOR LAW REFORM. With Memoranda by DR. 
 ARTHUR DOWNES and Miss OCTAVIA HILL. 8vo. is.net. 
 
 PAUPERISM, A PICTURE, AND THE ENDOW- 
 MENT OF OLD AGE : An Argument. Crown 8vo. 55. 
 Cheap edition. 8vo. Sewed. 6d. 
 
 THE AGED POOR IN ENGLAND AND WALE5 
 
 Condition. Extra crown 8vo. 8s. 6d. net. 
 
 OLD AGE PENSIONS AND THE AGED POOR: 
 
 A Proposal. New Impression. 8vo. 2s. net. 
 
 LONDON: MACMILLAN AND CO. LTD.
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO.'S 
 
 Works on Social Economy 
 
 By B. SEEBOHM ROWNTREE. 
 
 LAND AND LABOUR. Lessons from Belgium. Illus- 
 trated. 8vo. los. 6d. net. 
 
 POVERTY: A Study of Town Life. Crown 8vo. 
 is. net. 
 
 BETTING AND GAMBLING. A National Evil. A 
 Series of Papers edited by B. S. ROWNTREE. 8vo. 
 Sewed. 6d. 
 
 THE MAKING OFj THE CRIMINAL. By CHARLES 
 E. B. RUSSELL and L. M. RIGBY. Crown Svo. 33. 6d. net. 
 
 WORKING LADS' CLUBS. By CHARLES E. B. 
 RUSSELL and L. M. RIGBY. Crown 8vo. 55. net. 
 
 POVERTY. By ROBERT HUNTER. Crown Svo. 6s. 6d. 
 net. 
 
 By EDWARD T. DEVINE. 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF RELIEF. Crown Svo. 8s. 6d. 
 net. 
 
 EFFICIENCY AND RELIEF. Crown Svo. 33. net. 
 MISERY AND ITS CAUSES. Crown Svo. 55. net. 
 
 LONDON: MACMILLAN AND CO. LTD.
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO.'S 
 
 Works on Social Economy 
 
 THE WORKING FAITH OF THE SOCIAL RE- 
 FORMER AND OTHER ESSAYS. By Prof. HENRY 
 JONES. 8vo. 75. 6d. net. 
 
 METHODS OF SOCIAL REFORM AND OTHER 
 PAPERS. By W. STANLEY JEVONS, M.A. Second edition. 
 8vo. i os. net. 
 
 THE BATTLE WITH THE SLUM. By JACOB A. 
 RllS. Extra crown 8vo. 8s. 6d. net. 
 
 THE BITTER CRY OF THE CHILDREN. By JOHN 
 
 SPARGO. With an Introduction by ROBERT HUNTER. 
 Crown 8vo. 6s. 6d. net. ^e^. 
 
 MODERN METHODS OF CHARITY IN THE PRIN- 
 CIPAL COUNTRIES HAVING MODERN METHODS. 
 
 By C. R. HENDERSON. 8vo. 155. net. 
 
 CONSTRUCTIVE AND PREVENTIVE PHILAN- 
 THROPY. By J. LEE. Globe 8vo. 45. 6d. net. 
 
 THE SPIRIT OF YOUTH AND THE CITY STREETS. 
 
 By JANE ADDAMS. Crown 8vo. 55. net. 
 
 THE TRAINING OF GIRLS FOR WORK. An 
 
 Expression of Opinions. By EDITH A. BARNETT. Globe 
 8vo. 2s. 6d. 
 
 BOYS' SELF-GOVERNING CLUBS. By WINIFRED 
 
 BUCK. Globe 8vo. 45. 6d. net. 
 
 LONDON: MACMILLAN AND CO. LTD. 
 
 f"
 
 SMI IM 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 Los Angeles 
 
 last date stamped below. 
 
 ,WC'D ID-HP 
 
 APR 15 J rft 
 
 JAN 31 1991 
 
 ^ V 
 
 31986 
 
 JUL281986 
 
 JUL 8 1987 
 
 
 O v ^*^- 
 
 L^5C 
 < s JN 
 
 i ;= 7ro} 
 
 ^/Or^t 
 i(\CL-i 
 6xb--vi
 
 3 1158 01040 1270 
 
 uuunii i^jc^ AXltUNI 
 
 fla 
 
 A 001 300154 o 
 
 S*"" ^ 
 
 %B 
 
 '/A ^lOS-ANCElf 
 
 ^< Q? .^^^^v w t^ 
 
 w C5 ^ n^* ^ -^ 
 
 )i I 
 
 Ss^n 
 
 I 
 
 oe