But besides ability, with its two branches of wealth and tact, there is a final condition grounded in the giver, that of knowledge. Of course, we cannot give properly unless we understand the case, and the larger our understanding the greater is our obligation to aid. These simple truths illuminate some moral perplexities. I read a while ago of a famine in China. Crops had failed and there was wide-spread suffering. Tragic tales were reported. In the next column of the paper was an account of airplane construction. I found both columns interesting. The same day a man I knew broke his leg. An awful affair! I hurried to his bedside and could think of nothing else than how I might help. Then it occurred to me how disproportioned were my sympathies. Thousands of squalid deaths on the other side of the globe made a spectacular newspaper item. A broken leg next door engrossed me and called out all my resources. We have all had the experience and, on first reflection, have called ourselves selfish brutes. But I believe that is an error. Helpful sympathy waits on knowledge and proportions itself by this rather than by objective need. The sufferings of China are known to us only abstractly and in outline, and only in outline can our sympathies be accorded. But a case which comes under our immediate inspection, disclosing all its significant details, is a different matter and lays upon us a claim of giving which the other rightly does not. Nearness counts. Knowledge heightens obligation. I would not defend absorption in our narrow circle. I have just been urging the constant enlargement of sympathetic knowledge. But we should never ignore the fact that the unknown is not as the known and that only in proportion as we know can we advantageously help.