‘No; I would put it the other way. Take, for instance, a consumptive couple in humble life. They marry early. The mother has a large family. The father dies of consumption before he has reached middle age, after being in a hospital for months, supported at the public expense, and he leaves his children, if they live, to be supported by the parish. If there is to be compensation, it is not the State that ought to be asked to pay it. If drink be one cause of poverty, surely hereditary disease is another. In a perfect community neither should be allowed to exist. Think of such awful things as epilepsy and insanity, and cancer and scrofula, none of which science can cure! Why not ask society to stamp them out? It is downright wickedness to allow them to be propagated in our midst.’ ‘Public opinion would never consent to that.’ ‘No,’ replied Buxton; ‘I am quite aware of that; but I would create a public opinion that would regard such marriages with horror, and then they would gradually become rare. Men and women have duties to society, and have to think of something else than the gratification of selfish passion or mere animal instinct. It is thus hereditary disease may disappear, and the nation be all the stronger and happier and richer. I know there are good people who look upon such afflictions as the result of the Lord’s chastening hand, and as they bury wife, or husband, or son, or daughter, learn to kiss the rod—as they call it—and to thank the Lord that He thus is weaning them from the world, and preparing them for a better world, whither they tell us their loved ones are already gone. I have no sympathy with that state of mind. It seems to me almost blasphemous, as the bereavements they rejoice in for their supposed sanctifying effects are simply the natural result of their own folly and imprudence and disregard of natural law. In the days of ignorance how did we treat the insane? Why, they were regarded as victims of Divine wrath, and the priest was called in—and of course well paid—to exorcise the evil spirit. That we do not do so now is a proof that we are a little wiser than our fathers—that, in fact, we are not quite such thundering fools; but we have a good deal yet to learn, nevertheless.’ ‘The fact is,’ said Wentworth, ‘a man must learn to deny himself for the public good. Rather a difficult task that. If the victim of hereditary disease refuses to marry and have children, hereditary disease will die out. Is not that asking too much of human nature?’ ‘There we must appeal to the law for the protection of the general public. The community is of more importance than the individual.’ ‘But there is no law that cannot be evaded.’