Pity is a child of the imagination, and is, for that reason, a peculiarly human attribute. It is a very noble trait, and is of material aid in greatening mutual human usefulness. Nevertheless, no one thinks for a moment of blaming any of the lower animals for their appetites and passions; they are understood to be normal and necessary. Similarly, all our normal appetites and passions are necessary. Considered in the broad, as natural attributes, there are no such things as bad normal emotions and passions; it is only when they become perverted by degeneracy or abuse that they are evil. The passion of pity may be perverted and abused just as the sex appetite or the appetite for food and drink. If human pity had dominated the council at the creation of the world, the result would have been infinite injury, because none of the higher orders of animals, even man himself, could have been developed. In short, there would have been no intelligent beings on earth. During periods of peace, a large number of persons, moved by pity for the indigent, the halt, the lame, the blind, extend to them the alleviating hand of charity. Philanthropy finds favor in the public eye, and charity becomes a cheap and easy means of courting public opinion. The philanthropist with means for gratifying his passion of pity, or the ambitious aspirant for public favor with cash to invest in public opinion, finds himself soon surrounded with a multitude of itchy-palmy hands to help him spend his money to buy what he is after, and at the same time obtain profit for themselves. Consequently, objects of charity become opportunities to be prized and made the most of. Charity organizations are supported both by well-meaning sympathetic persons and by publicity-purchasing persons and their press-agents. Many an ambitious politician or social climber finds it profitable to become a patron of some supposedly deserving charity. Recently, some one inquired into the methods of a New York charity organization, and found that the sum paid in salaries to the various officers of the society was more than twice the amount actually expended in charity. But those who donated the money got what they paid for; the hangers-on of the society got what they wanted, and thereby lessened the actual harm that the money would have done had it all reached its supposed objects. While a limited amount of well-directed charitable effort may be for the general good, still by far the larger part of promiscuous charity does harm. Broadly speaking, charity of all kinds is wrong in principle, because the misfortunes of the unfit are a part of natural processes for their elimination, and anything done by charity to defeat the decrees of Nature is wrong. These are some of the responsibilities for which we friends of peace must stand, if we succeed in preventing war by preparedness against war.