are apt to overlook the indirect and more remote cause of the harm which lies in the sufferer's own conduct. Hence the liability, if not the guilt, is laid on him who is a cause of pain by _doing_ something, even though it be by merely spasmodic contractions of his muscles; whereas the other party, who only exposed himself to the risk of being hurt, is regarded as the "more innocent." [Footnote 24: Holmes, _Common Law_, p. 80.] [Footnote 25: Stanley _v._ Powell, in _Law Reports, Queen's Bench Division_, 1891, i. 86 _sqq._ Pollock and Maitland, _op. cit._ ii. 475 _sq._] [Footnote 26: von Jhering, _Schuldmoment im römischen Privatrecht_, _passim_, especially pp. 20 _sqq._, 40 _sqq._ Hepp, _op. cit._ p. 106.] [Footnote 27: Forsman, _Bidrag till läran om skadestånd i brottmål_, p. 158 _sq._ Pollock, _Law of Torts_, p. 129 _sqq._] [Footnote 28: Thon, _Rechtsnorm und subjectives Recht_, p. 106, n. 71.] Whilst culpability or quasi-culpability is thus imputed to the innocent committer of a harmful deed, little or no {310} censure is passed on him whose want of foresight or want of self-restraint is productive of suffering, if only the effect is sufficiently remote. This is exemplified by the frivolous leniency with which drunkenness, not long ago, was looked upon in many civilised countries, and by the criminal indifference with which law and public opinion still regard the production of offspring that are almost with certainty doomed to misery on account of the vices, poverty, or bodily infirmities of the parents. To interfere here, it is argued, would be to intrude upon the individual's right of freedom, or to meddle with the affairs of Providence. But men are not, generally, allowed to do mischief simply in order to gratify their own appetites, and Providence might equally well be called in to answer for any other kind of human shortcoming. I presume the true explanation to be, that in this, as in many other kindred cases, the cause and effect are so distant from each other that the near-sighted eye does not distinctly perceive the connection between them. Indeed, there is hardly any other point in which the moral consciousness of civilised men still stands in greater need of intellectual training than in its judgments on cases which display want of care or foresight. And there is no safer measure of the moral enlightenment of a man than the scrupulosity with which he considers the possible consequences of acts, and the number of positive commandments which are contained in his catalogue of duties. * * * * *