ABSTRACT
In demanding from a citizen contributions for the mitigation of distress-contributions not needed for due administration of men's rights-the state, and diminishing that liberty to exercise the faculties instituted to maintain. Meanwhile not overlooking the fact that, erroneous as are these poor-law and communist theories-these assertions of a man's right to a maintenance, and of his right to have work provided for him-they are, nevertheless, nearly related to a truth. Whenever a government oversteps its duty-the maintaining of inevitably retards the process of adaptation. Returning again to the highest point of view, we find that there is a second and still more injurious mode in which law-enforced charity checks the process of adaptation. By suspending the process of adaptation, a poor-law increases the distress to be borne at some future day; and here it also increases the distress to be borne now. A critical analysis of alleged rights, for upholding which a poor-law is defended, shows them to be fictitious.
