Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- Principal events in Spencer's life
- Bibliographical note
- Editor's note
- The Proper Sphere of Government
- The Man versus The State
- Preface
- The New Toryism
- The Coming Slavery
- The Sins of Legislators
- The Great Political Superstition
- Postscript
- Appendix: Spencer's article of 1836 on the Poor Law
- Index
- Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought
The Coming Slavery
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- Principal events in Spencer's life
- Bibliographical note
- Editor's note
- The Proper Sphere of Government
- The Man versus The State
- Preface
- The New Toryism
- The Coming Slavery
- The Sins of Legislators
- The Great Political Superstition
- Postscript
- Appendix: Spencer's article of 1836 on the Poor Law
- Index
- Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought
Summary
The kinship of pity to love is shown among other ways in this, that it idealizes its object. Sympathy with one in suffering suppresses, for the time being, remembrance of his transgressions. The feeling which vents itself in “poor fellow!” on seeing one in agony, excludes the thought of “bad fellow,” which might at another time arise. Naturally, then, if the wretched are unknown or but vaguely known, all the demerits they may have are ignored; and thus it happens that when, as just now, the miseries of the poor are depicted, they are thought of as the miseries of the deserving poor, instead of being thought of, as in large measure they should be, as the miseries of the undeserving poor. Those whose hardships are set forth in pamphlets and proclaimed in sermons and speeches which echo throughout society, are assumed to be all worthy souls, grievously wronged; and none of them are thought of as bearing the penalties of their own misdeeds.
On hailing a cab in a London street, it is surprising how frequently the door is officiously opened by one who expects to get something for his trouble. The surprise lessens after counting the many loungers about tavern-doors, or after observing the quickness with which a street-performance, or procession, draws from neighbouring slums and stable-yards a group of idlers. Seeing how numerous they are in every small area, it becomes manifest that tens of thousands of such swarm through London. “They have no work,” you say.
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- Chapter
- Information
- Spencer: Political Writings , pp. 80 - 105Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1993