Page:What Social Classes Owe to Each Other.djvu/157

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OWE TO EACH OTHER.
153

XI.

WHEREFORE WE SHOULD LOVE ONE ANOTHER.

Suppose that a man, going through a wood, should be struck by a falling tree and pinned down beneath it. Suppose that another man, coming that way and finding him there, should, instead of hastening to give or to bring aid, begin to lecture on the law of gravitation, taking the tree as an illustration.

Suppose, again, that a person lecturing on the law of gravitation should state the law of falling bodies, and suppose that an objector should say: You state your law as a cold, mathematical fact, and you declare that all bodies will fall conformably to it. How heartless! You do not reflect that it may be a beautiful little child falling from a window.

These two suppositions may be of some use to us as illustrations.

Let us take the second first. It is the objection of the sentimentalist; and, ridiculous as