As to that imposing axiom, that all our actions must be measured by their collective effects, I heartily agree to it, because it is precisely here that I think my case is strongest.  I do not, of course, invite all men to follow my example by returning to what my friend calls ‘barbarism,’ and there is so little danger of any such catastrophe that it is not worth while discussing it.  But if any considerable number of men should think my example good, I would not deter them from following it, because I believe that no greater service could be done to society than to multiply the number of individuals who prefer a simple to an artificial existence, who are willing to live lives of honest labour and entire contentment, who will care not at all for riches, but will spend their utmost care upon their virtues, who will count ‘self-possession,’ the best of all possessions, and the power of living in God’s world in cheerful happiness and modest usefulness the real programme of life which God has set before all His children, and which alone is worth our hope and struggle.  The basis of all good citizenship is physical and moral health.  Health is really wholeness, and so we get the word holiness, for all these words are products of the same idea.  What service to the race can be greater, both in its present value and its ultimate effect, than to produce men and women both physically and morally whole?  It is no doubt a duty to do all we can to help the unfit, and assist the infirm; but it is better wisdom and a truer duty to produce the fit and the whole.  In the degree that I am better equipped as a man, I am better equipped as a member of the commonwealth.  All questions of doing good are secondary to the question of being good; and to be good is but a synonym of moral wholeness.  If a nation can succeed in producing efficient human creatures, efficient first of all in body, because that is the basis of all efficiency of mind, and will, and energy, there will be no question of efficient citizenship.  As for me, I have found the means of a more efficient manhood by a return to a simple and a natural life; and therefore I am quite willing to submit my action to the test of collective example, believing that the more widely it is imitated, the better will it be for the happiness and well-being of my nation, and of the world.

The best way of doing good that I can devise is to make myself an efficient member of society; and it is obvious that if every man did this there would be very little work for the professional philanthropist.  It is not help that men need most, but opportunity.  Philanthropy is, for the most part, engaged in patching up the sick anaemic body of society; which is equivalent to minimising the distress of ill-health without producing good health.  The wise physician knows very well that no amount of medicine will do much for the anaemic child; what the child wants is room to grow.  We have social physicians in plenty, each with his own particular medicine, but all of them together have said nothing half so wise as these two lines of Walt Whitman: