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The second method, the inductive study of concrete masses of dependents, or case-counting, as it may be called, grew naturally out of contact with relief work. Although it has been in use for twenty years in this country, it must be acknowledged that it has not yielded as comprehensive results as were first expected of it, yet within its somewhat narrow scope those results are surprisingly uniform and definite. When allowances are made for differences of nationality and age constitution in the population, for locality as between city and country, and for variations between incipient and chronic dependence, certain immediate causes recur in case schedules in proportions which can be almost predicted by the trained student and charity worker.

Its limitations as a method suggest themselves, if we reflect on the analogy of the physician standing by the sick-bed, and trying to learn the cause of the disease merely from an examination of the patient. He may learn the immediate or exciting cause or causes of sickness, but back of these are the remoter causes which can only be learned by other methods of investigation. The competent physician will look for these in the hereditary constitution of the patient, or in bad conditions of public sanitation or personal hygiene, or in exposure to contagion, or in the revelations of bacteriology, or in unhealthy climate or occupation. But however thorough, he will scarcely be able to go farther afield than this to ascertain those ultimate economic and social conditions which may account for the patient's lack of physical resistance to disease. This will become clear if we glance at the following analysis of the causes of poverty. It is not intended to be complete, but only to give in general outline a map of the field.

ANALYSIS OF THE CAUSES OF POVERTY.

Subjective

Characteristics
1. Undervitalization and indolence.
2. Lubricity.
3. Specific disease.
4. Lack of judgment.
6. Unhealthy appetite.

Habits producing and produced by the above.
1. Shiftlessness.
2. Self-abuse and sexual excess.
3. Abuse of stimulants and narcotics.
4. Unhealthy diet.
5. Disregard of family ties.

Objective
1. Inadequate natural resources.
2. Bad climatic conditions.
3. Defective sanitation, etc.
4. Evil associations and surroundings.
5. Defective legislation and defective judicial and punitive machinery.
6. Misdirected or inadequate education.
7. Bad Industrial conditions.
a)Variations in value of money.
b)Changes in trade
c) Excessive or ill-managed taxation.
d) Emergencies unprovided for.
e) Undue power of class over class.
f) Inadequate wages and irregular employment.
8. Unwise philanthropy

A statistical analysis of cases gives more light concerning the subjective causes of poverty than the objective causes, for in dealing with individuals their character is apt to be more studied than their environment. But even when environment is the primary cause of poverty, the immediate cause or coordinate result is often deterioration of character. As sickness is more obvious than bad sanitation, so is laziness than a malarial atmosphere, inefficiency than a defective educational system. One who attempts the analysis of cases is apt to be confused by the fact that under the operation of exactly similar general causes some families are destitute and some are not. One man is able to secure an adequate income under the most adverse circumstances -- unhealthy climate, bad housing, unjust taxation, or lack of opportunities for education. Another man, under exactly the same conditions, will become destitute, and the observer must put down as the final and determining cause some defect in physique or character. Untrained charity workers who come immediately in contact with the poor are very prone to take short-sighted views of the causes of poverty. On the other hand, those who study the question from a philosophical standpoint are apt to lay too much stress on a single factor of environment; while a third class, chiefly composed of philanthropists living among the poor, arraign the organization of society as tending to submerge below the poverty line those who have no power to defend themselves. The extreme opposition of the different views is well illustrated by certain recent writers. Mrs. Bosanquet declares, "A man's circumstances depend upon what he himself is," and quotes Professor William James's phrase, "we are spinning our own fates," to support her contention that the economic position of a class depends upon the moral qualities of the individuals. Thomas W. Mackay regards it as an act of "unpardonable scepticism "to assume that whole classes are inflicted, with an inherent incapacity for the honorable interdependence of a life of contract and exchange, and points to the increasing reward of labor and the increasing purchasing power of its reward.

With an emphasis no less powerful, Robert Hunter places the responsibility for dependence upon environment: --