William Schambra is a Hudson Senior Fellow and Director of the Bradley Center for Philanthropy and Civic Renewal. This essay is adapted from a Bradley Lecture delivered at the American Enterprise Institute on December 8, 2009.

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The P4 laboratory, on the campus of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, in Wuhan, in China's central Hubei province. (Hector Retamal/AFP via Getty Images)