312 THE PRESENT IMPORTANCE OF SCIENCE 



again in the attitude toward a variety of social problems. 

 Disease and crime are not inevitable conditions to be treated 

 by curative measures only. They are to be attacked with 

 all the knowledge at our command, and finally eliminated by 

 the evolution of a type of man and a form of society in which 

 such evils will be non-existent. Man is no longer piously 

 content with his lot, merely because he sees no prospect of 

 immediately changing it. Conditions have changed in the 

 past and mankind wants to change them in the future. 

 Man is not content to let evolution take its course with him, 

 he strives to make it go his way. Thus the insight into 

 social problems which evolution has brought gives a habit of 

 mind that will brook no limitation of the human spirit. As 

 within the field of philosophy, so within the field of social 

 phenomena, this changing point of view is an outcome of 

 the recognition of a dynamic as opposed to a static world. 



There is thus taking place, under the influence of the 

 evolutionary doctrine, a subtle change of ideas and of 

 beliefs, comparable to the changes of intellectual outlook in 

 the past, by which superstitions, like infant damnation, 

 witchcraft, demoniacal possession, and the belief in ghosts 

 were rendered impotent. Such changes occur in what may 

 be designated the frame of mind. They are, seemingly, 

 effected not so much by argument as by the imperceptible 

 growth of a conviction that the traditional belief is un- 

 reasonable. Old beliefs often persist, apparently in full 

 vigor, until the collapse is at hand ; but when beliefs begin to 

 excite ridicule, their course is nearly run. The history of 

 scientific progress has been marked by spiritual emancipa- 

 tions. To-day the process still goes on, for supernaturalism 

 is not yet fully vanquished, but lingers on as a miasma of 

 society. 



In this manner, science feeds the spiritual as well as the 

 material man. Science deals with that we can measure and 

 weigh, is wholly impersonal, is a thing of intellect rather than 

 of emotion. But intellect and emotion are not separate 



