AFTERWORD 355 



for the simple truth, the "progress of science" would not have 

 been achieved at the expense of morals and religion. As it is, 

 this so-called progress has left behind a wake of destruction 

 in the shape of undermined convictions, blasted lives, crimes, 

 misery, despair, and suicide. It has, in short, contributed 

 largely to the present sinister and undeserved triumph of 

 Materialism, Agnosticism, and Pessimism, which John Talbot 

 Smith has so fittingly characterized as the three D's of dirt, 

 doubt, and despair. A little less sensationalism, a little more 

 conscientiousness, a little more of that admirable quality, scien- 

 tific caution, and the concord of faith and reason would have 

 become a truism instead of a problem. But such regrets are 

 vain. The evil effects are here to stay, and nothing can undo 

 the past. 



If man is but a higher kind of brute, if he has no unique, 

 immortal principle within him, if his free will is an illusion, 

 if his conduct is the necessary resultant of chemical reactions 

 occurring in his protoplasm, if he is nothing more than an 

 automaton of flesh, a mere decaying organism which is the 

 sport of all the blind physical forces and stimuli playing upon 

 it, if he has no prospect of a future life of retribution, if 

 he is unaccountable to any higher authority. Divine or human, 

 then morality ceases to have a meaning, right and wrong lose 

 their significance, virtue and vice are all the same. The con- 

 stancy of the martyr and the patriotism of the fallen soldier 

 become unintelligible folly, while a heartless and infamous 

 sensualism preying vulturelike upon the carrion of human 

 misery and corruption is to be reckoned the highest expression 

 of wisdom and efficiency. The grandest ideals that have in- 

 spired enthusiasm and devotion in human breasts are but idle 

 dreams and worthless delusions. From a world which accepts 

 this degraded view of human nature all heroism and chivalry 

 must vanish utterly ; for it will recognize no loftier incentives 

 to action than pleasure and love of self. 



Such doctrines, too, are essentially antisocial. They destroy 

 the very foundation of altruism. To seek immortality in the 



