THE DOGMA OF EVOLUTION 



They preached that the trend of society would be 

 towards freedom. Under a laissez-faire government 

 would result the highest development and freedom of 

 the individual. The world promptly turned towards 

 socialism and collectivism, and drifted into a war 

 which was a horrible example of the absolute ne- 

 gation of the individual. And today the individual, 

 supposedly exercising the right of the suffrage, is 

 helplessly giving up his personal rights because of the 

 dictation of militant and clamorous minorities. They 

 preached that to protect the weak and unfit was to 

 court disaster to the race and, behold, society answers 

 by creating a vast machine of organized charity which 

 aims not to prepare the unfit for happiness in a future 

 life, but to make their existence in this world as com- 

 fortable and luxurious as possible. Their fundamen- 

 tal idea of government was the sovereignty of both 

 social and natural law under which the individual 

 who broke the law was justly and severely punished; 

 the idea of law is now that prohibitions should be en- 

 acted to penalize those who can restrain their appe- 

 tites and passions in order to protect the weak and 

 vicious. 



The consequences of exalting mechanical law at 

 the expense of the mystery of human thought and 

 personal responsibility were so rapid and so discon- 

 certing that Fiske towards the end of his life sadly 

 clothed the Absolute Unknown with qualities which 



C 326 ] 



