EVOLUTION AND RELIGION 



ural selection. So far as one can judge, these new ar- 

 biters of thought and conduct are not, themselves, 

 persons who command either the respect or the adora- 

 tion of their fellow-men on account of their rational 

 superiority or their moral sublimity. They make no 

 appeal which compels us to conform our lives to their 

 precepts or to their practice. Their claim to authority 

 is based on the assumption that natural law is su- 

 preme and unique; the man of science is the law- 

 giver and the laws for humanity are to be obtained in 

 the laboratory. We are to seek for a social law. When 

 it is found, all will obey it for the advantage of the 

 race; all will follow the path of the common good, 

 like well-aimed bullets fired from a gun which, di- 

 rected by the law of gravitation, must necessarily hit 

 the target. 



No one could have a greater respect for the char- 

 acter of the great men of science than have I. But it 

 has always seemed to me, when such men are removed 

 , from their proper sphere of work and attempt to solve 

 problems where both the conditions of work and the 

 conclusions to be derived are lacking in the definite- 

 ness necessary to the solution of a laboratory prob- 

 lem, that then they are singularly unfit to be followed 

 as guides. Success in science requires a certain aloof- 

 ness from the complex currents of human endeavour 

 and concentration on restricted phenomena which 

 tend to narrow the mind. As a rule, the creative man 

 of science is content to leave to others the applica- 



