28 THE GRAMMAR OF SCIENCE 



they may be, must profoundly influence our judgment. 

 The conduct of parent to child, and of society to its anti- 

 social members, can never be placed on sound and perma- 

 nent bases without regard be paid to what science has to 

 tell us on the fundamental problems of inheritance. The 

 " philosophical " method can never lead to a real theory 

 of morals. Strange as it may seem, the laboratory 

 experiments of a biologist may have greater weight than 

 all the theories of the state from Plato to Hegel ! The 

 scientific classification of facts, biological or historical, the 

 observation of their correlation and sequence, the resulting 

 absolute, as opposed to the individual judgment — these 

 are the sole means by which we can reach truth in such a 

 vital social question as that of heredity. In these con- 

 siderations alone there appears to be sufficient justification 

 for the national endowment of science, and for the 

 universal training of our citizens in scientific methods of 

 thought. Each one of us is now called upon to give a 

 judgment upon an immense variety of problems, crucial 

 for our social existence. If that judgment confirms 

 measures and conduct tending to the increased welfare of 

 society, then it may be termed a moral, or, better, a 

 social judgment. It follows, then, that to ensure a judg- 

 ment's being moral, method and knowledge are essential 

 to its formation. It cannot be too often insisted upon 

 that the formation of a moral judgment — that is, one 

 which the individual is reasonably certain will tend to 

 social welfare — does not depend solely on the readiness 

 to sacrifice individual gain or comfort, or on the impulse 

 to act unselfishly : it depends in the first place on know- 

 ledge and method. The first demand of the state upon 

 the individual is -not for self-sacrifice, but for self-develop- 

 ment. The man who gives a thousand pounds to a vast 

 and vague scheme of charity may or may not be acting 

 socially ; his self-sacrifice, if it be such, proves nothing ; 

 but the man who gives a vote, either directly or even 

 indirectly, in the choice of a representative, after forming 

 a judgment based upon knoivlcdge, is undoubtedly acting 

 socially, and is fulfilling a higher standard of citizenship. 



