BIOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS 



at such tenets, and should declare that we will accept no 

 conclusions which rob us of spiritual and moral values and 

 leave us like so many automata, bereft of faith and hope, 

 tossing helplessly amid other combinations of electrons in a 

 mechanical universe ruled by chance. These things, we say 

 with Jurgen, are lunacies of realists which we do not choose 

 to believe. "For how shall I believe," says Cabell's hero, 

 "that all men who have ever lived or will ever live here- 

 after — that even I, am of no importance?" 



Man would rather feel that his ego holds high value in 

 the macrocosm. He aspires to a dominant position in this 

 life and hopes for immortality hereafter. Sorely troubled 

 with the dawning suspicion that his destiny may be quite 

 different from what he has promised himself, he attributes 

 his disillusionment to science. No, I am wrong; he makes 

 biology the scapegoat to-day; he no longer cares about the 

 generalizations of the physical sciences, having quite 

 forgotten his plaints against their destroying discoveries 

 a century ago. 



There is no justice in such accusations against organic 

 science. The more we know about the human race, the more 

 absurd its pretensions appear to be. One cannot dodge that 

 issue. Yet science has nothing to say against man's values 

 here and now; it has nothing to say against values after 

 death. It merely asks that intelligence, morals, and con- 

 duct be studied along with structure, function, and en- 

 vironment, as a prerequisite for dealing more rationally 

 with mental, moral, and physical adjustment. I do not 

 know what proportion of the stimulus to scientific work 

 is curiosity, what proportion is will to power, and what 

 proportion is humanitarian desire; but I do know that the 

 results make the world a better place in which to live. 



In early societies man cowered in fear and awe before 

 the wonders of nature. He was afflicted with illnesses of 

 body and of mind, oppressed by forces of which he was 



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