246 Force, Energy y and Will 



ness, must be indifferent, since, upon that view, it can have 

 no influence upon action, but is a mere concomitant. Hoav 

 then can a knowledge of the facts of nature be a cause of 

 welfare to mankind ? 



Waiving this objection, it seems to me demonstrable that 

 without theism we have no certain ground for affirming the 

 necessary universal goodness of truth, for without theism we 

 have no certain ground for affirming that the objective world 

 and its laws are good, while there is much apparent evidence 

 the other way. As a naturalist, I cannot but think that, 

 apart from the postulate referred to, nature presents many 

 blots, or, to say the least, very doubtful puzzles ; and as to 

 history, we may appeal to Mr. Leslie Stephen as a witness 

 against extreme optimism. Even as regards the future of 

 our own species, it is surely conceivable that it may be with 

 the race as with the individual, and that the environment 

 may be so conditioned as to make the extinction of the one,, 

 as of the other, merely a question of time ; and such, 

 certainly, would be the anticipation of most evolutionists. 

 If, then, a complete mental conformity to the environment, 

 a thorough knowledge of actually existing cucumstances, 

 may be prejudicial to the individual, and accelerate his 

 extinction (and such cases might be easily imagined, had not 

 so many suicides demonstrated the fact), what certain 

 guarantee can we have that it could never be so for the race ? 

 Moreover, if the views of our friends of the opposite school 

 were correct, and freedom of will and responsibility were but 

 unmeaning words, it seems to me impossible not to question 

 whether a general knowledge of the fact would be desirable. 

 That degree of civilisation and improvement which has been 

 attained by men has been attained on the supposition of 

 their reality; may not, then, retrogression accompany the 

 overthrow of such belief ? Would not the universal realisa- 

 tion (were that not happily impossible) of determinism, tend 



