86 ETHICAL ASPECTS OF EVOLUTION 



action towards a satisfaction which is an end in itself, as 

 far as human purpose reaches. It is only when we proceed 

 to inquire why the scientific impulse has a relative value 

 compared with the independent impulses of religion and 

 morality that we are driven to the assumption of a single 

 final end. Within its own range, the scientific explanation 

 has no use for the concepts either of ends or of values. From 

 that point of view, one branch of inquiry, or any single fact 

 or group of facts, is as valuable as any other. If men 

 attribute a special degree of importance to any one such 

 fact, it is because they take it out of the range of science, 

 and appraise it with reference to its bearing on one or another 

 of their beliefs. If, for instance, we take a special interest 

 in electrical research, it is not because the results have any 

 superiority as scientific truths, but because they promise to 

 affect other interests which are not scientific, and to promote 

 or to hinder our ambitions, or our happiness, or our moral 

 or social tendencies. It should further be noted that, even 

 in cases where no adequate scientific explanation has as 

 yet been discovered, an explanation by design will not be 

 asked for if the facts are of a kind which is usually susceptible 

 of reduction to law. Men will then be contented to wait, 

 and will exert themselves to obtain the scientific explana 

 tion which will, they believe, be the ultimate reward of 

 their efforts. No one asks for purposive explanations 

 of natural changes in the temperature, or in the strength 

 and direction of the winds. 



Not only is explanation by purpose superfluous in all 

 cases where the law of uniformity applies, but it is also 

 inadmissible. Purpose implies freedom of choice, whereas 

 uniformity excludes it, and when both explanations are 

 applied to the same event, they are radically contradictory. 

 Thus all personifications of nature, and unfortunately they 

 are very common, involve confusion of thought. They 

 contradict the law of uniform sequence, and they lead, 

 moreover, to the absurd result that in every case of the 

 interaction of two distinct factors each must be regarded as 

 selective of the other. Thus, on one hand, Prof. James 



