SOME POPULAR FALLACIES 



It would seem, then, that the gospel of force, the 

 Nietzschean doctrine which is supposed to be a de- 

 duction from the law of the survival of the fittest, 

 is based upon a gross misapprehension of the facts 

 of biology. These facts teach us, without any aid 

 from rhetoric or sentiment, but with entire im- 

 partiality, that altruism has been an invaluable 

 factor, not merely in the ennobling of human life, 

 but in its actual production. They further teach 

 us that morality is no artificial and artificially-to- 

 be-fostered product, but an inalienable possession 

 of humanity, older than all the churches, much 

 older than human thought. Thus, though "Nat- 

 ure, red in tooth and claw," may appear indifferent 

 to good and evil, her sun shining alike on the just 

 and the unjust, yet every new baby teaches us 

 that love is a cosmic product of which humanity 

 itself is not the author, but the fruit; and that, 

 therefore, Emerson was nevertheless justified when 

 he said that "the universe is moral." 



The untutored daily observation of all men, in 

 all times, then, and the generalization of evolution, 

 which is the highest product of the tutored ob- 



one's nervous system from sound as from light. But it oc- 

 curred to me that I had not appreciated the significance of the 

 "infant crying in the night, and with no language but a cry" 

 crying, however, not for the light, but for its food. It would 

 be a sorry business if a child had to rely for its nocturnal re- 

 freshment upon the willingness and ability of its mother to 

 keep awake, or to waken spontaneously when wanted. This, 

 perhaps, may partially explain our deprivation of earlids. If 

 our mothers had been able to exclude our infantile cries, where 

 should we be? 



289 



