6 WAR & STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE 



temples of the gods of peace, they have raised a 

 shining altar to the god of war, the creator, the 

 benefactor, the father of all. It may be that in the 

 final struggles of German diplomacy there were hesi- 

 tation, reluctance, and even uncertainty of purpose. 

 But whether the actual moment were of German 

 choice, or were forced on Germany, there can be no 

 doubt but that Germany, alone among the com- 

 batant nations, went to war exultingly, conscious 

 of fulfilhng an expected destiny, entering on the 

 completion of her national purpose, seeing in her 

 conduct the very essence of the upward forces of 

 evolution. 



I hope that an examination of this reference of 

 war to scientific law may serve the double purpose 

 of arresting a dangerous mishandling of science and 

 of clarifying ideas on some difficult biological 

 problems. 



We are all accustomed to speak rather vaguely 

 about what we call scientific laws, and those who 

 have least acquaintance with science appear to apply 

 such laws with the greatest confidence. Law, with 

 its implication of compulsory obedience, of control 

 coming from without, is a misleading term in science. 

 Those with more knowledge are careful to insist that 

 a scientific law has no absolute validity, that it is 

 empirical, a generalization from acquired experience. 

 But it is something more, or perhaps I should say, 

 something less than that. To use quite unphiloso- 

 phical language, a scientific law is the result of the 

 interplay of two factors, the extended world, at once 

 the occasion and the subject of experience, and the 

 human mind, ranging over the extended world, 



