THE BIOLOGICAL CONTROL OF LIFE 33 



thoughtful minds that if the evolution of domesticated 

 animals and cultivated plants can be controlled — in 

 proportion to our discernment of the factors — ^the same 

 must hold good in some measure at least for the future 

 evolution of Man. Thus arose a new idea , or an old idea 

 in a new form, — the scientific or biological control of 

 life. This practical idea of control is the outcome of 

 the theoretical idea of evolution, and it is an incipient 

 characteristic of the age in which we live. 



It is true, of course, that medical practitioners had 

 been controlling life since the times of Hippocrates, 

 that educationists, moralists, and religious teachers had 

 been working for ages towards a firmer control of life, 

 but the modern idea is rather different. Its view of 

 Man's nature is wider than that prevalent in medical 

 practice ; thus it considers not the individual only, 

 but the race or stock as well. It differs from educa- 

 tional, ethical, and religious control in bringing to bear 

 on the problem of Man's betterment the resources 

 of the modern science of biology and the encouraging 

 stimulus of the idea of evolution — which, though of 

 ancient origin, had not gripped men's minds before 

 modern times. There were indeed glimpses of it, as 

 when Bacon wrote in regard to Salomon's House in 

 the New Atlantis : " The end of our foundation is the 

 knowledge of causes and the secret motions of things ; 

 and the enlarging of the bounds of human empire, to 

 the effecting of all things possible." And again in a 

 famous passage in The Advancement of Learning he 

 said : " This is that which will indeed dignify and exalt 



