THE BIOLOGICAL CONTROL OF LIFE 43 



may not be getting out of the soil anything like what the 

 appHcation of scientific agriculture would make pos- 

 sible ; but crops are forthcoming, and in prosperous 

 times they may suffice. Necessity is the mother of 

 invention, and when men of certain temperaments 

 are getting along comfortably without applying much 

 science, they prefer to let things be. When the pinch 

 begins to be felt, a belated appeal is made to Science, 

 (c) The third reason is to be found in a strange distrust 

 of new ideas, for the idea of actively directing human 

 evolution in the light of Science must still be called new. 

 In face of a difficult human problem it will occur to many 

 to lend a helping hand and to put energy, enthusiasm, 

 good-will, tears, and prayers into the business, but it 

 still occurs to few to put scientific inquiry at work. 

 Legislation, coercion, personal persuasion, religion will all 

 be tried, before scientific investigators are set to work to 

 get at the facts, to win an understanding of them, and 

 to bring this understanding and previously established 

 science to bear on their control. The appointment of 

 commissions is, of course, a familiar device, but these 

 are not of themselves of avail unless they include an 

 adequate representation of men accustomed to scientific 

 inquiry, and unless the finding scientifically arrived at 

 is effectively put into practice. 



The non-scientific view of life inevitably leads to 

 fatalism, which a doctrine of providential interventions 

 is often invoked to relieve. We find this old-fashioned 

 view of extrinsic evils lying in wait to destroy the life 

 which deserved a better fate, vividly expressed in the 



