NEW CONCEPTIONS IN SCIENCE 



This is an erroneous view. We are instinctively forced 

 to be active in the same way as ants or bees. The in- 

 stinct of workmanship would be the greatest source of 

 happiness if it were not for the fact that our present social 

 and economic organization allows only a few to satisfy 

 this instinct." 1 



And he adds, in a foot-note : 



" It is rather remarkable that we should still be under the 

 influence of an ethics which considers the human instincts 

 in themselves low and their gratification vicious. That 

 such an ethics must have had a comforting effect upon 

 the Orientals, whose instincts were inhibited or warped 

 through the combined effects of an enervating climate, 

 despotism, and miserable economic conditions, is intelli- 

 gible, and it is perhaps due to a continuation of the un- 

 satisfactory economic conditions that this ethics still pre- 

 vails to some extent." 



In some such wise one may vaguely conceive the 

 society of the future. Is it afar off? No doubt. 

 Is it but a chimera ? I do not find it so. Probably 

 its realization will be slow, and it will not be for- 

 warded by hysteria. 



But the foundations have been laid ; and they are 

 firm. The achievements of the last three hundred 

 years are secure. We shall never more go back- 

 ward. If the light of science die out from one land, 

 it will be kept burning in another, for it extends 

 now throughout all the earth. The slender band 



1 Comparative Physiology of the Brain, and Comparative Psy- 

 chology. 



36 



