NA TURE-STUD Y AND MORALS 7 9 



In the endeavor to work out the moral bearings of science- 

 teaching, we should be careful not to employ the utterly unscientific 

 methods of those who teach the humanities. If there is anyone 

 who would like to support the proposition that the humanities under- 

 stand how to teach morality, I should like to have him explain why 

 it is, after centuries of effort in which they have had it all their 

 own way, it happens that we have so much corruption, vice, and 

 dishonesty m public, in social, and in private life. And, in these 

 latter days, if there are any signs of quickening of the human 

 conscience, may it not be true that it is in part due to the enlighten- 

 ing moral influence of scientific knowledge? I believe that morals 

 in the past have been badly taught, because the lessons have been 

 enforced either through a warning to flee from the wrath to come 

 or through an exhortation to imitate some illustrious example. 

 The moral forius may be established through fear or through imita- 

 tion, but morality itself is a deeper matter. The fact that somebody 

 else is scared into certain forms of action, called moral, by the idea 

 of future punishment is no good reason why I, too, should be 

 scared into the same forms. Neither is there in the simple fact 

 that George Washington would not prevaricate any real reason why 

 I should not lie like a pirate if I wish to do so. I believe that 

 the exceedingly shallow and primitive methods mostly employed 

 in teaching morals belong as far back at least as the age of the 

 stone hatchet. 



It is now the privilege of science to place the teaching of morals 

 upon as solid ground as that upon which science itself rests. It 

 appears to me that moral relations among men represent or express 

 nothing more nor less than the highest known adaptations among 

 living creatures. The final lesson of science, its very last words, 

 are concession and adaptation. In the whole gamut of life, whether 

 we study the microscopic motes that throng the waters, or the 

 awkward crab that fiddles his way over the sands of the beach, or 

 the insect buzzing in the grass, or the grass itself, or the trees, or 

 the birds in the branches, or the tender heart that proffers the cup 

 of cold water to the thirsty wayfarer, or the glorified soul that at 

 once sacrifices and saves itself for the weak and unfortunate — it 

 is still a question of concession and adaptation. To recognize and 

 abide by this fact means development and life — physical, mental, 

 and moral ; failure to do so means degradation and death — annihila- 



