16 SCIENCE AND MORALS 



in that respect most fully differentiates himself 

 from all other living things, none of which make 

 any attempt to control the forces of Nature 

 for their own advantage. " Nature's inexorable 

 discipline of death to those who do not rise to 

 her standard survival and parentage for those 

 alone who do has been from the earliest times 

 more and more definitely resisted by the will of 

 man. If we may for the purpose of analysis, as 

 it were, extract man from the rest of Nature, of 

 which he is truly a product and a part, then we 

 may say that man is Nature's rebel. Where Nature 

 says ' Die ! ' man says ' I will live.' " 1 



To this it may be added that, under the in- 

 fluence of Christianity, man goes a step further 

 and says : "I will endeavour that as many others 

 as may be shall live, and live happy, healthy lives, 

 and shall not untimely die." The law of Natural 

 Selection could not be met by more direct 

 opposition. I have said that this is under the 

 influence of Christianity, yet the impulse seems 

 to be older than that, to be part of that moral 

 law which excited Kant's admiration, which he 

 coupled with the sight of the starry heavens, an 

 impulse, we can scarcely doubt, implanted in the 

 heart of man by God Himself. It is a remarkable 

 fact that in many some would say most of the 

 less civilised races of mankind we find these social 

 virtues, which some would have us believe are 

 degenerate features foisted on to the race by an 

 enervating superstition. 



Dr. Marett has carefully examined into this 

 1 Lankester, op. cit. 9 p. 26, 



