24 SCIENCE AND MORALS 



that the intellectual and physical improvement of 

 the human race by any measures, however harsh, 

 is the " one thing needful." But beyond this the 

 persons who hold such views seem to have entirely 

 overlooked the fact that their proposed State would 

 be one conducted on principles of the bitterest 

 and most galling slavery imaginable by the mind 

 of man, a form of slavery that never could persist 

 if for a moment it be conceded that it could 

 ever come into operation. The fact is that the 

 whole thing is ludicrous when looked at from 

 the point of view of common! sense, but''how|few 

 take the trouble to contemplate these schemes as 

 they would be in operation ! Were they thus 

 to contemplate them, they would see that, apart 

 altogether from any religious considerations, they 

 are wholly impossible, even from a purely political 

 point of view. That such ideas are intolerable 

 to Catholic minds, indeed to any Christian mind, 

 goes without saying. 



Driesch (Science and Philosophy of the Organism, 

 vol. ii., p. 358) has pointed out very clearly that 

 " the mechanical theory of life is incompatible 

 with morality," and that it is impossible to feel 

 " morally " towards other individuals if one 

 knows that they are machines and nothing more. 

 Again, Professor Henslow (in Present Day Ration- 

 alism Critically Examined, p. 253) very pertinently 

 asks those who discard all religious considerations 

 and claim to rely for guidance on the lessons of 

 Nature, " If you have no taste for virtue, why be 

 virtuous at all, so long as you do not violate the 

 laws of the land ? " 



