122 SCIENCE AND THE WAR 



physical life but lessons also of conduct. Of 

 course this is quite wrong ; for Nature has no 

 moral lesson to teach us. We are told to go to 

 the ant at least the sluggard is but for what ? 

 To amend his sluggardliness. No one has ever 

 suggested that we should go to Nature to learn 

 to be humble, kindly, unselfish, tolerant, and 

 Christian, in our dealings with others ; and for 

 this excellent reason, that none of these things 

 can be learnt from Nature. Science is neither 

 moral nor immoral, but non-moral ; and, as we 

 have seen a thousand times in this present war, 

 its kindest gifts to man can be used, and are 

 used, for his cruel destruction. In this war, 

 pre-eminently amongst all wars, we have the 

 application of pure natural principles unamelior- 

 ated by the influences of Christianity, or of 

 chivalry, Christianity's offspring. As Sir Robert 

 Borden has summed it up, German kultur is an 

 attempt " to impose upon us the law of the 

 jungle." 



Natural Selection, some would have us be- 

 lieve, is the dominant law of living nature, and all 

 would agree that it is an important law. Let us 

 then, if we are to follow Nature, put it into 

 practice. But Natural Selection means the Sur- 

 vival of the Fittest in the Struggle for Life. It 

 consequently means the Extermination of the 

 Less Fit, a little fact often left out of count. 

 It means in three words " Might is Right," and 

 was not that exactly the proposition by which 

 we were confronted in this war ? If Natural 

 Selection be our only guide, let us sink hospital 



