THE WONDERS OF LIFE 



of the causes of things is contented when science points 

 out the "sufficient reason" of them. In the whole 

 province of inorganic cosmology natural law is now 

 generally recognized to be all-powerful; in astronomy, 

 geology, physics, and chemistry all phenomena are 

 reduced to fixed laws, and in the long-run to the all- 

 embracing law of substance, the great law of the conser- 

 vation of matter and force {Kiddle, chapter xii.). 



It is otherwise in biology, or the organic section of 

 cosmology. Here we still find miracles set up in opposi- 

 tion to the law of substance, and the transgression of 

 natural laws by supernatural forces. The behef in 

 miracles of this kind, which pure reason calls supersti- 

 tion, is still very w^idespread — much more prevalent 

 than is usuahy thought. For my part, I hold that 

 superstition and unreason are the worst enemies of the 

 human race, while science and reason are its greatest 

 friends. Hence it is our duty and task to attack the 

 belief in miiacles wherever we find it, in the interest of 

 the race. We have to prove that the reign of natural 

 law extends over the whole world of phenomena as 

 far as we can reach it. A general survey of the his- 

 tory of faith on the one hand and of science on the 

 other clearly shows that the advance of the latter has 

 always been accompanied by an increasing knowledge of 

 fixed natural laws and the shrinking of superstition into 

 Jan ever-lessening area. To-day we convince ourselves 

 of this by an impartial examination of mental culture at 

 the various stages of civilization. For this purpose I 

 take the four chief stages of mental development which 

 Fritz Schultze has given in his Physiology of Uncivilized 

 Races, and Alexander Sutherland in his work, On the 

 Origin and Growth of the Moral Instinct: i, savages; 

 2, barbarians; 3, civilized races; 4, ediicated races {cf. 

 chapter i.). 



The mental life of savages rises Httle above that 



56 



