CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE WILL 95 



the best human ideas based on the recognition of 

 biological laws. But even a scientific standard 

 would be difficult to apply on account of the in- 

 tricacy of the situation which frequently comes to 

 notice. A man may commit many acts opposed to 

 nature, and therefore bad in their character, yet his 

 helpfulness to human interests at large may be so 

 great as to more than offset the acts we call bad, 

 and so leave in his favor a balance of what we call 

 goodness. But if it cannot be maintained that the 

 mechanistic view of life can at present give us more 

 than a clew to the ways of reaching more reasonable 

 conceptions and appraisals of human conduct, one 

 great and useful service may be claimed for it. By 

 showing us at once the extreme complexity of the 

 biological factors that determine conduct and our 

 ignorance of the many phases of these processes, it 

 shows us the futility and injustice of forming hasty 

 judgments on the behavior of the human beings 

 whom the illusory chances of life bring within our 

 acquaintance. At the same time it extends a rea- 

 sonable hope that much more intelligent and humane 

 appraisals of conduct will follow the extension of a 

 biological point of view among the masses of the 

 people. Pope's oft-quoted saying, "The proper 

 study of mankind is man," makes a good general 

 statement of the leading aim of human striving. But 

 if the study of man is to bear fruit in gentle and 

 sympathetic relations between human beings, that 

 study must seek a broad basis in those sciences which 



