134 The Higher Usefulness of Science 



But that in particular which ought to make these 

 biologists join with the disciples of Nietzsche in pro- 

 claiming their prophet the supreme philosopher of evo- 

 lution is intimated in the following quotation : 



"Nature's conformity to law is no matter of fact 

 . . . but rather just a naively humanitarian adjust- 

 ment and perversion of meaning with which you make 

 abundant cencessions to the democratic instincts of 

 the modern soul." 



The tap-root of the life philosophy of both groups 

 is the dogma that the gross, easily seen living things 

 about us everywhere and all the time are "mere out- 

 ward expressions" of an Essence, deep, invisible, intan- 

 gible, a comprehension of the working of which and the 

 control of which is the goal of all life science. 



To be sure, the fact that temperamentally Nietzsche 

 was highly artistic and very little scientific made him 

 interpret and evaluate human life in terms very differ- 

 ent from those used by the biologists when they treat 

 of man. But the close kindred between "Nietzsche's 

 cloud-like visions of Eternal Recurrence and Super- 

 man" and the nebulous hereditary substance, germ 

 plasm, and "The Fit" of most biological eugenists 

 should not be overlooked by anybody interested in prob- 

 lems of human welfare. Nietzsche's followers have not 

 been slow to see the meaning of the man-breeding pro- 

 posals of our day. Miigge says : 



