CHAPTER XII 



NATURE, HISTORY, AND ETHICS 



Truth of scientific ideas. Why the universal seems to us more 

 essential than the individual. The ideas of animals. Why we 

 take ideas for realities. Thinking reality into ideas. Is there 

 a real world, lying behind the phenomenal world? Natural 

 science itself is a human product and pursues an aim. It must 

 not regard itself as the only sound branch of science. The 

 historical sciences. Their method. The historical elements in 

 natural science. The laws justify historical research. The science 

 of evolution rests on probabilities. The origin of the human 

 mind. Had consciousness a beginning? There never were 

 absolutely simple bodies. History and sociology. Origin and 

 development of primitive man. Origin of good and evil. Origin 

 of conscience. Advance of civilisation by tradition. Language. 

 Conflict of nations. Scientific ethics. Restricted and inverted 

 selection in civilisation. The evils of war and militarism. 

 Nietzsche's egoism. Darwinian ideas of the social future. 

 Insipidity of the Darwinian ideal. Social man according to 

 Nietzsche. Natural science knows no idea of duty. It knows 

 nothing of values, and can therefore frame no ethic. Preservation 

 of existence is not preservation of value. Is there a sense of 

 life? Monism. Presuppositions of science. The idea of duty 

 is the beginning of all knowledge. Conclusion. 



THE world is infinite and immeasurable, and no science 

 will ever be in a position to describe it. Science would 

 not yet have accomplished anything if its work had 

 merely consisted in describing or picturing the world. 

 It could only attain to a knowledge of the world by 



transforming reality and simplifying it so as to make it 



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