NATURE, HISTORY, AND ETHICS 423 



In reality the world has no place for duty from 

 the scientific point of view. The cosmic process 

 goes on inexorably. There are no ends towards 

 which the eternal changes are working ; and there 

 is no force that can arrest or control the rolling 

 wheels. 



The stars travel on in the infinite universe. They 

 exist at one moment of the world's history, and are 

 gone the next. On a small body in a corner of the 

 universe certain beings were produced in one of 

 these moments, to grow rigid for ever with their 

 planet in the next. Such is the story of mankind. 



How ridiculous and aimless it must be, in view of 

 this conception of things, to direct a man how he 

 shall act. As if he could make the slightest change 

 in the inexorable march of cause and effect ! How is 

 it possible to set before a man aims that he shall 

 strive to realise, when there is no " teleological " 

 occurrence in the world, when even human actions 

 are determined by causes that lie behind, not before 

 them ? l The utmost that science can say is that an 

 ethic, a setting-up of ends to be attained, has no 

 meaning. It can only direct a man to let himself be 

 borne in peace on the stream of cause and effect, 

 without doing anything, because his action could have 

 no aim and no result. The only possible scientific 

 ethic is resignation. 



Is it true that the laws of Nature are the sole 



1 There can, of course, be no question of free will to the 

 scientifically-minded man. 



