AS THE BIOLOGIST SEES IT 



than human life, make any, even least, 

 contribution to that which most of us 

 demand first from existence, namely, 

 personal happiness? Can he show us 

 wiser ways of living? He can unques- 

 tionably show us safer ways; he can help 

 guide us in our constant great gamble of 

 betting our lives on what we know. And 

 presumably that alone is quite worth our 

 calling on him to give us the benefit of 

 his special knowledge, and his reasoned 

 recommendations. But merely being 

 safer amid danger, merely continuing to 

 live and living longer, is not what many, 

 very many of us, are chiefly concerned 

 with. We want continuing to live to 

 mean something continually larger. We 

 yearn for encouragement of our hopes, for 

 inspiration to struggle on to achieve what 

 we can hardly define but clearly feel intent 

 on. Has the biologist anything helpful to 

 suggest about this? Or will listening to 

 him mean more pessimism, hopelessness, 

 fatalism? If so perhaps we would prefer 

 to be blindly hopeful, ignorantly happy. 

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