908 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIV. No. 887 



tial point, the real tragedy of the situation. 

 If each diverse combination produces a dif- 

 ferent self, then there existed in the two 

 parents the potentialities — nay, the actual 

 beginnings — of thousands of billions of 

 selves, of personalities, each as distinct as 

 you and I. Each of these existed in a form 

 as real as your existence and my existence 

 before our component germ cells had 

 united. And of these thousands of bil- 

 lions, but four or five have come to frui- 

 tion. What has become of the others? 

 A thousand earths might have been popu- 

 lated vrith those personalities now con- 

 signed to limbo. Or, if, as before, we in- 

 clude in our thought other persons, and 

 previous generations, what must we con- 

 clude ? A real infinity of potential, of in- 

 choate, selves, is cancelled in each genera- 

 tion; a potential and inchoate population 

 sufficient to people all the regions that 

 mythology has invented; all the worlds 

 that astronomy has discovered. 



Our instincts and our education impel us 

 to regard a human personality as the highest 

 and most real of entities, having attributes 

 of worth possessed by nothing else; per- 

 haps as being sacred and imperishable. 

 What are we to say of this infinite ntimber 

 of personalities whose existence was fore- 

 shadowed and prepared in exactly the way 

 that gave origin to you and to me; who 

 depended only on a chance meeting of 

 germ cells for their full fruition, yet that 

 never advanced farther? 



It has become popular, with the advance 

 of the theory of natural selection, to shud- 

 der at the tragical ruthlessness of nature, 

 because, according to the very moderate 

 estimate of the poet, 



of fifty seeds 

 she often brings but one to bear. 



Many a plant produces thousands of 

 spores for each one that matures, and many 



a fish produces thousands of eggs con- 

 demned to premature destruction. Natural 

 selection has therefore been reproached as 

 a tragic and cruel method of advance, since 

 out of the thousands of inchoate existences 

 it brings but one to fruition. An honored 

 former president of this society has tried 

 to show us that nature acts in a kindlier 

 way, through an attempted demonstration 

 that natural selection is not the correct 

 theory as to the method of advance of liv- 

 ing things.^ But the destruction of the 

 uncounted millions was not a part of the 

 theory; it is an observed fact, for which 

 the theory merely tried to give some sort 

 of an excuse. If no purpose is served, 

 no advance made, through this wholesale 

 slaughter, then mere wanton cruelty is sub- 

 stituted for that cruelty whose aim is kind- 

 ness. But whether with an aim or with- 

 out, we find that nature plays in the same 

 infinitely wasteful and cruel way, whether 

 with spores of fungi and eggs of fish, or 

 with the potencies and beginnings of hu- 

 man personalities; it is but one out of 

 billions prepared that comes to fruition. 



It is not strange that with the instincts 

 and education which we have, men should 

 turn away from such a view of nature, and 

 should attempt to find some alternative 

 that does not lead to such monstrous re- 

 sults. If we have, from studies in philos- 

 ophy or in other fields, reached the conclu- 

 sion that the self is the one certain reality, 

 that relation to its existence is the final 

 touchstone for aU knowledge; that it is the 

 highest and greatest thing; that it is as it 

 were self-existent, perhaps even imperish- 

 able — then this conviction will appear to 

 us a sound argument against the correct- 

 ness of a view of nature which shows us 

 the existing hmnan selves as a mere chance 



' Morgan, T. H., The Popular Science Monthly, 

 May, 1905, p. 63. 



