JULIAN S. HUXLEY 117 



take. I mean that it Is the business and the duty of 

 the various religions to accept the new knowledge we 

 owe to science, to assimilate it into their systems, and 

 to adjust their general ideas and outlook accordingly. 

 The only business or duty of science is to discover new 

 facts, to frame the best possible generalizations to 

 account for the facts, and to turn knowledge to prac- 

 tical account when asked to do so. The problem of 

 what man will do with the enormous possibilities of 

 power which science has put into his hands is probably 

 the most vital and the most alarming problem of 

 modern times. At the moment, humanity is rather 

 like an irresponsible and mischievous child who has 

 been presented with a set of machine tools, a box of 

 matches, and a supply of dynamite. How can religion 

 expect to help in solving the problem before the child 

 cuts itself or blows itself up if it does not permeate 

 itself, and make them its own in order to control 

 them? 



That is why I say — as a human being and not as a 

 scientist — that it is the duty of religion to accept and 

 assimilate scientific knowledge. I also believe it to 

 be the business of religion to do so, because if religion 

 does not do so, religion will in the long run lose in- 

 fluence and adherents thereby. 



I see the human race engaged in the tremendous 

 experiment of living on the planet called earth. From 

 the point of view of humanity as a whole, the great 

 aim of this experiment must be to make life more 

 truly and more fully worth living; the religious man 

 might prefer to say that the aim was to realize the 

 kingdom of God upon earth, but that is only another 

 way of saying the same thing. 



