138 HAS SCIENCE DISCOVERED GOD? 



gresslve organization, but it certainly presents no 

 aspect of a chance affair. Some creative agency seems 

 to be at work. Lloyd Morgan, biologist, psycholo- 

 gist, and philosopher, following the religious teachers 

 of all ages, calls it God. John Burroughs spoke of an 

 organizing principle. Other scientists speak of "a 

 universal compulsion to constructive action," a "drift," 

 or "tendency," or "organizatory factor," an "evolu- 

 tionary urge," or "a struggle for freedom." Some of 

 these terms, like Bergson's elan vital, imply the pres- 

 ence in nature of some resistant stuff, against which 

 the "vital Impulse" or struggle for freedom is working. 



Recently, however, there seems to be a tendency in 

 both science and philosophy to speak less of the strug- 

 gle for existence or for freedom, and more of an initial 

 or eternal principle of growth and expansion. Evo- 

 lution is understood to be not a mechanical elimina- 

 tion of the unfit among random variations, but some- 

 thing more like an achievement. Nature is continually 

 outgrowing itself, and trying to do so. Life and the 

 world are not, as one writer says, struggling against 

 an alien force, but struggling to overcome simply the 

 past.^ 



Thus we see that a behavlorlst psychology does not 

 ally Itself with any mechanistic or materialistic world 

 view. Whether it Implies an Idealistic philosophy de- 

 pends upon our use and understanding of the latter 

 term. It surely encourages no kind of "mind-stuff" 

 theory, nor does It lead In the direction of any of the 

 older forms of subjective, objective, or absolute ideal- 

 Ism. It does seem to harmonize with the general view 



3 Compare Dr. John Wild, "The Grand Strategy of Evolution." 

 Essays in Philosophy. Chicago; Open Court Pub. Co. 



