482 HEREDITY AND SELECTION IN SOCIOLOGY 



Socialism is, therefore, not the social force for which we are 

 seeking ; the force, namely, which is best adapted to increasing 

 the actual tendency to widen the sphere of conflict, while at the 

 same time increasing the value of life. By aiming at the restric- 

 tion of the sphere of conflict, if not at the suppression of all 

 conflict. Socialism reduces the value of life ia a corresponding 

 measure. 



But there is another social force which is proposed to us, as 

 capable of regenerating society, and of replacing, as a sociological 

 factor, those religious beliefs which are declared to be worn out. 

 This new social force, capable of giving to society that coherence 

 and moral stabiUty which it lacks at present, is science. More 

 than half a century ago Ernest Renan had already proclaimed 

 the omnipotence of science, and proclaimed it with enthusiasm. 

 " If such be the object of science ; if its aim be to teach us the 

 law and the destiny of Hfe, to enable us to appreciate the true 

 value of life, to constitute along with art, poetry, and virtue 

 the divine ideal which alone confers a meaning on human 

 existence, can it have any serious antagonists ?"^ In a 

 recent work, which has earned an undeserved reputation, 

 Professor Bougie, who endeavours, under the smiling mask of 

 science, to conceal prejudices and passions entirely incompatible 

 with the impartiahty of the scientific investigator, writes in a 

 similar strain : " Science is indeed the dearly-loved child of the 

 modem mind, its own creation, in the mirror of which it is able 

 to reflect and admire itself. Even as our civilisation is the 

 democratic ciAdlisation far excellence, so is it at the same time 

 the scientific civilisation far excellence. One can never repeat it 

 sufficiently : the existence of an independent body of acquired 

 truths, from day to day more numerous and better organised, 

 constitutes incontestably the fait nouveau which dominates our 



■^ E. Renan, L'Avenir de la Science, p. 91. Paris, eighth edition, Calmann- 

 Levy. 



