374 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 
ceptions of right-doing and of the motives which con- 
trol it. Both are part of the mental universe we built 
around us in our youth, and one in which we would 
not willingly make changes or extensions. 
It is the work of science to find in some degree the 
real nature of the universe. Its function is to eliminate, 
as far as may be, the human equation in every state- 
ment. By methods of precision of thought and instru- 
ments of precision of observation science seeks to 
make our knowledge of the small, the distant, the invisi- 
ble, the mysterious, as accurate as our knowledge of 
the common things with which man has dealt for ages. 
It seeks to make our knowledge of common things ac- 
curate and precise, that this accuracy and precision may 
be translated into action. For the ultimate end of sci- 
ence, as well as its initial impulse, is the regulation of 
human conduct. Seeing true means thinking right. 
Right thinking means right action. To bring about 
right action is the end of science. Greater precision of 
thought and action makes higher civilization possible. 
Lack of precision in action is the great cause of human 
misery, for misery is Nature’s protest against the results 
of wrong conduct. “The world as it is ” is the province 
of science. “The God of the things as 
they are” is the God of the highest 
heaven. As “the world as it is” to the 
sane man is glorious, beautiful, noble, and divine, so will 
science be the inspiration of art, poetry, and religion. 
The intellectual growth of man has 
been one long struggle between the ideas 
of the universe derived directly from re- 
alities and the ideas derived from tradi- 
tion and suggestion. The record of this struggle is the 
most valuable part of history. In his notable record of. 
this struggle Dr. John W. Draper has called it “The 
‘The world 
as it is.” 
The conflict 
between science 
and religion. 
