NATURE, HISTORY, AND ETHICS 425 



istics. He cannot wish that certain animals, or even 

 man, may maintain their existence as long as possible. 

 Worth is only conceivable as the opposite to worth- 

 lessness. Dualistic ideas of that kind should have no 

 place in a monistic system.-' 



We have now reached the fundamental objection to 

 all scientific ethics. Science regards cosmic processes 

 merely as changes, and pays no attention to values. 

 It abandons its methods entirely and contradicts itself 

 when it begins to recognise values. Hence it cannot 

 have an ethics, because this has no meaning unless 

 the moral laws that it sets up, and especially the life 

 of man and the improvement of it, are regarded as 

 having worth. 



Thus for science — to repeat our conclusion — there is 

 no such thing as an aim, an end, or a value in the 

 world. There are only changes in accordance with 

 eternal laws. The laws are beyond the control of 

 any human being. The whole history of humanity 

 consists of certain changes that take place on a speck 

 of dust, and occupy only a second of the world's time. 

 All man's actions, all his struggles and efforts, are so 

 many phenomena that follow necessarily upon other 

 phenomena ; they are as void of worth as the fall of 

 the meteor, or the roll of pebbles on the beach. 



The whtole cosmic process is aimless. There is no 

 such thing as a sense of life. 



^ For the same reason, the phrase " worthy of selection " is unfor- 

 tunate. It does not give one a very scientific impression when we 

 find sociological writers speaking incessantly of values. 



