CHAPTER V[ToC]
ETHICAL ASPECT OF SOCIALISM
The ethical aspect of Socialism is a practical continuation of the argument of the last chapter, and brings us to the crowning glory of Socialism: that it alone can and does reconcile the conflict between science, economics, and religion.
§ 1. The Conflict between Science and Religion
Science produces convictions founded on fact. Religion imposes convictions founded on faith. If Religion confines itself to matters of faith—to the supernatural—it need not come into conflict with Science. But when it trespasses on the realms of Science—when it begins to deal with matters of fact—it creates a conflict with Science in which Science must in the end be victorious. Thus when the Church ventured to make it a matter of faith that the sun revolves around the earth, it might secure the recantation of Galileo, but it had in the end to yield before the demonstrations of astronomy.
This element of conflict between the church and the state is disappearing and is bound entirely to disappear. The church is more and more confining itself to supernatural matters which are properly within the domain of faith. So long as it does this, it need not clash with Science.
There is, however, another occasion of conflict between Science and Religion more modern than the former and more real: The doctrine of evolution in attacking the theory of special creation needed at one time to attack the existence of God; and as interpreted by Herbert Spencer and his school, gave rise to the doctrine that "because, on the whole, animals and plants have advanced in perfection of organization by means of the struggle for existence and the consequent 'survival of the fittest,' therefore men in society, men as ethical beings, must look to the same process to help them towards perfection."[207]