"What then is your idea?" I asked.
"Why," he said, "as you might expect from a biologist, I regard everything from the point of view of the species."
At this I saw Ellis sit up and prepare for an encounter.
"Nature," continued Wilson, "has always in view the Whole not the Part, the species not the individual. And this law, which is true of the whole creation, is thrown into special relief in the case of man, because there the interest of the species is embodied in a particular form—the Society or the State—and may be clearly envisaged, as a thing apart, towards the maintenance of which conscious efforts may be directed."
"And this, which is the end of Nature, according to you, is also the Good?"
"Naturally."
"Well," I said, "I will not recapitulate here the objections I have already urged against the view that the course of Nature determines the content of the Good. For, quite apart from that, it is a view which many people hold—and one which was held long before there was a science of biology—that the community is the end, and the individual only the means."
"But," he said, "biology has given a new basis and a new colour to the view."
"I don't know about that," cried Ellis, unable any longer to restrain himself, "but I am sure it has given us a new kind of language. In the old days, when Wilson's opinion was represented by Plato, men were still men, and were spoken of as such, however much they might be subordinated to the community. But now!—why, if you open one of these sociological books, mostly, I am bound to say, in German, 'Entwurf einer Sozial-anthropologie,' 'Versuch einer anthropologischen Darstellung der menschlichen Gesellschaft vom Sozial-biologischen Standpunkt aus,' and the like—you will hardly be able to realize that you are dealing with human beings at all. I have seen an unmarried woman called a 'female non-childbearing human.' And at the worst, men actually cease to be even animals; they become mere numbers; they are calculated by the theory of combinations; they are masses, averages, classes, curves, anything but men! For every million of the population, it has been solemnly estimated, there will be one genius, one imbecile, 256,791 individuals just above the mean, 256,791 just below it! Observe, 256,791! Not, as one might have been tempted to believe, 256,790! What a saving grace in that odd unit! And this is the kind of thing that is revolutionizing history and politics! No more great men, no more heroic actions, no more inspirations, passions, and ideals! Nothing but calculations of the chances that A will meet and breed out of B! Nothing but analysis of the mechanism of survival! Nothing but——"
"My dear Ellis," interrupted Wilson, "you appear to me to be digressing."