I think then that the tendency of applied science is to magnify injustices until they become too intolerable to be borne, and the average man whom all the prophets and poets could not move, turns at last and extinguishes the evil at its source. Marx’ theory of industrial evolution is a particular example of this tendency, though it does not in the least follow that his somewhat artificial solution of the problem will be adopted.
It is probable that biological progress will prove to be as incompatible with certain of our social evils as industrial progress has proved to be with war or certain systems of private ownership. To take a concrete example it is clear that the second biological invention considered by my future essayist would be intolerable in conjunction with our present system of relations between classes and sexes. Moral progress is so difficult that I think any developments are to be welcomed which present it as the naked alternative to destruction, no matter how horrible may be the stimulus which is necessary before man will take the moral step in question.
To sum up then, science is as yet in its infancy, and we can foretell little of the future save that the thing that has not been is the thing that shall be; that no beliefs, no values, no institutions are safe. So far from being an isolated phenomenon the late war is only an example of the disruptive results that we may constantly expect from the progress of science. The future will be no primrose path. It will have its own problems. Some will be the secular problems of the past, giant flowers of evil blossoming at last to their own destruction. Others will be wholly new. Whether in the end man will survive his accessions of power we cannot tell. But the problem is no new one. It is the old paradox of freedom re-enacted with mankind for actor and the earth for stage. To those who believe in the divinity of that part of man which aspires after knowledge for its own sake, who are able, in the words of Boethius:
“te cernere finis,
“Principium, vector, dux, semita, terminus idem”.
the prospect will appear most hopeful. But it is only hopeful if mankind can adjust its morality to its powers. If we can succeed in this, then science holds in her hands one at least of the keys to the thorny and arduous path of moral progress, then:
“Per cruciamina leti,
“Via panditur ardua justis,
“Et ad astra doloribus itur”.
That is possibly a correct large-scale view, but it is only for short periods that one can take views of history sufficiently broad to render the fate of one’s own generation irrelevant. The scientific worker is brought up with the moral values of his neighbours. He is perhaps fortunate if he does not realize that it is his destiny to turn good into evil. The moral and physical (though not the intellectual) virtues are means between two extremes. They are essentially quantitative. It follows that an alteration in the scale of human power will render actions bad which were formerly good. Our increased knowledge of hygiene has transformed resignation and inaction in face of epidemic disease from a religious virtue to a justly punishable offence. We have improved our armaments, and patriotism, which was once a flame upon the altar, has become a world-devouring conflagration.
The time has gone by when a Huxley could believe that while science might indeed remould traditional mythology, traditional morals were impregnable and sacrosanct to it. We must learn not to take traditional morals too seriously. And it is just because even the least dogmatic of religions tends to associate itself with some kind of unalterable moral tradition, that there can be no truce between science and religion.
There does not seem to be any particular reason why a religion should not arise with an ethic as fluid as Hindu mythology, but it has not yet arisen. Christianity has probably the most flexible morals of any religion, because Jesus left no code of law behind him like Moses or Muhammad, and his moral precepts are so different from those of ordinary life that no society has ever made any serious attempt to carry them out, such as was possible in the case of Israel and Islam. But every Christian church has tried to impose a code of morals of some kind for which it has claimed divine sanction. As these codes have always been opposed to those of the gospels a loophole has been left for moral progress such as hardly exists in other religions. This is no doubt an argument for Christianity as against other religions, but not as against none at all, or as against a religion which will frankly admit that its mythology and morals are provisional. That is the only sort of religion that would satisfy the scientific mind, and it is very doubtful whether it could properly be called a religion at all.
No doubt many people hope that such a religion may develop from christianity. The human intellect is feeble, and there are times when it does not assert the infinity of its claims. But even then: