Page:Moral Obligation to be Intelligent.djvu/66

 just as religion falls back upon threats of hell, so at last science calls in the police. If my house is ventilated and sanitary, it is not because science has made me intelligent, but because the expert to whom I have delegated my intelligence is now applying it on my behalf, with or without my consent. When my fire-escape was cast in the foundry, perhaps for the rescue of my life some day, they fixed in the mold a threat to fine me ten dollars, if ever I should block it up.

However we may condemn the result, the intention to serve us is unmistakable. But science is strangely inconsistent. Having assumed the place of our intelligence, she develops what seems to be a startling indifference to our welfare. At times she surpasses the worst that has been charged against religion in the disposition to fall in love with her own image. Since the middle of the