Page:Moral Obligation to be Intelligent.djvu/67

 century, men at her invitation have contemplated their unsavory beginning and the myriad processes by which they are supposed to have escaped from it. They have not been greatly edified; kinship with the monkey, if true, is uninspiring. Into what nobler relations are we to enter? Science does not reply. The excuse is that science is collecting facts, or perfecting methods, or at best is occupied in remedial work, in solving problems of disease and in reducing the discomforts of life. Service so vast and so humane cannot be overvalued. Yet even in the region of this service, is not science frittering itself away upon methods, instead of setting before us the end? And is it possible to estimate the value of the method, until we know the end? One scientist tells us, as a matter of fact, that our best days are over at forty. Much of the