Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 76.djvu/52

48 the way of a self-annihilating individualism and utilitarianism, could hardly be other than the way to the mad-house; and finally of numberless mediumly endowed souls in whom such doctrines could not fail to beget a pusillanimous indifferentism toward all human weal excepting such as can be seen to be directly advantageous to one's own weal.

We may be sure that the volumes of social and ethical doctrine that have been written from, not the Darwinian, but the neo-Darwinian, standpoint, and the still larger volumes of unethical practise that have consciously and unconsciously been instigated and justified from the same standpoint, would have brought inexpressible anguish to the noble spirit of Charles Darwin, could he but have seen them in full flower and fruit.

My conclusion then as to Darwin's probable place in future biology may be summed up thus: Darwin has been frequently called the Newton of Biology. Not so! Newton discovered a great mathematical, that is, exactly expressible law of nature. Darwin found no such law. For its real Newton, biology will probably have to wait another fifty years at least. When he appears he will be a mathematical biologist.

If the counterpart of Darwin in inorganic science is to be sought, Copernicus rather than Newton would be the man. The revolution in men's attitude toward nature wrought by each of these was much the same, both in kind and magnitude, and both men's names will grow brighter on the pages of history so long as mortals are stirred by the beauty of orderliness and law, and by what is lovely in form and color and motion; so long as they have feelings of gratitude and obligation for what has gone to the making of themselves and the things they enjoy, what they are; and so long as their faith in the Infinite Whole of Things abides and waxes stronger.