Section AThere is probably no limit to what science can do in the way of increasing positi
Section A
There is probably no limit to what science can do in the way of increasing positive excellence. (81) Health has already been greatly improved; in spite of the lamentations of those who idealize the past, we live longer and have fewer illnesses than any class or nation in the eighteenth century. With a little more application of the knowledge we already possess, we might be much healthier than we are, and future discoveries are likely to accelerate this process enormously.
So far, it has been physical science that has had the most effect upon our lives, but in the future physiology and psychology are likely to be far more potent. (82) When we have discovered how character depends upon physiological conditions, we shall be able, if we choose, to produce far more of the type of human beings that we admire. Intelligence, artistic capacity, benevolence--all these things no doubt could be increased by science. There seems scarcely any limit to what could be done in the way of producing a good world, if only men would use science wisely.
(83) There is a certain attitude about the application of science to human life with which I have some sympathy, though I do not, in the last analysis, agree with it. It is the attitude of those who dread what is "unnatural". Rousseau is, of course, the great protagonist of the view in Europe. In Asia, Lao-Tze has set it forth even more persuasively, and 2,400 years sooner. (84) I think there is a mixture of truth and falsehood in the admiration of "nature", which it is important to disentangle. To begin with, what is "natural''? Roughly speaking, anything to which the speaker was accustomed in childhood. Lao-Tze objects to roads and carriages and boats, all of which were probably unknown in the village where he was born. Rousseau has got used to these things, and does not regard them as against nature. But he would no doubt have thundered against railways if he had lived to see them. Clothes and cooking are too ancient to be denounced by most of the apostles of nature, though they all object to new fashions in either. Birth control is thought wicked by people who tolerate celibacy, because the former is a new violation of' nature and the latter an ancient one. (85) In these ways those who preach "nature" are inconsistent, and one is tempted to regard them as mere conservatives.
(86)
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