involving the ruthless destruction or subjection of its
competitors for the supply (assumed to be limited) of subsistence
available. We taught Prussia this religion; and Prussia bettered
our instruction so effectively that we presently found ourselves
confronted with the necessity of destroying Prussia to prevent
Prussia destroying us. And that has just ended in each destroying
the other to an extent doubtfully reparable in our time.

It may be asked how so imbecile and dangerous a creed ever came
to be accepted by intelligent beings. I will answer that question
more fully in my next volume of plays, which will be entirely
devoted to the subject. For the present I will only say that
there were better reasons than the obvious one that such sham
science as this opened a scientific career to very stupid men,
and all the other careers to shameless rascals, provided they
were industrious enough. It is true that this motive operated
very powerfully; but when the new departure in scientific
doctrine which is associated with the name of the great
naturalist Charles Darwin began, it was not only a reaction
against a barbarous pseudo-evangelical teleology intolerably
obstructive to all scientific progress, but was accompanied, as
it happened, by discoveries of extraordinary interest in physics,
chemistry, and that lifeless method of evolution which its
investigators called Natural Selection. Howbeit, there was only
one result possible in the ethical sphere, and that was the
banishment of conscience from human affairs, or, as Samuel Butler
vehemently put it, "of mind from the universe."