his constitutes a
clear gain to humanity obviously cannot be answered without reference to
moral considerations. To increase the arithmetical quantity of life in
the world can be counted a gain only if the general tendencies of life
are in the right direction. If they are in the wrong direction, then the
more lives there are to yield to these tendencies the less reason has
the moralist to be satisfied with what is happening. No one, so far as I
know, has ever seriously maintained that the end and aim of progress is
to increase the number of human beings up to the limit which the planet
is able to support; though some doctrines if pressed to their conclusion
would lead to that, notably the doctrine that all morality rests
ultimately on the instinct for the preservation and the reproduction of
life. We have first to be convinced that the human race is not on the
wrong road before we can look with complacency on the increase of its
numbers. We may note in this connexion that mankind possesses no sort of
collective control over its own mass or volume. The mass or total number
of lives involved is determined by forces which are not subject to the
unitary direction of any existing human will either individual or
collective. This applies not only to the human race as a whole, but to
particular communities. Their growth is unregulated. They just come to
be what they are in point of size. This fact seems to me a very
important one to bear in mind when we talk of the progress of science
giving us control over the forces of nature. So far no state, no
government, no community has won any effective control over that group
of the forces of nature which determine the total size of the community
in question. It is an aspect of human destiny which appears to be left
to chance; and yet when we consider what it means, is there any aspect
of human destiny on which such tremendous consequences depend? And ought
we not to consider this before claiming, as we so often claim, that the
progress of science has given us control of the forces of nature? It is
strange that this point has not been more considered, especially by
thinkers who are fond of the word 'humanity'--'the good of humanity'--or
the 'greatest happiness of the greatest number'. Humanity has an
arithmetical or quantitative side, and the good of humanity surely
depends, to some extent, on how much humanity there is. I can imagine
many things which might be good for a Greek city stat