BACK TO METHUSELAH A Metabiological Pentateuch by BERNARD SHAW 1921 Contents The Infidel Half Century The Dawn of Darwinism The Advent of the Neo-Darwinians Political Inadequacy of the Human Animal Cowardice of the Irreligious Is there any Hope in Education? Homeopathic Education The Diabolical Efficiency of Technical Education Flimsiness of Civilization Creative Evolution Voluntary Longevity The Early Evolutionists The Advent of the Neo-Lamarckians How Acquirements are Inherited The Miracle of Condensed Recapitulation Heredity an Old Story Discovery Anticipated by Divination Corrected Dates for the Discovery of Evolution Defying the Lightning: a Frustrated Experiment In Quest of the First Cause Paley's Watch The Irresistible Cry of Order, Order! The Moment and the Man The Brink of the Bottomless Pit Why Darwin Converted the Crowd How we Rushed Down a Steep Place Darwinism not Finally Refutable Three Blind Mice The Greatest of These is Self-Control A Sample of Lamarcko-Shavian Invective The Humanitarians and the Problem of Evil How One Touch of Darwin makes the Whole World Kin Why Darwin Pleased the Socialists Darwin and Karl Marx Why Darwin pleased the Profiteers also The Poetry and Purity of Materialism The Viceroys of the King of Kings Political Opportunism in Excelsis The Betrayal of Western Civilization Circumstantial Selection in Finance The Homeopathic Reaction against Darwinism Religion and Romance The Danger of Reaction A Touchstone for Dogma What to do with the Legends A Lesson from Science to the Churches The Religious Art of the Twentieth Century The Artist-Prophets Evolution in the Theatre My Own Part in the Matter In the Beginning: B.C. 4004 (In the Garden of Eden) The Gospel of the Brothers Barnabas: Present Day The Thing Happens: A.D. 2170 Tragedy of an Elderly Gentleman: A.D. 3000 As Far as Thought Can Reach: A.D. 31,920 PREFACE The Infidel Half Century THE DAWN OF DARWINISM One day early in the eighteen hundred and sixties, I, being then a small boy, was with my nurse, buying something in the shop of a petty newsagent, bookseller, and stationer in Camden Street, Dublin, when there entered an elderly man, weighty and solemn, who advanced to the counter, and said pompously, 'Have you the works of the celebrated Buffoon?'