8 THE RISE OF MAN. 



on the islands are swept by the winds into the ocean and 

 only the weak survive, those who are lacking in a special 

 virtue, not the bravest, not the strongest, not the best ! 



There are also periods in history when society is rad- 

 ically corrupt and the spirit of the time makes it actually 

 impossible for good men to exist and act morally. The 

 evil influences of tyranny, of corruption, or of hypocrisy 

 sweep the brave, the courageous, the honest, the thinking 

 out of existence and allow only the weak, the degenerate, 

 the unthinking to remain. It is true that whatever nation 

 falls under such a blight is doomed. Other nations will 

 take her place, and indeed there have been a number of 

 peoples entirely blotted out in such a way from the face 

 of the globe. We have retrogressive as well as progress- 

 ive adaptation, and in many cases adaptation is no sign 

 of progress either in the physical world, or the moral pro- 

 gress of human beings. The law of adaptation explains 

 survival, but not progress. 



Mr. Spencer defines progress as " a passage from a 

 homogeneous to a heterogeneous state ... It is a contin- 

 ually increasing disintegration of the whole mass accom- 

 panied by an integration, a differentiation, and a mutual, 

 perpetually-increasing dependence of parts as well as of 

 functions, and by a tendency to equilibrium in the func- 

 tions of the parts integrated." Complexity, he maintains 

 is a sign of a higher evolution, and it is true in many 

 respects higher forms of existence are richer, more elabo- 

 rate, more specialized, than lower forms. But is com- 

 plexity, therefore, the criterion of progress ? Can we use 

 it as a test whenever we are in doubt in a special case ? 

 Does it show us the nature of progress, its meaning and 

 importance ? 



It appears that Mr. Spencer's explanation is not even 

 generally true, for there are most weighty and serious 

 exceptions which entirely overthrow the validity of this 

 formula. Is not the progress in the invention of ma- 



