president's address. 843 



characterised, it is no longer "cosmic," but "ethical," conceived as. 

 directly antagonistic to the former. 



I have criticised these views at length because I think it is 

 plain that the source of the confusion is that arbitrary identifica- 

 tion of organic " cosmic " process with the process of Natural 

 Selection on a basis of struggle with elimination of the unfit. 

 Now, Mr. Huxley's proclamation that this principle does not 

 prevail in an unmodified form in human society ; and even that, 

 to a large extent, the progress of human society does not depend 

 upon the struggle for existence, is tantamount to a declaration 

 that Natural Selection is not the sole and only factor in the move- 

 ment of the cosmic process. For it is strictly inevitable that we 

 should take the latter in the full and only legitimate sense as 

 embracing the entire conditions of the ethical process as fully as 

 it does the necessities, organic or other, which direct and control 

 either bee society or planetary movements. 



I am not here concerned to inquire whether or how far human 

 progress as a manifestation of " ethical process " is characterised 

 by such a suppression of the struggle for existence as has been 

 insisted on. Whether there is substituted for it, in the later 

 phases of human evolution, a struggle for the means of enjoy- 

 ment, as Mr. Huxley held, or a struggle for existence, with 

 survival of the fittest, not of individuals, but of ideals of action,, 

 as Mr. Ritchie believes, is also a matter which may be left 

 undiscussed. 



But the admission that the mere extension of the Darwinian 

 theory of natural selection is not fitted to account for the evolu- 

 tion of human society and institutions, at least in the later phases of 

 that process, is one which, as coming from Mr. Huxley's maturer 

 thought, cannot be lightly passed over. 



The fact is that when we reach the higher planes of " cosmic 

 process," including in this term the " ethical " element with which 

 Mr. Huxley can only be said to juggle, we find, — not indeed a 

 reason to deny the applicability of the methods of explanation 

 which have proved useful in dealing with simpler phenomena — 

 but that these are no longer to be recognised as capable of satis- 



