90 The Universe and Life 



made ; life may rise to higher levels. Connected with 

 it, in ways not fully understood, progressive evolu- 

 tion takes place: such evolution as has brought man 

 from amoeba-like ancestors. 



As such evolutionary progress continues in the 

 future, life may go far beyond its present level. It 

 may become fuller, more differentiated, more ade- 

 quate to the world — in continuation of the progress 

 made in the past. But this progress depends upon 

 what is done by the organisms now in existence; for 

 man it depends upon what we do, upon the course of 

 action of the present generation. 



This gives a further criterion, the last, for what is 

 or is not to be done ; for values ; for right and wrong. 

 All value is based upon making life full and adequate. 

 To make life fuller and more adequate in the future, 

 to bring to actuality the potentialities of progressive 

 evolution, to help that it shall not take the course that 

 leads to destruction, to assist in so steering it that 

 life in later generations shall be better — ^this gives an 

 ideal for the future, an object toward which effort 

 may be consciously directed. Such effort is a con- 

 tinuation, in the same direction, of the efforts to make 

 full and adequate the life of the individual and the 

 life of his associates ; it is an effort to make still fuller 

 and more adequate the life of his successors. 



How is this to be accomplished? To answer this 

 question is a matter for detailed study into which it 

 is not the province of these lectures to enter. The pro- 

 motion of the future fulness and adequacy of life will 

 include the improvement of the conditions of life, in 



