X PREFACE 



He sees further that the most remarkable single 

 feature in that progress has been the evolution of 

 self-consciousness in the development of man. That 

 has made possible not only innumerable single 

 changes, but a change in the very method of change 

 itself; for it substituted the possibility of conscious 

 control of evolution for the previous mechanism of 

 the blind chances of variation aided by the equally 

 blind sifting process of natural selection, a mecha- 

 nism in which consciousness had no part. 



Most of mankind, now as in the past, close their 

 eyes to this possibility. They seek to put off their 

 responsibility on to the shoulders of various abstrac- 

 tions which they think can bear their burden well 

 enough if only they are spelt with a capital letter: 

 — Fate — God — Nature — Law — Eternal Justice — and 

 such like. Men are educated to be self-reliant and 

 enterprising in the details of life, but dependent, unre- 

 flective, laissez-faire about life itself. The idea that 

 the basis of living could be really and radically al- 

 tered is outside most people's orbit; and if it is forced 

 upon their notice, they as often as not find it in some 

 way immoral. 



Closely connected with this, in a sense its corollary, 

 we have the fact that ninety-nine people out of a 

 hundred are concerned with getting a living rather 

 than with living, and that if for any reason they are 

 liberated from this necessity, they generally have not 

 the remotest idea how to employ their time with 



