PROGRESS, BIOLOGICAL AND OTHER 39 



fundamental fact of Natural Selection, but also the 

 almost neglected fact that a certain fraction of the 

 guiding force of Natural Selection will inevitably be 

 pushing organisms into changes that are progressive. 



This will of course be true only so far as the gen- 

 eral conditions of the environment remain within 

 certain limits: it is probable that too great reduc- 

 tions of temperature or moisture on the surface of 

 the earth would lead to a gradual reversal of progress 

 before the final extinction of life. Up to the present, 

 however, it is clear that such conditions have not oc- 

 curred, or, possibly, have occurred only for short 

 periods. The general state has been one in which 

 steady, slow progress has been achieved. Progress, 

 like adaptation, is in pre-human evolution almost 

 entirely the resultant of blind chance and blind 

 necessity. 



What corollaries and conclusions may be drawn 

 from the establishment of the fact of biological prog- 

 ress? In the first place, it permits us to treat hu- 

 man progress as a special case of a more general 

 process. Biologically speaking, the human species is 

 young — not perhaps still in infancy, but certainly not 

 yet attained to any stable maturity. The concep- 

 tion, common enough in much traditional thought, 

 that man as a species is old, far removed from all 

 pristine vigour and power, is demonstrably untrue. 

 The genus Homo has not yet adapted itself to the 

 new conditions and the new possibilities arising out 

 of the acquisition of reason and tradition. Its his- 



