PROGRESS, BIOLOGICAL AND OTHER 59 



ment is reached, to mean the embracing of ever 

 larger syntheses by the organism possessing them — 

 practical syntheses, as in business, or exploration, or 

 administration; intellectual, as in philosophy or in 

 the establishment of scientific laws; emotional, as in 

 love or in the passion for nature; artistic, as in a 

 symphony or great drama. These capabilities are 

 greater in man than in the higher animals, in the 

 higher animals than in the lower, more and more 

 windows being closed and powers pruned away as 

 we descend the scale. 



It is immaterial whether the human mind comes 

 to have these values because they make for progress 

 in evolution, or whether things which make for evo- 

 lutionary progress become significant because they 

 happen to be considered as valuable by human mind, 

 for both are in their degree true. There is an inter- 

 relation which cannot be disentangled, for it is based 

 on the fundamental uniformity and unity of the 

 cosmos. What is important is that the human idea 

 of value finds its external counterpart in an actual 

 historical direction in phenomena, and that each be- 

 comes more important because of the relationship. 



Much of what I have written will appear obvious. 

 But if it has been obvious, it will be because I have 

 here attempted to focus attention on some of the 

 corollaries of a single fundamental truth — so obvious 

 that it often escapes notice, but so fundamental that 

 its results cannot but fail to obtrude themselves 



