Mental Evolution 443 



biological point of view, however, fitness must always be 

 relative, and always changing. The factors with regard to 

 which a living being is adapted are in flux with relation to 

 one another. No matter how long evolutionary changes 

 continue, there must always remain maladjustments and dis- 

 harmonies and imperfections. Indeed, new ones must also 

 constantly arise, even where there are improvements and 

 gains. Man's erect posture, for example, brings new strains 

 upon the mesentaries of the abdomen, along with the ad- 

 vantage of freed hands and a forward look. Life itself is a 

 manifold process of adjustment. When adjustment is com- 

 plete — that is, completed — life ceases. Both from the gen- 

 eral evolutionary point of view and from the stricter biologi- 

 cal point of view, perfection in the abstract sense is inherently 

 contradictory. 



Whatever spiritual value may be derived from the con- 

 cept of perfection is equally available — or offensive — to 

 the evolutionist and to the creationist. That is to say, the 

 contradiction between fact and theory needs to be explained 

 whichever view one takes. It is just as logical to reject a 

 personal God because there is so much misery in the world, 

 which the creator either willed or permitted, as to reject the 

 evolutionary view because we fail to see how it will make 

 for perfection or for idealism. Perhaps one's choice between 

 a finished world and a world in the making is again a matter 

 of temperament. 



Mental Evoke t ion 



The presentation of Darwin's theory of natural selection 

 in support of the general theory of organic evolution made 

 the latter so plausible that there were immediate attempts to 

 stretch it far beyond Darwin's original intentions. This ex- 

 tension included of course the question of mental evolution, 

 which was implicit in the doctrine of descent when applied 

 to man. Man is obviously different from other animals, even 

 from those assumed, according to the doctrine, to be closest to 



