Wider Teleology 181 



sudden fiat has Animate Nature come to be as it is, 

 but by a long-drawn-out proving or testing and hold- 

 ing fast that which is good. 



(II) We discern progressiveness in the long his- 

 tory — a movement towards greater integration and 

 differentiation, towards a fuller and freer life, 

 towards more dominance of mind. There are trends in 

 Organic Evolution which are in the direction of man's 

 highest ideals — truth-seeking, beauty, and goodwill. 

 No doubt there are strange blind alleys — e.g., in 

 Sponges and some Corals — with an extraordinary 

 exuberance of sheer complexity and yet without any 

 great advance; no doubt there are what might be 

 called eddies and retrogressions, simplifications and 

 even degeneracies; but on the whole Life has ad- 

 vanced and evolution has been integrative. That is 

 its main trend, and its momentum is behind us, intrin- 

 sic to our nature and in some measure dynamic in our 

 social heritage. 



(III) One idea must be given up — that of the 

 "Divine Artificer" of the "Special Creation" the- 

 ology. In scientific honesty we are bound to leave 

 behind us Paley's idea that these beautiful fitnesses 

 are the direct outcome of Divine skill. But when we 

 surrender an old idea because we know it cannot be 

 true, we get something in return, not always in the 

 individual lifetime, but eventually. And in exchange 

 for Paley's argument from Design we get a wider 

 Teleology. The Institution of the Order of Nature 

 was such that living creatures when they emerged 

 were able to evolve in ever-improving adaptedness, 



