8 evolution: the ages and tomorrow 



failed so often and so miserably. Looked at in its details, 

 * 'nature is seldom mild." The over-all waste is staggering to 

 the imagination of frugal man. Hideous parasites and loath- 

 some diseases, insect larvae which devour living prey ever 

 so slowly from the inside, female spiders that enjoy eating 

 their mates in the very act of reproducing new life, brainless 

 degenerate forms, the basic "dog eat dog" of the animal 

 world, "man's inhumanity to man," and economic cannibal- 

 ism are all a part of a nightmare which is not easily shaken 

 off on the morning one sets out to assign purpose to evolu- 

 tion. 



Nevertheless, it is my strong conviction— call it a philo- 

 sophical faith, if you wish— that very definitely there is 

 purpose in the universe. I shall try to show in this book that 

 awareness and intelligence, as well as mere survival, are the 

 ends that evolution is pursuing. Indeed, the psychical qual- 

 ity that Bruno thought existed as one with every particle of 

 the universe is seeking consciousness through evolution. I 

 understand purpose as nonanthropomorphic. I see purpose 

 as an innate characteristic of mind in matter-energy sub- 

 stance, as much a descriptive item as any other that an analy- 

 sis of the nature of the space-time continuum may reveal. 

 I see purpose realized only if and when increasingly critical 

 configurations evolve; and I see an eternal striving toward 

 the realization of these configurations. In the evolution of 

 conscious understanding, nature must blindly seek all pos- 

 sible situations, await the synthesis of endlessly complex in- 

 gredients, suffer failure more often than success, and, per- 

 haps, eternally fall short of the ultimate. 



To assign such characteristics to the mind in matter- 

 energy substance is no more strange than to say that the 

 carbon atom is of a certain nature and is capable of forming 

 exceedingly complex substances when and if the proper 

 conditions arise. This is not to assume that the carbon atom 

 must be directed by individual divine guidance; and yet we 

 are assigning purpose to this atom when we review its be- 



