5 



Plant and Animal 



Progression 



At this point, I must make my position as clear as possible. 

 I have already stated that there is progress in evolution, that 

 nature is seeking awareness and intelligence as well as mere 

 survival. This is an assumption of purpose in evolution and 

 is bound to be challenged by biologists who fail to find any 

 purpose in the process and even very little progress. I have 

 tried at the very beginning of this book to anticipate this 

 objection which is certain to occur to the serious student of 

 evolution. Progress and purpose are not easily read into the 

 evolutionary record, as was pointed out in Chapter 1. On 

 the contrary, it is difficult to shake off the impression that 

 evolution goes out of its way to be unnecessarily wasteful, 

 brutal, and chaotic. 



Nevertheless, in this and the following chapters, I shall 

 try to draw from the factual knowledge of the sciences of 

 life evidence for the assumption of purpose in evolution— 

 nonanthropomorphic purpose as an innate characteristic of 

 the mind in matter-energy substance. It is purpose in that 

 organisms seek objective knowledge of the habitat in which 

 they live through the development of ever more efficient 

 sense organs and better brains to interpret the sensory im- 

 pressions. It is purpose in that life is not simply a blind 

 vegetative complex of chemistry, but a natural psychical 

 quality or force striving with every device it can possibly 



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