PLANT AND ANIMAL PROGRESSION 45 



invent to gain knowledge and understanding. And, is not 

 this what man does in all his disciplines of science? 



An effort has been made to stress the point that the ex- 

 pression of the mind in matter-energy potential depends on 

 an ever increasing complex. Nature has no way to drive 

 directly toward realization. Each advance, it should be 

 made clear, is more difficult and more unlikely than the last. 

 In most situations in the universe, realization seems to be 

 impossible, or only low-level expression is permitted. In 

 some favored situations, as on our earth, high levels may ap- 

 pear; but even here increasing restrictions may block the 

 purposefulness of the process. And in all situations, the con- 

 figurations necessary for high expression are finite in time 

 and pass away. 



It is with man's entry on the scene that a consciousness of 

 the whole process of evolution may bring the highest con- 

 figuration into existence. Indeed, it must be some situation 

 such as man and his society presents that will permit the 

 nearest approach possible. Even if purpose were not innate 

 in the evolutionary process, an organism such as man with 

 the capacity for long-range planning could introduce a 

 purposeful direction. This is the only way, it would seem, 

 in which nature can produce high levels of understanding; 

 that is, by evolving a suitable body and brain and social 

 organization— a society of mutually helpful, intelligent be- 

 ings without fear or prejudice and willing to accept all 

 facets of nature as their methods of understanding reveal 

 them. This human configuration will be examined more 

 fully later; for the present, general and specific examples of 

 progress in evolution are of interest. 



Many, if not most, of the changes which have occurred 

 in evolution could hardly be called progress, some being 

 actually retrogression and degeneracy. Parasites which have 

 abandoned the free hfe in favor of security and easy food 

 in some animal's intestinal tract undergo evolutionary re- 

 versal, losing brain and even muscular structure. Only the 



