PATTERNS FOR LIVING TOGETHER 125 



The genes that condition human characteristics are being more 

 uniformly and evenly distributed over the whole of mankind. 

 Perhaps we may all be something like happy little termites yet. 

 But on the whole it seems unlikely that the process will ever 

 continue to an end point involving such colossal biological altera- 

 tions as would be necessary to change our pattern of sociality com- 

 pletely over to the termite pattern. 



The other evolutionary trend that may be envisaged demands 

 no such fundamental biological reconstruction. It contemplates 

 instead only the continued and more intelligent development 

 and application of the social process itself. We have seen in an 

 earlier lecture that ever since his emergence as a distinct form 

 man has steadily progressed in devising new and always easier 

 ways of getting his living. This has come about through ever in- 

 creasing control and utilization of natural resources, dependent 

 in turn upon the steady advance of scientific knowledge. It 

 seems probable that if scientific knowledge and discovery con- 

 tinue to advance, and there is no presently discernible reason 

 why they should not, the consequences in increased aggregate 

 ease of getting mankind's collective living that have followed 

 in the past will continue to follow in the future. In other words 

 there would appear to be no indication now of even a beginning 

 of the operation of the principle of diminishing returns in the 

 sphere of the application to useful ends of scientific discovery and 

 developments. If science does continue to advance and extend 

 man's power to utilize natural resources and forces, the inevitable 

 consequence will be a general condition of progressive plenty. 

 Many thoughtful persons are of the opinion that we are at this 

 moment definitely and measurably already in that condition, 

 and certainly a rather convincing case can be made that this is at 

 least partially so. But granting for the sake of the argument that 

 we are in fact already in an age of plenty, it is evident that there 

 is the widest diversity of opinion as to how the maximum of 

 social benefit is to be derived from that situation. Scientific 

 men, who themselves constitute the group responsible for the 

 condition of plenty in so far as it exists, are no more homo- 



