43 6 READINGS IN BIOLOGICAL SCIENCE 



EVOLUTION OF PERSONALITY 



To assert that man is the highest product of evolution to date is a state- 

 ment of simple biological fact. There are, however, some other points con- 

 cerning man's position relative to evolutionary progress that are less 

 obvious. First is the curious fact that the human species is now the sole re- 

 pository of any possible future progress for life. When multicellular ani- 

 mals first appeared, they all had reached a new level of progress: later, some 

 cut themselves off from further advance by entering on blind alleys, such 

 as the fixed, vegetative existence of the polyps and corals or the headless- 

 ness and radial symmetry of the starfish and other echinoderms. The process 

 of restriction has now gone so far that all future progress hangs on human 

 germ plasm. It is a biological impossibility for any other line of life to 

 progress into a new dominant type — not the ant, the rat, nor the ape. 



Second, with the evolution of man, the character of progress becomes 

 altered. With human consciousness, values and ideals appeared on earth 

 for the first time. The criteria of further progress must include the degree 

 to which those ideal values are satisfied. The quest for truth and knowl- 

 edge, virtue, beauty and aesthetic expression, and its satisfaction through 

 the channels of science and philosophy, mysticism and morality, literature 

 and the arts, becomes one of the modes or avenues of evolutionary progress. 



It is also important to note that biological progress demands no special 

 agency. In other words, it does not require the intervention of a conscious 

 Divine purpose, nor the operation of some mysterious life force or ela7i 

 vital: like most other facts of evolution, it is the automatic result of the 

 blind forces of reproduction, variation, and differential survival. Newton's 

 great generahzation of gravitational attraction made it possible and indeed 

 necessary to dispense with the idea of God guiding the stars in their courses; 

 Darwin's equally great generalization of natural selection made it possible 

 and necessary to dispense with the idea of God guiding the evolutionary 

 courses of life. Finally the generalizations of modern psychology and com- 

 parative religion make it possible, and necessary, to dispense with the idea 

 of God guiding the evolutionary courses of the human species, through 

 inspiration or other form of supernatural direction. 



REPRESSION IS NORMAL 



A corollary of the facts of evolutionary progress is that man must not 

 attempt to put off any of his burden of responsibility onto the shoulders 

 of outside powers, whether these be conceived as magic or necessity, as 

 life force or as God. Man stands alone as the agent of his fate and the trustee 

 of progress for life. To accept his responsibility consciously is itself an im- 

 portant step toward more rapid progress. Here is a field where a philosophy 

 based on the scientific outlook is of the utmost practical importance. 



But the problem that most perplexes our present age remains the ques- 



