EV(),LUTI()N AND MANKIND. 305 



Straining after individual personal success, regardless o-f what- 

 ever stands in the way of its achievement. There must, of neces- 

 sity, be some order and government. All cannot rule, and in a 

 multitude of counsels there is confusion. In any reasonable 

 s<:)ciety, based on evolutionary principles, reverence and respect 

 for those able to think clearly, balance and weigh evidence accura- 

 tely, and follow out cause and effect, must be inculcated. The 

 expert will then be given his rightftil place. 



Modern democracy must invoke the aid of biological scien- 

 tists, and thereby gain an insight into the fundamental laws of 

 Nature, as applied to living organisms. Rules of government or 

 of conduct founded on other than the laws of Nature are fore- 

 doomed to failtire, and no superficially-attractive hypothesis 

 founded on or swayed by emotional desires merely, can ever 

 really succeed or last for long. 



These fundamental facts of biology are in no way contra- 

 dictory of ethical ideals ; rather are they the scientific, codifierl 

 expression of ideas that are often only vague, elusive and ill- 

 <Iefined. Idealism is but the perfected expression of the laws of 

 the Universe, as they are now and as they will be throughout 

 time. 



Weismann, in 1909, expressed his views on the ethical bear- 

 ings of evolution as follows : 



The human race will never consist of entirely unselfisli saints: but 

 T believe that the number of those who act on the basis of a purer and 

 higher humanity, and in whom the care for the whole race overshadows 

 that of self, will increase as time goes on, as we know it has done in the 

 past, and has led to higher forms of religion and to higlier ethical 

 conceptions. . . The theory of evolution has often been perverted 



so as to indicate that what is merely animal and brutal must gain the 

 ascendancy. The contrary seems to me to be the case, for in man it is the 

 spirit, and not the body, which is the deciding factor." 



Following Geddes and Thomson, it may well be stated: 

 " To-morrow we shall realise that more of free and creative art 

 ii^ needed to redeem industry from its nlammonism and its drud- 

 gery, as science from formalism and cram ; thereaifter, with the 

 imison of all three will come education indeed : artistic, scientific 

 and practical each calling out the others to fuller ex- 

 pression and development.'' 



Finallv, in the words of the great essayist, Emerson : 



Everything in Nature is engaged in writing its own history : the 

 planet and the pebble are attended by their shadows, the rolling rock leaves 

 its furrows on the mountain side, the river its channel in the soil, the 

 animal its bones in the stratum, the fern and the leaf inscril)e their modest 

 epitaphs on the coal, the falling drop sculptures its story on the sand and 

 on the stone ; not a footstep on the snow or on the ground but traces in 

 characters more or less enduring the record of its progress. 



It is for Man to ensure that his epitaph be not less enduring than 

 theirs. 



