Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 



Such modification as this is very different from 

 the " survival of the fittest " of the Darwinian 

 evolution theory. We may fairly suppose that 

 both kinds of modification take place ; but the 

 latter is a sort of easy success won by an external 

 accident of birth — a success of the kind that would 

 readily be lost again ; while the former is the uphill 

 fight of a nature that has grown inwardly and 

 wins expression for itself in spite of external obstacles 

 — an expression which therefore is likely to be 

 permanent. If the progenitors of man took to 

 going upright on tv/o legs instead of on all fours, 

 merely because a few of them by chance were 

 born with a talent for that position, which enabled 

 them to escape the fanged and pursuing beasts, 

 then when this danger was removed they might 

 have plumped down again into the old attitude ; 

 but if the change was part and parcel of a true 

 evolution, the fulfilment of a positive desire for 

 the upright position, a true unfolding of a higher 

 form latent within — an organic growth of the 

 creature itself, then, though the moment of the 

 evolution of this particular faculty might be deter- 

 mined by the fanged beasts, the fact of such evolu- 

 tion could not be determined by them. Besides, 

 are we to suppose that Man, the lord and ruler 

 of the animals, came merely by way of escape 

 from the animals } Do lords and rulers generally 

 come so ? Was it fear that made him a man .'' 

 Were it not likelier that in that case he would 

 have turned into a worm } He would have escaped 

 better perhaps that way. Is it not rather probable 



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