Civilisation ; Its Cause and Cure 



the influences that give form and detail to the 

 great primal impulse of growth from within ; 

 while the creature's own ingenuity and good luck 

 would occupy the ground between the two — as 

 the means whereby the external conditions in 

 each individual case would be turned to account 

 to satisfy the inner needs, or the inner life would 

 be accommodated to the external conditions. 



If we take the external view of Variation — which 

 is the one most favoured by modern science — 

 modification or race-growth appears as an uncon- 

 scious or accretive process, similar to the forma- 

 tion of a coral reef. There is no line of growth 

 native in the race itself, but at any moment it 

 is supposed to have an equal tendency to vary 

 in any direction. Surrounding conditions act 

 selectively ; and by a process of weeding out 

 certain types survive ; small successive modi- 

 fications are thus accumulated ; and gradually 

 and in the lapse of ages a more pliable and differ- 

 entiated creature, and more adaptable to a variety 

 of conditions, is produced — in whom however 

 mind is incidental, and has played but small part 

 in the creature's evolution. This in the main 

 is the Darwinian-evolution theory. 



If we take the internal view, growth is from 

 the first eminently conscious. Every change 

 begins in the mental region — is felt first as a desire 

 gradually taking form into thought, passes down 

 into the bodily region, expresses itself in action 

 (more or less dependent on conditions), and 

 finally solidifies itself in organisation and structure. 



192 



