PROGRESS, BIOLOGICAL AND OTHER 13 



to investigate the question of progress on the con- 

 structive side, and how to neutralize the force of the 

 objections to the idea. 



Questions of fact are simple to deal with. It is 

 indubitable that some forms of life remain stationary 

 and unevolving for secular periods; it is equally in- 

 dubitable that degeneration is widespread in evolu- 

 tion. These are facts. But we are not therefore 

 called upon to deny the possibility of progress. To 

 do so would be to fall into the error of reasoning 

 which we have already condemned. It remains for 

 us to take these facts into account when examining 

 the totality of facts concerning organic life, and to 

 see whether, in spite of them, we cannot discover a 

 series of other facts, a movement in phenomena, 

 which may still legitimately be called progress. To 

 deny progress because of degeneration is really no 

 more legitimate than to assert that, because each 

 wave runs back after it has broken, therefore the tide 

 can never rise. 



Similarly with the first two objections. If the 

 degree of adaptation has not increased during evolu- 

 tion, then it is clear that progress does not consist in 

 increase in adaptation. But it does not follow that 

 progress does not exist; it may quite well consist in 

 an increase of other qualities. So with complexity. 

 Complexity has increased, but increase in complexity 

 is not progress, say the objectors. Granted: but 

 may there not be something else which has increased 

 besides mere complexity? 



