PROGRESS 13 



question of progress on the constructive side, and how 

 to neutralize the force of the objections to the idea. 



Questions of feet are simple to deal with. It is 

 indubitable that some forms of life remain stationary 

 and unevolving for secular periods ; it is equally 

 indubitable 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 ? 



