40 ESSAYS OF A BIOLOGIST 



attained to any stable maturity. The conception, 

 common enough in much traditional thought, that 

 man as a species is old, far removed from all pristine 

 vigour and power, is demonstrably untrue. The 

 genus Homo has not yet adapted itself to the new 

 conditions and the new possibilities arising out of the 

 acquisition of reason and tradition. Its history so 

 far is a record of experiment after experiment. From 

 a period so short and so empirical it is impossible to 

 deduce any general law of progress. In certain 

 respects, as we shall see more in detail later, there 

 has been advance ; in others, the species has been 

 stationary. But whether humanity in this or that 

 particular has progressed is for the moment com- 

 paratively immaterial. Humanity is part of life, a 

 product of life's movement ; and in life as a whole 

 there is progress.^ 



What is more, there was progress before man ever 

 appeared on the earth, and its reality would have been 

 in no way impaired even if he had never come into 

 being. His rise only continued, modified, and ac- 

 celerated a process that had been in operation since 

 the dawn of life. 



Here we find, in the intellectual sphere at least, 

 that assurance which men have been seeking from the 

 first. We see revealed, in the fact of evolutionary 

 progress, that the forces of nature conspire together 

 to produce results which have value in our eyes, that 



1 See Conklin, '22. 



