PROGRESS 57 



in animal evolution. But they do not show that 

 some sort of progress may not have occurred — not 

 necessarily the kind of progress that some of us w^ould 

 like, not necessarily as rapid as could be desired, but 

 yet indubitably and solidly Progress. We have seen 

 that in the hundreds of thousands of species which 

 constitute life, that which has been increased most 

 obviously is the upper level of certain qualities — prim- 

 itive forms have persisted, degenerate forms have 

 arisen side by side with and in spite of the steady 

 improvement in the highest types. This has happened 

 in man also. 



The upper level of control and of independence in 

 human group-units, and in a certain number of 

 fortunate individuals, has obviously increased ; but 

 there are the slums, there are the drab lives of thousands 

 in great cities, there are poverty, degeneracy, and 

 crime. All that we can say is that to many at least 

 it seems theoretically possible that man should be 

 able to reduce the amount of degeneration, waste, and 

 pain, to increase the changes to be summed up as 

 progressive. 



The future Golden Age of Millenniarism is as 

 impossible a notion as the past Golden Age of Myth- 

 ology, and more demoralizing. Bury, with pardon- 

 able sarcasm, refers to it as 'a menagerie of happy 

 men ... in which the dynamic character of history 

 disappears.' But, once we have accepted (as the great 

 majority accept) life as somehow worth living, the 



