PROGRESS 59 



There remains for me only one task — to investigate 

 more closely the relation of that fact of evolutionary 

 direction which we have called biological progress, 

 to our ideas of value. What we have found is that 

 there exists a certain general direction of movement 

 in the evolution of living things ; towards the increase 

 of certain of their properties. But when we make a 

 further analysis, we find that movement in this direc- 

 tion is movement towards a realization of the things 

 judged by the human mind to have value. It is move- 

 ment towards an increase of power, of knowledge, of 

 purpose, of emotion, of harmony, of independence. 

 Increases in these faculties combine, once a certain 

 stage in mental development is reached, to mean the 

 embracing of ever larger syntheses by the organism 

 possessing them — practical syntheses, as in business, 

 or exploration, or administration ; intellectual, as in 

 philosophy or in the establishment of scientific laws ; 

 emotional, as in love or in the passion for nature ; 

 artistic, as in a symphony or great drama. These 

 capabilities are greater in man than in the higher 

 animals, in the higher animals than in the lower, 

 more and more windows being closed and powers 

 pruned away as we descend the scale. 



It is immaterial whether the human mind comes 

 to have these values because they make for progress 

 in evolution, or whether things which make for 

 evolutionary progress become significant because they 

 happen to be considered as valuable by human mind, 



