Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 



Such modification as this is very different from 

 the " survival of the fittest " of the Darwinian 

 evolution theory. We may fairly suppose that 

 both kinds of modification take place ; but the 

 latter is a sort of easy success won by an external 

 accident of birth a success of the kind that would 

 readily be lost again ; while the former is the uphill 

 fight of a nature that has grown inwardly and 

 wins expression for itself in spite of external obstacles 

 an expression which therefore is likely to be 

 permanent. If the progenitors of man took to 

 going upright on two legs instead of on all fours, 

 merely because a few of them by chance were 

 born with a talent for that position, which enabled 

 them to escape the fanged and pursuing beasts, 

 then when this danger was removed they might 

 have plumped down again into the old attitude ; 

 but if the change was part and parcel of a true 

 evolution, the fulfilment of a positive desire for 

 the upright position, a true unfolding of a higher 

 form latent within an organic growth of the 

 creature itself, then, though the moment of the 

 evolution of this particular faculty might be deter- 

 mined by the fanged beasts, the fact of such evolu- 

 tion could not be determined by them. Besides, 

 are we to suppose that Man, the lord and ruler 

 of the animals, came merely by way of escape 

 from the animals ? Do lords and rulers generally 

 come so ? Was it fear that made him a man ? 

 Were it not likelier that in that case he would 

 have turned into a worm ? He would have escaped 

 better perhaps that way. Is it not rather probable 



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