From the Unconscious to the Conscious 



2. THE OBJECTION BASED ON THE EVIDENT GROPINGS 



AND ERRORS IN EVOLUTION 



An evolution proceeding on a Divine plan or 

 constantly governed by a sovereign and perfect Provi- 

 dence, cannot involve gropings or errors. But these 

 gropings and errors are innumerable. They are not 

 the exception, they seem almost the rule. 



Thousands and thousands of species have disappeared 

 in the course of the ages. In these evolutionary forms 

 there has been what looks like reckless squandering of 

 vital force and energy. 



Everything in evolution shows a creative force that 

 is not sure of itself; which produces to excess in order 

 to reach concrete results in selected forms. 



These gropings are very clear in the lower phases of 

 evolution. Germs of species, as of individuals, are 

 produced by thousands ; a small number only succeed 

 in growing at all; among these privileged ones only a 

 few reach the adult state. 



How can we attribute to a divine plan a wastage 

 which appears useless and inexplicable ? 



Everything happens, in fact, as if there were no 

 appreciable plan. De Vries has shown that among 

 vegetable species mutations arise quite independently 

 of the vital factors; suddenly, anarchically, and in 

 different directions, without reference to the utility of 

 this or that new character. Selection then operates. 

 The classical factors come into play to repress or to 

 develop the characters that have appeared, causing the 

 survival or the disappearance of the new species. But 

 the interior creative impulse, in plants and no doubt 

 in inferior animals also, is a blind impulse, a kind of 

 incoherent and disorderly explosion. 



In the higher animals, even if the impulse is less 

 blind, if it corresponds with a need, or with something 



146 



