44 GRAND STRATEGY OF EVOLUTION 



as well as the initial motive power in nature, or the very 

 thing which everybody wants to know about, is never 

 found. It always escapes us, or is always concealed in 

 insoluble residues. 



If we now turn our attention in the opposite direc- 

 tion and try to follow up the creative processes of 

 nature farther and farther into the future, we seem to 

 reach quite a different conclusion. In place of the con- 

 tradictions and the sense of mental impotence involved 

 in our concept of a creation beginning in universal con- 

 flict, in minuteness, vastness, sameness, and emptiness, 

 we reach the concept of creative fulness and variety, of 

 infinite organization and unified cooperative power, 

 where the imagination may rest with some sense of 

 security and familiarity. In other words, we picture 

 to ourselves a nature which approaches nearer and 

 nearer to a final condition where all her separate indi- 

 vidualities merge into one stable, organic whole. 



This concept of a creative drift from the futile con- 

 flict of chaos toward a more stable structural organi- 

 zation and unity is the central idea of evolution, and 

 the general recognition of this phenomenon is the dis- 

 tinguishing characteristic of the scientific and intellec- 

 tual thought of modern times. 



This idea of evolution carries with it the corollary 

 that nature herself develops, or "grows up," or pro- 

 gresses, in much the same way as do all her constituent 

 individualities, such as the sun, a human embryo, or a 

 social institution. 



