3 14 GRAND STRATEGY OF EVOLUTION 



diverted by local events into minor currents and eddies, 

 neither its underlying power, nor its methods, nor its 

 forward drift, as a whole, are thereby sensibly changed, 

 or evaded. 



The dawning consciousness that all these minor 

 constructive processes of nature are but different 

 phases of one universal creative process is pregnant 

 with all that man may hope to realize; for the revela- 

 tion of nature's basic strategy, of the enduring unity 

 and similarity of her creative methods is what gives 

 man his peculiar powers of retrospection and proph- 

 ecy, his constructive influence over nature, and over 

 himself. 



His discovery of nature's way of destroying, cre- 

 ating, and preserving her products, thereby, in some 

 degree endows him with her own constructive right- 

 ness, and to some extent with her own creative power. 

 For an intelligent act is one wherein, for his own profit, 

 man seeks merely to guide nature's existing agents into 

 their own ways of cooperation. There is no measure 

 of its increase in value save the increase of constructive 

 returns. 



Man has no creative power of his own save right- 

 ness; none save the will to direct and short-circuit na- 

 ture-processes, till a more constructive way is found. 

 When that is rightly done, things make and preserve 

 themselves. But man, more than any other animal, 

 knows how things may, and may not, be done. Therein 

 lies his distinguishing attribute; in the use of it, his 

 happiness. Therein is he dedicated to a service be- 

 yond himself, moved by that missionary instinct of 

 super-service which animates all discoverers and giv- 

 ers of profits. 



