32 ETHICAL ASPECTS OF EVOLUTION 



derangement and to accidents from outside ; it requires 

 greater skill to keep in order, and is more frequently in want 

 of repairs. It is much more powerful, but certainly not 

 better adapted to its whole environment. 



It is quite clear that the sense in which the word improve 

 ment is understood by evolutionists is the first. The 

 more complete moving equilibrium, the better adjustment 

 of inner to outer relations, the more perfect co-ordination 

 of action, 1 which are to bring mankind nearer to the ultimate 

 end of eternal existence and universal knowledge, have their 

 analogue in the slow processes by which the carriage of the 

 wealthy was perfected from the country waggon. It is 

 a prospect which some men would welcome, but unfortu 

 nately nothing of the kind is to be observed in nature. The 

 improvement we observe there is of the second kind that 

 which makes the change from a barouche to a steam-carriage. 

 Whether the transition was by imperceptible degrees, or 

 sudden, as in the case of human inventions, is immaterial. 

 In either case man is not an improved monkey, with its 

 faults eliminated, and its virtues preserved, but a different 

 animal superior in the total amount of force it disposes 

 of, but with drawbacks and disabilities greatly increased, 

 both in degree, and in manner, and in variety. What 

 constitutes his advance in evolution is increased power ; 

 but that does not carry with it any improvement in his 

 chances of survival. Nevertheless, it is an improvement 

 in the strictest sense of the word. It is a change which 

 gives us the highest and most intense satisfaction of which 

 we are capable ; though, if adaptation be correlative to 

 pleasure, and misadaptation to pain (a proposition which 

 we need not stop to discuss), there is no clear balance of 

 adaptation, and consequently none of pleasure. The satis 

 faction arises from the increase of power itself, and is not 

 dependent on any supposed algedonic accompaniment. 



A further distinction is this. The first kind of improve 

 ment has a more or less definite ideal of perfection to 

 work up to. When a man improves a pistol, or a billiard- 

 1 H. Spencer, Biology, iii. 497. 



