94 ETHICAL ASPECTS OF EVOLUTION 



fairly appraised, and the conclusion is governed by what 

 we like, rather than by what we may legitimately expect. 



It has been shown in the preceding chapters that the 

 consideration of evolution as a whole leads to a conclusion 

 which steers a middle course between the extremes of 

 optimism and pessimism, namely, that while all the factors 

 in experience, conscious or unconscious, have greatly in 

 creased, it cannot be shown that any of them have increased 

 at the expense of any of the others. Thus, pleasurable 

 experience has, no doubt, enormously increased, but not at 

 the expense of painful experience, which has likewise 

 increased, and probably in about the same proportion. 

 The same may be said of knowledge, and ignorance, and 

 still more obviously of moral good and evil. This view 

 corresponds with the result which is derived from a con 

 sideration of the facts of biology : that is to say that the pro 

 cess of evolution has not been an increase of adaptation 

 only, but a simultaneous increase both of adaptation and 

 misadaptation, our dangers increasing pari passu with our 

 immunities. 



The process, then, is not along parallel lines, but one of 

 divergence. Evolution along parallel lines would mean 

 that though the characters of the specific adaptations and 

 misadaptations varied, the sum total of each remained the 

 same. There would be change, but no quantitative diver 

 gence. Such a process would not come under the usual 

 conception of evolution, but it is quite conceivable, and may, 

 perhaps, be actually observed. The green caterpillar pro 

 bably stands on exactly the same level with regard to 

 a green surface as the brown caterpillar does with regard 

 to a brown surface. This might be described as stationary 

 evolution. In what we may call forward evolution, where 

 both adaptations and misadaptations increase, the result 

 is divergence. Both the totals are further removed from 

 zero, and are, therefore, further apart than they would be 

 at a lower level. There is a greater difference between 

 extreme happiness and extreme misery than there is between 

 pains and pleasures, which are barely perceptible. The 



