96 ETHICAL ASPECTS OF EVOLUTION 



What history makes us acquainted with is a continuous 

 process with no intelligible end but either the protraction 

 of divergent lines to infinity, or progression along parallel 

 lines, or convergence towards the point at which the process 

 started. 



While we keep in mind the inconclusive character of all 

 such forecasts, we may, nevertheless, attempt to estimate 

 the chances of each of these three processes in the future. 

 First, it seems reasonably certain that there will be change. 

 The whole facts of a remote future are not likely to be the 

 same as those of to-day ; and, inasmuch as we are unac 

 quainted with any instances of absolute stability in races 

 which are superior to the first beginnings of life, even if 

 there, this expectation is as nearly certain as any can be. 

 The prospects of stationary evolution need not detain us. 

 The whole of our interests as men are centred on the ques 

 tion as to whether we are to make further progress in the 

 scale of evolution, or recede from the position we have 

 already gained ; and on this, to us, all-important point, we 

 have no safe ground for prediction. Science has taken no 

 census of cases of specific degeneration, but it is certain 

 that the process is exceedingly common, and it is possible 

 that it becomes more common as the organism becomes 

 more complex. The forces on each side appear to be about 

 evenly balanced. Whatever, then, our hopes may be, 

 we are unable to expect with confidence the triumph of 

 either process. But from an ethical point of view, the main 

 interest lies, not in what events may take place in the future, 

 but, rather, in the attitude which is taken by our feelings 

 towards each of those processes in the present. A clear 

 indication that our sympathies are with forward evolution 

 is that the opposite process is hardly ever even attended 

 to when evolution as a whole is under discussion. 



Within the limits of a short essay it is impossible to discuss 

 all the other final ends which have been suggested ; but a few 

 words may be devoted to one of them. We are sometimes 

 told that the final end of all action is self-preservation, in 

 concurrence with preservation of the species. To this there 



