4 EVOLUTION AND ETHICS I 



back, it is not because there is any reason to think 

 we have reached the beginning, but because the 

 trail of the most ancient life remains hidden, or 

 has become obliterated. 



Thus that state of nature of the world of plants, 

 which we began by considering, is far from possess 

 ing the attribute of permanence. Rather its very 

 essence is impermanence. It may have lasted 

 twenty or thirty thousand years, it may last for 

 twenty or thirty thousand years more, without 

 obvious change ; but, as surely as it has followed 

 upon a very different state, so it will be followed 

 by an equally different condition. That which 

 endures is not one or another association of living 

 forms, but the process of which the cosmos is the 

 product, and of which these are among the transi 

 tory expressions. And in the living world, one of 

 the most characteristic features of this cosmic pro 

 cess is the struggle for existence, the competition 

 of each with all, the result of which is the selection, 

 that is to say, the survival of those forms which, 

 on the whole, are best adapted to the conditions 

 which at any period obtain ; and which are, there 

 fore, in that respect, and only in that respect, the 

 fittest. 1 The acme reached by the cosmic process 



1 That every theory of evolution must be consistent not 

 merely with progressive development, but with indefinite 

 persistence in the same condition and with retrogressive modifi 

 cation, is a point which I have insisted upon repeatedly from 

 the year 1862 till now. See Collected Essays, vol. ii. pp. 461-89 ; 

 rol. iii. p. 33 ; voL viii. p. 304. In the address on "Geological 



