376 THE CONCEPT OF EVOLUTION 



objectively verifiable features increasing differentiation and 

 integration in a word organisation. 



Three admissions must be made. (1) It is plain that evo- 

 lution may be down as well as up, and that the gates of para- 

 sitism and other facile slopes of degenerate life are always 

 open. The tapeworm in its inglorious ease is as much an out- 

 come of evolution as the lark at heaven's gate. It is a mis- 

 understanding to suppose that a result necessarily acquires 

 value, in any human sense, by being the outcome of evolution, 

 or that evolution is synonymous with progress. (2) There 

 are many corners where organisms seem to have run riot 

 in exuberant complication, often extraordinarily beautiful, 

 but without further significance so far as we have yet been 

 able to discern. We shall return to the interesting fact that 

 these instances of exuberance are sometimes in conditions 

 of life that are peculiarly secure, where the pruning knife 

 of Natural Selection is in abeyance. (3) Some of the most 

 remarkable achievements of evolution have passed away in 

 their prime without leaving direct descendants. It is prob- 

 able, however, as we shall illustrate later on, that the distinc- 

 tive gains of these lost races are, sometimes at least, con- 

 served along collateral lines. 



To be chastised out of our mind is the smug conceit that 

 all evolutionary change, especially that in which Man is 

 concerned, is ipso facto progressive, whatever that may mean. 

 Perhaps the lightest whip is best : " Organic life, we are 

 told, has developed gradually from the protozoon to the 

 philosopher, and this development, we are assured, is in- 

 dubitably an advance. Unfortunately it is the philosopher, 

 not the protozoon, who gives us this assurance, and we can 

 have no security that the impartial outsider would agree 

 with the philosopher's self-complacent assumption " (Ber- 



