PROGRESS IN EVOLUTION 259 



doubt Mammals, for instance, have more control, more 

 freedom, more mind than Reptiles have ; but are you 

 not forgetting that they began to run new risks, to make 

 new kinds of mistakes, to suffer pain, to fear ? " To 

 which the answer may be made : " Granting the taxes 

 on progress and the pains of progress, it was worth while 

 that Mammals should have evolved." Yet if pressed 

 to say why we feel sure that it was worth while, must 

 we not answer (1) that the evolutionary process which 

 led to Mammals was making in the direction of Man 

 and of Man's kingdom, and (2) that it was making towards 

 a fuller reahsation of what we value most — control, 

 freedom, understanding, and love. Progress, is, of course, 

 a modern and sociological concept, meaning increase in 

 the realisation of what the racial consciousness has most 

 persistently held to be of the highest value, but our 

 point is that there is something analogous to this in 

 the great trends of integrative evolution. 



The Ascent of Man. — The evolution of organisms has 

 its climax in the ascent of Man, the establishment of 

 societary forms, the process of civilisation, the march 

 of human history. Now, no one will say that the march 

 of human history is in itself progress, in the sense of 

 necessarily leading to the enrichment of life. Many of 

 the changes — perhaps inevitable — ^have been very miser- 

 able at the time and of dubious benefit when effected. 

 Many aspects of the so-called Industrial Revolution in 

 Great Britain were full of misery and it is open to 

 question whether we are the better of Industrialism. 

 And what does " the better " mean ? 



