PROGRESS IN EVOLUTION 261 



scepticism as to the reality of progress (as in the recent 

 studies by Professor Bury and Dean Inge) is very useful* 

 For we have no right to assume that mere carrying on, 

 or even struggling on, is progress, i.e. movement in the 

 direction of realising what the racial consciousness holds 

 to be of most value. We cannot trust to ratiocination, 

 for we invent political and economic theories, which are 

 conscious or unconscious attempts to justify our practice 

 before the tribunal of reason. 



Scepticism as to Progress. — ^Is progress at present 

 demonstrable or may this be a period of retrogression 

 in the species or in part of the species ? We are only 

 a few hours from scenes of horrible starvation and agony 

 among women and children and old people ; we are 

 only a few miles from slums and warrens ; we are only a 

 few steps from dull, stupid, oppressed Lives without 

 outlook or uplift ; we are perhaps only a few hours from 

 being ourselves bedruggod by some miserable microbe 

 which we call influenza, or from being pushed off the 

 stage by a typhoid bacillus brought to us by one neigh- 

 bour's flies from another neighbour's leaking drains. 

 Is progress so clear in our midst ? The answer, " In 

 some things Yes, in others No ; in some circles Yes, in 

 others No," is true ; but it suggests that our definition 

 is stiU incomplete. When we think of the seamy side 

 of modern life (e.g. our present-day panerrt et circenses : 

 subsidised bread and cinemas) ; when we remember that 

 the glory that was Greece was largely based on slavery, 

 and was contemporary with an intolerable view of 

 womankind, and eventually with little in the way of 



