PROGRESS IN EVOLUTION 267 



William Ramsay, who declared that " real progress 

 consists in learning how better to employ energy — how 

 better to effect its transformation." The biological pre- 

 conditions are : vigour, energy, initiative, adaptation 

 i;0 enriching and conserving surroundings : health, for 

 short. 



§ 4. A New Stoicism 



But there is another way of looking at our question, 

 — a new light on the old maxim : Follow Nature. What 

 does Animate Nature make for ? What is rewarded 

 by prolonged survival without degeneracy ? We must 

 answer, on the whole, the healthy and the knowing in 

 the widest sense, the beautiful, and those that care for 

 others as well as themselves, such as Birds and Mam- 

 mals. 



First, take the beautiful. Here Nature's unconscious 

 ideal and Man's desire are in harmony, except that 

 artifice counts for more in Man's case, and we do not 

 know of animals more than beginning to try to express 

 ideas in modifications of matter and energy, which is 

 art. 



Second, take the good. Nature is always taking ad- 

 vantage of her children's capacity for self-forgetfulness. 

 The highest success is with the creatures that care for 

 others and work well, with creatures who, though they 

 do not think * the ought,' are beginning to be good. 



Third, take truth-seeking. Surely that is not one 

 of Nature's ideals. But knowing the facts is on the 

 way to truth, and the knowing creatures survive. 



