312 



THE EVOLUTION OF SEX. 



The corresponding progress in the historic and individual 

 world, from sex and family up to tribe or city, nation and race, 

 and ultimately to the conception of humanity itself, also 

 becomes increasingly apparent. Competition and survival of 

 the fittest are never wholly eliminated, but reappear on each 

 new plane to work out the predominance of the higher, i.e.^ 

 more integrated and associated type, the phalanx being 

 victorious till in turn it meets the legion. But this service no 

 longer compels us to regard these agencies as the essential 

 mechanism of progress, to the practical exclusion of the 

 associative factor upon w^hich the victory depends, as economist 

 and biologist have too long misled each other into doing. For 





An Opossum {Dldelphys dorsigera carrying its young on its back. — 

 From Carus Sterne 



we see that it is possible to interpret the ideals of ethical pro- 

 gress, through love and sociality, co-operation and sacrifice, 

 not as mere Utopias contradicted by experience, but as the 

 highest expressions of the central evolutionary process of the 

 natural world. The ideal of evolution is indeed an Eden ; 

 and although competition can never be wholly eliminated, 

 and progress must thus approach without ever completely 

 reaching its ideal, it is much for our pure natural history to 

 recognise that " creation's final law " is not struggle but love. 

 The fuller working out of this thesis, however, would lead us 

 far beyond our present limits, towards a restatement of the 



