112 EVOLUTION 



strength nor skill alone, but seeking exercise 

 for both, here is the best life of evolving man- 

 hood: as of old, so for ever, let townlings dream 

 as they may. And how to combine this 

 fundamental vividness of rustic life with the 

 subtler, yet it may be even more strenuous 

 life of productive urban culture, is, perhaps, 

 the main problem before the evolutionist. In 

 modern everyday phrase this task is, in fact, 

 already opening before us; already we are 

 seeking to advance rural development here 

 and town-planning there; we have next to 

 co-ordinate both into regional renewal. Given 

 this incipient view and policy of human life, 

 as consciously evolutionary, in exchange for 

 the passing one of successful life as sessile, 

 unconsciously degenerative, and as far as 

 possible, parasitic the field of effort opens. 

 Hygiene, engineering and irrigation, agricul- 

 ture and forestry, and all such strenuous 

 careers are already opening perspectives lately 

 undreamed by youth, struggles for existence 

 nobler and more sustainedly strenuous than 

 those of war. Practically, the control of the 

 ice-lands and of the tropics, the amendment 

 of nature and above all, speculatively, the 

 distinction between ascending and deteriora- 

 tive progress thus alike become more clear. 



