EVOLUTION THEORIES 213 



ever dreamed, or than their respective ex- 

 ponents and disciples have realized. 



The wealth of first-hand observation from 

 which Darwin and his successors generalized 

 their conviction of " the all-sufficiency of 

 natural selection " was thus a less simple and 

 child-like discovery of Nature than it seemed; 

 it was a new and modern selection from the 

 wealth of Nature's aspects and interests. 

 For, when all is said and done, " the eye sees 

 only what it brings with it the power of seeing." 

 What are Lamarck's interpretations of the 

 effects of use and disuse, his assured insistence 

 upon the interior freedom of the organism to 

 realize its inmost capacities, but the new step 

 in social progress through abandonment of 

 outworn orders of society, the freedom open- 

 ing before new ones. " La carriere ouverte 

 aux talents " is pure Lamarckism; so again the 

 splendid over-assurance of the Napoleonic epic, 

 that " every French soldier carries a marshal's 

 baton in his knapsack." But the colder busi- 

 ness view so characteristic of English thought 

 came to prevail over such political and mili- 

 tary exaggerations; the ideals of mechanical 

 efficiency and of individual and financial 

 success rising above the ruins of liberal aspira- 

 tions and of imperial achievements as they 

 have so often done. Hence a view of evolu- 



