CHAPTER I. 



HEREDITY AND THE LAW OF EVOLUTION. 



THE idea of progress is quite modern. Its originators in the 

 seventeenth century were Bacon, Descartes, Pascal, and, above all, 

 Leibnitz. In the eighteenth century it was the object of a lively 

 faith for all the philosophers of that period. In the nineteenth 

 century it has become almost a commonplace. Still, in its current 

 form, it is vague and incomplete. 



First, it is vague. The word progress has no very definite 

 meaning. For some it represents merely the act of advancing, for 

 others it means improvement, which is a very different thing. 

 Moreover, the common view accepts progress as a fact, without 

 inquiring after its law, its cause. Is it a chance product, or has it 

 a law, and if so, what is the law ? What is the hidden form in 

 the nature of things ? What the productive power that determines 

 its being ? These questions are not even asked. 



It is incomplete, and this is a still graver defect. By an un- 

 scientific illusion, but one that is perfectly natural to man, we look 

 at progress only from the human point of view. In the view of 

 nearly every one progress means the transition from bad to 

 middling, from middling to good, from good to better in short, 

 improvement. As history shows that humanity generally advances 

 from the less to the more perfect, as we see that as time goes on 

 manners tend to become milder, life easier, habits more moral, social 

 institutions more just, political institutions more liberal, knowledge 

 more diffused, and beliefs more reasonable, we conclude that in 

 spite of all retrogressive movements, in spite of exceptions, illu- 

 sions, and disappointments, the victory after all is with progress 

 that is to say, the improvement of man and his moral surroundings j 



