128 UNIVERSAL EVOLUTION 



in society, in governments, in churches, in barbarism, 

 or in civilization, as in any animal organism. The 

 principle seems to be the essential method in all phases 

 of organic life. It is true, that man seems to have a 

 larger degree of control of his functions than do the 

 lower animals. Consciousness and reflection, in the 

 form of so-called memory, reason and will, seem to 

 partially supersede natural selection. But this is only 

 apparent, and certainly not efficient, to prevent the 

 natural survival of the fittest in all organisms and 

 methods ; not such as man himself would select as the 

 fittest, but what the persistence of force may determine 

 by actual test to be so. 



It is frequently asserted that psychological, sociolog- 

 ical and ethical evolution has been superseded and 

 arrested by the evolution of reason. 



Reason as defined by such writers means the power 

 of the organism to control its own development, and 

 its own functions. It means further, according to these, 

 the ability to organize mankind socially and morally, 

 and in that way to arrest the principle of natural selec- 

 tion and introduce design where none existed before. 

 This seems to be viewing reason as a creative entity, 

 dissociated from the structure and function of the 

 brain. But the fact is, reason is nothing more than one 

 phase of the psychical aspect of the physiology of the 

 brain, and can only be a result of physical molecular 

 motion, in certain centers of the brain tissue, and that 

 is the product of biological evolution. There is a social 

 evolution which, of course, is accomplished through the 

 psychical power of man. But as man's psychical power 

 comes only through a natural adaptation or adjustment 

 to environment, the resulting social evolution while 

 seemingly under the control of man's "free-will" is 



