EVOLUTION AND SOCIOLOGY 65 



thus slowly to come into view. We find man 

 making continual progress upwards, progress which 

 it is almost beyond the power of the imagination 

 to grasp. From being a competitor of the brutes 

 he has reached a point of development at which 

 he cannot himself set any limits to the possi- 

 bilities of further progress, and at which he is 

 evidently marching onwards to a high destiny. 

 He has made this advance under the sternest 

 conditions, involving rivalry and competition for 

 all, and the failure and suffering of great numbers. 

 His reason has been, and necessarily continues to 

 be, a leading factor in this development; yet, 

 granting, as we apparently must grant, the possi- 

 bility of the reversal of the conditions from which 

 his progress results, those conditions have not any 

 sanction from his reason. They have had no such 

 sanction at any stage of his history, and they con- 

 tinue to be as much without such sanction in the 

 highest civilizations of the present day as at any 

 past period."^ 



These conclusions will not have been quoted in 

 vain if they show the impossible positions to which 

 a writer, whose contribution otherwise is of pro- 

 found and permanent value, is committed by a false 

 reading of Nature. Is it conceivable, a priori^ that 

 1 op. at., pp. 77-^, 



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