382 The Effects of Evolution 



the working of " natural selection/' all life lifted and ad- 

 vanced, until man appeared. But since then, something 

 else has appeared; artificial or human selection has been 

 at work. I am well aware that it is a matter of definition, 

 and that, in one sense, what a man does is as natural as is 

 that which is done by a horse or an elephant. But, to avoid 

 confusion of thought, we call that which has in it the ele- 

 ment of human purpose artificial, as opposed to that which 

 takes place apart from the control or guidance of the human 

 will. There are mairy famous scientific men who seem to 

 me curiously illogical here. They seem to have a sort of 

 blind worship for what they call " natural " law, and appear 

 to regard it as a holy ark that the profane intermeddler 

 must not lay his hands upon. And, at the same time, they 

 know, as well as the rest of us do, that from the day when 

 the first man-like creature tore off the limb of a tree to be 

 used as a club, every step in civilization has been a step 

 artificially created and taken. That is, "human" selection 

 has always been at work modifying the results of " natural " 

 selection. If a man can change the course of a mountain 

 torrent, and prevent its devastating a bit of ground that 

 human selection has turned into a garden, why should he 

 sit passively still and let any natural force override him, 

 provided he has the skill and power to prevent it ? At 

 any rate, all the civilization we have has been the result of 

 human interference in modifying the working of natural 

 forces, and so turning them to the accomplishment of 

 humanly thought-out consequences. 



We are familiar with the fact that living forms always 

 tend to become adjusted to their environment. And it is 

 true that the lower life-forms are practically helpless in 

 the hands of the forces and conditions that environ them. 

 A bird will build a better nest if you furnish him a better 

 place and better materials. But while man also tends to 

 become adjusted to his environment, he has the power of 

 thinking out and creating a better environment, and so, in- 

 directly, of lifting his average life to higher levels. To do 

 just this is the work of that human selection that seeks to 

 create a better civilization. 



I believe, then, that Prof. Lester F. Ward is right in 

 the main idea of his "Dynamic Sociology." He thinks 

 that man has at last reached the point where he can delib- 



