LESSONS OF EVOLUTION 619 



5. Importance of Correlating Organismal, Functional, 

 and Environmental Betterment. 



A consideration of organic evolution suggests that pro- 

 gressive change depends on the correlation of functional and 

 environmental with organismal improvement. We see writ 

 large the lesson that a promising organisation may undergo 

 involution in conditions of ease and safety, that the parasite 

 is branded by degeneration, that unused organs dwindle away. 

 We have seen that the development of characters is in some 

 measure dependent on nurture, that progressive variations 

 are apt to be short-lived unless the environment be also pro- 

 gressive, that the sifting is always in relation to a definite 

 here and now namely, the surrounding web of life in which 

 some of the great advances of the past are always in some, 

 measure systematised. What is true of organic progress is 

 yet more abundantly true of human progress, physical and 

 social, as well as organic: that there must be a correlation 

 of three kinds of endeavour, that which aims at the im- 

 provement of the organism or breed (Eugenics), that which 

 concerns itself with the ameloriation of the environment 

 (Eutopias or Euthenics), and that which seeks to bring about 

 the betterment of functions, especially occupations (Eu- 

 technics). Different sides of progress appeal to different 

 minds, and few of us can work effectively at more than one 

 thing at a time, but perhaps we should give greater prom- 

 inence than we do to the simple lesson of Evolution that 

 lasting betterment must be realised in place and work as 

 well as in people, in environment and function (including 

 leisure-time activity) as well as in organism. 



