I A CHAPTER IN DARWINISM 49 



for US — ^just as the Ascidian throws away its tail and 

 its eye and sinks into a quiescent state of inferiority 

 — to reject the good gift of reason with which every 

 child is born, and to degenerate into a contented life 

 of material enjoyment accompanied by ignorance 

 and superstition. The unprejudiced, all-questioning 

 spirit of childhood may not inaptly be compared to 

 the tadpole tail and eye of the young Ascidian ; we 

 have to fear lest the prejudices, preoccupations, 

 and dogmatism of modern civilisation should in any 

 way lead to the atrophy and loss of the valuable 

 mental qualities inherited by our young forms from 

 jDrimseval man. 



There is only one means of estimating our posi- 

 tion, only one means of so shaping our conduct that 

 we may with certainty avoid degeneration and keep 

 an onward course. AVe are as a race more fortunate 

 than our ruined cousins — the degenerate Ascidians. 

 For us it is possible to ascertain what will conduce 

 to our higher development, what will favour our 

 degeneration. To us has been given the power " to 

 know the causes of things," and by the use of this 

 power it is possible for us to control our destinies. 

 It is for us by ceaseless and ever hopeful labour 

 to try to gain a knowledge of man's place in the 

 order of nature. When we have gained this fully 

 and minutely, we shall be able by the light of the 

 past to guide ourselves in the future. In propor- 

 tion as the whole of the past evolution of civilised 

 man, of which we at present perceive the outlines, is 

 assigned to its causes, we and our successors on the 



