24 CREATIVE INVOLUTION 



We stand to-day at the meeting of two evolution- 

 ary periods the period of the man-unit and the 

 period of the group-unit. Evolution is not the con- 

 tinuous process for the development of organic life 

 that it postulates itself. The mathematician must 

 needs mark what the scientist has overlooked the 

 change in the operand. This change may not be ac- 

 counted for on the basis of variation ; the social unit 

 is not the derivative of the individual unit that it dis- 

 places in the Darwinian process. Moreover, the fac- 

 tors making for its formation cannot be subsumed 

 under evolution, for they are in direct opposition to 

 the principles underlying the struggle for existence. 

 Inasmuch as evolution has brought man to his pres- 

 ent height, so that from a lowly origin he has come to 

 inherit the earth, it is not to be wondered that he 

 should think himself still the object of its solicitude. 

 But as the struggle for existence passes from that 

 level whereon man competes with man, to the higher 

 level where nation contends with nation, there is mani- 

 festly a change in the unit of operation. 



And because the factors making for the selective 

 process are the same as those which a short time 

 since governed the evolution of the individual, the 

 world is experiencing an inversion of values. So it 

 is that on every side we " see writ large what small " 

 we saw in the beginnings of human development 

 the same crude art, the formless verse, blind impetu- 

 osity, and pitiless death struggle! Civilisation is 



