CHAP, xix SELF-CONSCIOUS DEVELOPMENT 437 



permanent character of the environment must play a 

 notable part. 



Accordingly evolution biologically considered exhibits 

 no comprehensive plan or pervading tendency. It pro- 

 duces, not necessarily a higher type, but one that deals 

 more effectually with its particular environment. It may 

 be said perhaps to tend towards variation, but the variation 

 is not necessarily towards anything higher or better. 



i. The development of Mind in animals and Man 

 means in our view the gradual introduction of a higher 

 principle of organisation into this relatively chaotic state. 

 The first function of mind is to organise individual ^ex- 

 perience, and from this it proceeds through the organisation 

 of social life till finally it reaches the conception of the 

 development of the entire race as its starting point and its 

 goal. This conception brings into organic relationship 

 elements formerly at strife. It is true that on the ethical 

 side in asserting a common human nature as supreme 

 over all differences it is in a manner recognising a unity 

 that was there before, but in recognising this unity it 

 transforms it. The fundamental kinship of men is a fact 

 before it is admitted, but it is only when it is admitted 

 that it becomes a bond of union. Thus the unorganised 

 struggle of biological evolution gives place to an organic 

 principle. At the same time its purposeless movement 

 gives way to an articulate plan. As soon as the past 

 and present evolution of man are understood as the 

 opening stages of a much nobler growth, as soon as that 

 further growth becomes sufficiently understood to operate 

 upon standards of morality and conceptions of social effort, 

 evolution becomes conscious and full of purpose. Now, if 

 not before, ;t has a goal, or, if we prefer it, a standard of 

 perfect development to which it moves forward with 

 that orderly unrolling of powers which we find in 

 organic growth. When, further, the previous course of 

 mental evolution is conceived as a process by which the 

 intellectual and moral unity necessary for this growth 

 were prepared, we carve out of the whole of evolution one 

 great process of " orthogenic evolution " of which the 

 tendency and direction are one from first to last the 



