
The Future of Man—Evolutionary Aspects 
JULIAN HUXLEY 
has been going on for perhaps 5,000 million years. Life 
was evolved here after about half of this huge span of 
time, and has itself been evolving during the later half of the 
period—to be more precise, for some 2,750 million years. We, 
like all other living organisms and all other features of the earth, 
are products of this process of evolution. We men belong to 
the latest dominant type to be produced, and are now respon- 
sible for the future evolution of the planet, which, according to 
the astronomers and geophysicists, is likely to continue for at 
least another 2,750 million years. 
We are privileged to be living at a crucial moment in the 
cosmic story, the moment when the vast evolutionary process, 
in the small person of enquiring man, is becoming conscious of 
itself. 
Evolution can be defined as a natural process of transforma- 
tion, self-operating and irreversible, which in its course generates 
novelty, greater variety, more complex organization, and even- 
tually higher levels of mental or psychological activity. And 
we are discovering that all reality is, in a perfectly legitimate 
sense, a single and comprehensive process of evolution. 
But this comprehensive process falls naturally into three main © 
sectors. The first is the inorganic or cosmic sector, operating by 
physical or simple chemical interaction, and resulting in the 
evolution of elements, nebulae, stars and planetary systems; 
the second is the organic or biological sector, operating by 
automatic natural selection superposed on physico-chemical 
interaction, and resulting in the evolution of plant and animal 
organisms—from fungi and flowers to monkeys and medusae; 
T™ evolution of this planet as a unit in the cosmic process 
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