4: EVOLUTION AND ETHICS. i 



back, it is not because there is any reason to think 

 we have reached the beginning, but because the 

 trail of the most ancient life remains hidden, or 

 has become obliterated. 



Thus that state of nature of the world of 

 plants which we began by considering, is far from 

 possessing the attribute of permanence. Eather its 

 very essence is impermanence. It may have lasted 

 twenty or thirty thousand years, it may last for 

 twenty or thirty thousand years more, without 

 obvious change; but, as surely as it has followed 

 upon a very different state, so it will be followed 

 by an equally different condition. That which 

 endures is not one or another association of living 

 forms, but the process of which the cosmos is the 

 product, and of which these are among the transi- 

 tory expressions. And in the living world, one of 

 the most characteristic features of this cosmic pro- 

 cess is the struggle for existence, the competition 

 of each with all, the result of which is the selec- 

 tion, that is to say, the survival of those forms 

 which, on the whole, are best adapted to the condi- 

 tions which at any period obtain; and which are, 

 therefore, in that respect, and only in that respect, 

 the fittest.* The acme reached by the cosmic pro- 



* That every theory of evolution must be consistent 

 not merely with progressive development, but with in- 

 definite persistence in the same condition and with retro- 

 gressive modification, is a point which I have insisted 

 upon repeatedly from the year 1862 till now. See Col- 

 lected Essays, vol. ii. pp. 461-89; vol. iii. p. 33; vol. viii. 



