ioo SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 



The history of life, they say, manifests guidance on the part of some 

 external power ; and the usual deduction is that we can safely trust that 

 same power for further guidance in the future. 



I believe this reasoning to be wholly false. Any purpose we find 

 manifested in evolution is only an apparent purpose. It is we who have 

 read purpose into evolution, as earlier men projected will and emotion 

 into inorganic phenomena like storm or earthquake. If we wish to work 

 towards a purpose for the future of man, we must formulate that purpose 

 ourselves. Purposes in life are made, not found. 



But if we cannot discover a purpose in evolution, we can at least 

 discern a direction — the line of evolutionary progress. And this past 

 direction can serve as a guide in formulating our purpose for the future. 



As further advice to be gleaned from evolution there is the fact that 

 each major step in progress necessitates scrapping some of the achieve- 

 ments of previous advances. But this warning remains as general as 

 the positive guidance. The precise formulation of human purpose 

 cannot be decided on the basis of the past. Each step in evolutionary 

 progress has brought new problems, which have had to be solved on their 

 own merits ; and with the new predominance of mind that has come 

 with man, life finds its new problems even more unfamiliar than usual. 



The future of man, if it is to be progress and not merely a standstill 

 or a degeneration, must be guided by a deliberate purpose. And this human 

 purpose can only be formulated in terms of the new attributes achieved 

 by life in becoming human. Human purpose and the progress based 

 upon it must accordingly be formulated in terms of human values ; 

 but it must also take account of human needs and limitations, whether 

 these be of a biological order, such as our mode of reproduction, or of a 

 human order, such as our inevitable subjection to emotional conflict. 



Obviously the formulation of an agreed purpose for man as a whole will 

 not be easy. There have been many attempts already. To-day we are 

 experiencing the struggle between two opposed ideals — that of the 

 subordination of the individual to the community, and that of his intrinsic 

 superiority. Another struggle still in progress is between the idea of a 

 purpose directed to a future life and one directed to this existing world. 

 Until such major conflicts are resolved, humanity can have no single 

 major purpose, and progress can be but fitful and slow. 



But let us not forget that progress can be achieved. After the dis- 

 illusionment of the early twentieth century it has become as fashionable 

 to deny the existence of progress, and to brand the idea of it as a human 

 illusion, as it was fashionable in the optimism of the nineteenth century 

 to proclaim not only its existence but its inevitability. The truth is between 

 the two extremes. Progress is a major fact of past evolution ; but it is 

 limited to a few selected stocks. It may continue in the future, but it is 

 not inevitable ; man must work and plan if he is to achieve further progress 

 for himself and so for life. 



Our optimism may well be tempered by reflection on the difficulties to 

 be overcome. None the less, the demonstration of the existence of a 

 general trend which can legitimately be called progress, and the definition 

 of its limitations, is a fundamental contribution to thought ; and we 

 zoologists may be proud that it has been made, chiefly from the zoo- 

 logical side, by evolutionary biology. 



