ways. First, he has the power of thinking in concepts; in other words,
his power of learning by experience is not always conditioned directly
by the accidents of his own life, as is the case with animals endowed
only with associative memory, but he can, by reaching the general from
the special, attain to the possibility of dealing with many more, and
more complicated, eventualities. Next, by means of speech, writing,
and printing, he has developed a new mode of inheritance.[10] Each
community, and indeed humanity as a whole, transmits its peculiarities
to later ages by means of tradition, using that word in its largest
sense. Physical inheritance of the same type as in all higher animals
and plants is the necessary basis, but the distinctive characters
of any civilization are based on this new tradition-inheritance.
Thirdly, the type of mind which has been evolved in man is much more
plastic--a much more elastic and flexible mechanism than any tool
previously evolved by life for handling the problems of existence. As
a consequence of this we have the substitution of general educability
for specific instincts. For the power of performing comparatively
few actions smoothly and without trouble, there is exchanged the
possibility of a vastly increased range of action, but one which
has to be learnt. As another consequence, man has come by the
power--impossible to any other organism--of leading what is to all
intents and purposes a multiple existence. It is for this very reason
difficult to fit man into many of the ordinary biological categories.
The physical and mental structure and the mode of life of even the
highest of the animals are for all practical purposes a fixed quantity.
An ant, for all its delicacy of adjustment, is little less than a
sentient cog shaped to fit in just one way into the machinery of the
community; a dog, for all his power of learning, is tied down and
imprisoned within a rigidity and narrowness of bodily and mental
organization difficult for us to imagine.
Man passes freely from one aggregation to another. He can
change his nation or his city; he can belong to a dozen
organizations--biologically speaking, can be aggregated in a dozen
different ways--and play a different part as unit in each. He can
follow one profession in the morning, another at night, and be a
hobby-horse rider in between.
This plastic mind has endowed him with a new biological possibility.
He can do what no other organism can--he can be both specialized and
generalized at one and the same time.
In biology, the aggregation of units to form units of higher grade has
been always followed by division of labour among the units; and this
division of labour has, in all infrahuman history, been made possible
only by an irreversible specialization.[11] A soldier-ant is a soldier,
and there its possibilities end. It cannot do what the worker or
the queen can do. A muscle-cell, because it has gained the power to
contract, is cut off from other possibilities; it cannot secrete, or
digest, or carry messages. The aggregate of nerve-cells which makes the
physical basis of mind is held fixed to its post, incapable of turning
to other functions.
It follows that the units of all such aggregates are subordinate to
the whole--they have lost their independence, and can often no longer
be considered as individuals at all, except historically. But in man,
none of these things hold. A man can for half his day be the merest
cog, subordinate in every detail of his action to the needs of the
community, but for the other half be himself, a full and complete
individuality, making the community serve his own ends and needs. For
him, aggregation does not mean complete and irreversible subordination;
his specialization is reversible, and indeed his potentialities as an
individual actually increase with the increased individuality of the
aggregate to which he belongs.
Bearing these differences in mind, we may turn to consider how our
doctrine of progress helps us in studying humanity.
At the outset we must guard ourselves against the idea that human
society has reached any high level of biological individuation. I may
perhaps quote from what I have written elsewhere: “If we were to draw a
parallel between primitive types of society and some primitive mammal
such as a duck-billed platypus, and to compare the course which we
hope society will in time accomplish with what has been accomplished
in the progress of the mammalian type from a creature resembling the
platypus up to man, with what creature should we have to compare the
existing state of human communities? I venture to say that we should be
flattering ourselves if we were to fix upon the dog.”
Then we must remember that Natural Selection in man has fallen chiefly
upon groups, not upon individuals, and differences in the nature and
organization of human groups are determined chiefly by what we can
best sum up as differences of tradition in the widest sense of the
term. The later history of mankind, from a period long antedating
written records, has been one of the rapid rise and equally rapid
extinction, not only of one group-unit after another, but of one type
of group-unit after another. It is further obvious at first glance that
the group-units, the types of society which are at present dominant,
are far from perfect and far from stable, and indeed that they are
evolving, with speed of change hitherto unsurpassed, towards new and
unknown forms.
When the mammalian type first became dominant on the globe--at the
transition between the Secondary and Tertiary periods--a somewhat
similar history was passed through. The new type of organization gave
its possessors marked advantages over other animal types: but the full
potentialities of the mammal (excluding man) were not realized until
well over half of the Tertiary period had elapsed, and man was being
prepared in the womb of circumstance. The Pliocene sees the triumph
of the perfected types of mammal: the preceding Miocene, broadly
speaking, sees the first rise of these new types, while the Eocene and
Oligocene show us a rapid rise and as rapid extinction of variation
upon variation on the original theme.[12] With man, however, only the
beginnings of a similar process have as yet come to pass.
Further, we must distinguish clearly between the different ways in
which progress may be operative in man. In the first place it can
appear, as we have just pointed out, in the organization of the
communities to which he belongs and on which natural selection seems
mainly to act. Secondly, it can appear as a raising of the _average_ of
certain qualities among the individuals composing those communities.
And thirdly, it can appear as a raising of the _upper level_ of
attainment in those qualities, in the appearance of individuals
biologically higher than any that have previously existed.
This last point may be first dealt with. It has often been urged as
an argument against the doctrine of progress that we can trace no
advance in the capabilities of the individual man throughout history,
and it has even been asserted that no such advance has occurred during
pre-history. To this latter criticism there is the obvious reply that
at some period there was an origin of human from non-human organisms,
and that during the period of transition at least (and probably for a
considerable time afterward) there naturally must have been a raising
of the upper level of attainments, and still more of possibility. The
main point at issue, however, is not to be gainsaid. It appears[13]
that comparatively early in the evolution of man, there appeared, in
some branches of the stock, a type of mental organization which has
not yet been improved upon. An individual possessing it is capable,
when developing in proper environment (the most important single
elements of which are the organization and tradition of the community
to which he belongs) of attaining to possibilities which, measured in
terms of the potentialities of any previous organism, are wellnigh
boundless. He can survey the whole of mankind, penetrate the future
with prophecy, bring the gamut of experience within a work of art,
discover the laws by which the universe operates. Judged thus, Goethe
is no greater and no less great than Leonardo, Shakespeare than Dante
or Æschylus, Darwin than Pasteur, Kant than Plato.
The best type of human mind operating to the best advantage, is
introduced to possibilities so vast in comparison with its paltry span
of existence that it can never realize more than a fraction of them.
Furthermore, since the incidence of natural selection has fallen, from
long before historical time, upon the community and its traditions far
more than upon the individual, and since the conditions under which
the possibilities of the individual can be even qualitatively realized
have been rarely forthcoming, it is not surprising that the level of
possibility itself has not been raised. Indeed, only too often there
has been reversed selection, and the exceptional man has suffered from
his exceptional endowments.
There is no theoretical objection whatever to the idea that new
types of mind, new modes of thought, new levels of attainment, could
be reached by life: the mental difference between low types of men
and men of genius is almost as great as that between man and ape.
The difference in practical intelligence between a hen, a dog, a
chimpanzee, and a man is largely a difference in the complexity of the
situations which can be grasped as a whole so that the right way out
is adopted as the result of this unitary comprehension.[14] There is
no reason to doubt that other types of mental mechanism are possible
which would make our grasp of complex situations appear pitiful and
hen-like in its limitations, which would enable their possessors to
_see_ and solve in a flash where we can only grope and guess or at best
calculate laboriously and step by step. But this will not take place,
first until the community-environment is made as favourable as possible
for such development, and secondly until there is begun a deliberate
biological encouragement of new possibilities of intuition, say, or of
communication between mind and mind.
As regards the second point, the raising of the average as opposed to
the upper level of attainment, not much need be said. That part of
our civilization which can be thought of as progressive is largely
concerned with this very thing--with making it possible for men to
realize in larger measure their inherent possibilities. Further, in
so far as there exists selection within the community, it largely,
under present conditions, encourages qualities such as intelligence
and initiative, which are biologically progressive. And finally, when
Eugenics shall become practical politics, its action, so far as we can
see, will be at first entirely devoted to this raising of the average,
by altering the proportion of good and bad stock, and if possible
eliminating the lowest strata, in a genetically mixed population.[15]
Since, however, the main stress in human evolution has been upon the
community and upon tradition, it is here that we shall expect to find
most definite evidences of progress, and it is here that we do in fact
find them.
We have in the first place the increase of the size of units, familiar
to us already in lower forms. This, however, is tending to a limit,
which will be attained when the present competition of sovereign states
has been replaced (as, if we can read the future from the past, it
inevitably will be) by some form of federation covering the globe.
We find an immense increase of control over environment--a theme so
hackneyed as to need no labouring. We find an almost equally striking,
if less spectacular, increase in independence. Man becomes less and
less at the mercy of the forces of nature and of other organisms,
attains much more to self-regulation. This has depended upon increased
efficiency of “organs”--here the extra-organismal organs we call
tools and machines; and upon increased rapidity and certainty of
communication both within and between units. There has been an almost
overwhelming increase (displaying too not a uniform but an accelerated
motion) of knowledge, of the possibilities of acquiring new knowledge,
and of what may be called the “group-memory”--the power of storing
and rendering knowledge available, and this in its turn brings about
a huge increase in the size of the environment with which man either
physically or mentally comes into contact.
As regards increase of harmony or co-ordination, human communities
have advanced but little, although in the increase of powers of
communication there has been laid the foundation for such possibility.
That this lack of progress is partly due to the extreme rapidity of
change in type of unit and of the units’ increase in size, is not
doubtful; a further ground for it, however, is to be found in the fact
that human societies present a new biological problem, in so much as
it is impossible, man being what he is, to solve the relationship of
individual and community, of smaller and larger unit, in the simple
way in which it has always been solved before--by specialization and
subordination of the individuals.[16] The early development of codes of
law, codes of ritual, and codes of morals represents the first attempt
at a solution of the problem: the modern rise of arbitration as a
method of settling disputes between whole units and large groups within
units is another important step in the same direction. Nevertheless, it
is here that the most drastic change of method will have to be brought
into being if man’s development is to continue progressive.
There is, however, a weighty criticism of the validity of human
progress. Granted that human science and invention have made enormous
strides, that knowledge has increased and convenience multiplied--is
_man_, the living, feeling, personal human being, any the better in
essentials for all of this--has it not merely made life more complex at
the expense of its depth, more rapid at the expense of its tranquillity
and suavity? This is especially obvious in the field of art. It is
impossible to maintain that any one of a certain number--a hundred, or
perhaps a thousand--of great poets, painters, sculptors, or musicians
is greater or has achieved finer things than any other of the number.
What is more, in most arts--notably sculpture, painting, and poetry,
the possibilities of expression and achievement do not increase, and
once a certain pitch of skill is reached, tend to extinguish themselves
in technique and virtuosity. When this happens, new ideas generally
come upon the scene and work up again from a relatively primitive to a
complicated technique along a more or less different path--and so on
and so forth _ad infinitum_.
This is not so true of architecture, and still less so of music. In
intellectual matters it is clearly not true of mathematics, where
each advance provides the foundation for the solution of more complex
problems, nor, similarly, of much of science. But even in this
intellectual domain, where the accumulation of knowledge is so evident,
where the increasing difficulty and complexity of the problems soluble
and solved is so remarkable--even here the individual achievement can
scarcely be properly said to increase, certainly not the individual
merit or the individual satisfaction. Newton’s achievement was no less
splendid because to-day any fourth-rate mathematician can use the
calculus, nor Euclid’s for that his discoveries can be explained to
every schoolboy; while for Harvey to discover the circulation of the
blood or for Dalton to demonstrate the particulate nature of matter
was certainly no slighter task than that needed to show the reality of
internal secretion or to discover the infra-atomic world of electrons.
The task occupied all their powers, its accomplishment satisfied them;
and the powers themselves have not increased--only the ways in which
men have learned to use them.
This criticism has been partly dealt with before. We have seen that
the present organization of human mind introduces its possessor to
a practical infinitude of possibility. We have also seen that there
is no theoretical obstacle to be seen at present to an increase of
human powers, be it in range of comprehension, intensity of feeling,
or brilliance of intuition. More to our present purpose is the reply
that, whereas in all these ways the inherent capabilities have not
increased, yet the opportunities of realizing these capabilities have
for the bulk of the population increased--in particular, for instance,
of gratifying the more complex and the more intellectual emotions,
with the multiplication of theatres, of books, of pictures, of
concerts. Here, for once, the average has advanced more than the upper
level. Whatever overstress and maladjustment the complexity of modern
civilization has brought with it, it has certainly made it easier for
more men and women to realize more of their potentialities now than a
thousand years ago, and far more than a hundred thousand years ago.
There are, then, these facts to set on the credit side of Progress’
balance-sheet. It is easy enough to see items on the debit side, and
indeed to be so horrifiedly fascinated by it as not to have eyes
for anything else. Human history is in one view but a long record
of suffering, oppression, and folly. Slavery, torture, religious
persecution, war, pestilence and famine, the greed of those who
possess power, the dirt and sloth and ignorance of those who do
not--the elements of the picture keep on recurring, if not in the old
forms, then in new ones. Pain, disease, disappointment, and death are
inevitable. Even when a civilization seems to be progressing, there
always comes a time when it passes its zenith and topples through
decay or defect to ruin. How is it possible to speak of progress
when at this present moment there are vast poverty-stricken and slum
populations with all the great nations, and when these same great
nations have just been engaged in the most appalling war in history?
It is a formidable indictment: but I venture to assert that it can be
met by the same argument with which, in the realm of biology, was met
the argument from degeneration.
Such facts show at once that any idea of inevitable or of universal
progress is untenable, the product of an irrational idealism which
prefers its own desires to reality. They show further that, up to
the present, suffering and pain on the one hand, and on the other
degeneration in a certain number of individuals, are as universal and
apparently inevitable in human as in animal evolution. But they do not
show that some sort of progress may not have occurred--not necessarily
the kind of progress that some of us would like, not necessarily as
rapid as could be desired, but yet indubitably and solidly Progress. We
have seen that in the hundreds of thousands of species which constitute
life, that which has been increased most obviously is the upper level
of certain qualities--primitive forms have persisted, degenerate forms
have arisen side by side with and in spite of the steady improvement in
the highest types. This has happened in man also.
The upper level of control and of independence in human group-units,
and in a certain number of fortunate individuals, has obviously
increased; but there are the slums, there are the drab lives of
thousands in great cities, there are poverty, degeneracy, and crime.
All that we can say is that to many at least it seems theoretically
possible that man should be able to reduce the amount of degeneration,
waste, and pain, to increase the changes to be summed up as progressive.
The future Golden Age of Millenniarism is as impossible a notion
as the past Golden Age of Mythology, and more demoralizing. Bury,
with pardonable sarcasm, speaks of the result hoped for in it as “a
menagerie of happy men ... in which the dynamic character of history
disappears.” But once we have accepted (as the great majority accept)
life as somehow worth living, the belief in progress asserts only
(though there is much in that “only”) that life may be made more worth
living to a larger proportion of people, although effort and failure
always will and always must be conditions of its operation. As Goethe
said, “Let humanity last as long as it will, there will always be
hindrances in its way, and all kinds of distress, to make it develop
its powers.”
It is important to remember, what we have already noted, that the
history of mankind is largely the history of competition between
group-units or communities. When rare communities have been able to
escape from this race of competition and have deliberately devoted the
energy and resources thus set free to better community-regulation and
an improvement in the lives of the individuals composing them, then,
like Denmark, they have moved rapidly along a path of real progress.
Once an efficient federation of communities has come into being,
Progress can knock at the door with some chance of being admitted. In
general, it is enough for our present purpose to have shown that some
modicum of progress has occurred within the species Man; and that some
of the characteristics which most saliently mark him off from other
organisms--his powers of generalization and his self-consciousness--are
in themselves germs, potentialities of great progress in the future,
because through them blind biological progress can become economical,
foreseeing, and conscious of herself.
There remains for me only one task--to investigate more closely the
relation of that fact of evolutionary direction which we have called
biological progress, to our ideas of value. What we have found is that
there exists a certain general direction of movement in the evolution
of living things; towards the increase of certain of their properties.
But when we make a further analysis, we find that movement in this
direction is movement towards a realization of the things judged by the
human mind to have value. It is movement towards an increase of power,
of knowledge, of purpose, of emotion, of harmony, of independence.
Increases in these faculties combine, once a certain stage in mental
development is reached, to mean the embracing of ever larger syntheses
by the organism possessing them--practical syntheses, as in business,
or exploration, or administration; intellectual, as in philosophy or in
the establishment of scientific laws; emotional, as in love or in the
passion for nature; artistic, as in a symphony or great drama. These
capabilities are greater in man than in the higher animals, in the
higher animals than in the lower, more and more windows being closed
and powers pruned away as we descend the scale.
It is immaterial whether the human mind comes to have these values
_because_ they make for progress in evolution, or whether things which
make for evolutionary progress become significant _because_ they happen
to be considered as valuable by human mind, for both are in their
degree true. There is an interrelation which cannot be disentangled,
for it is based on the fundamental uniformity and unity of the cosmos.
What is important is that the human idea of _value_ finds its external
counterpart in an actual historical _direction_ in phenomena, and that
each becomes more important because of the relationship.
Much of what I have written will appear obvious. But if it has been
obvious, it will be because I have here attempted to focus attention on
some of the corollaries of a single fundamental truth--so obvious that
it often escapes notice, but so fundamental that its results cannot but
fail to obtrude themselves upon us. I mean the unity of phenomena--not
merely the unity of life, put on a firm footing for all time by Darwin,
though that is for my purpose the most important, but the unity of
living and non-living, demanding a monistic conception of the universe.
For the present, the stellar host (possibly, as recent astronomy
seems to assert, assembled not in one system but in a multiplicity of
universes, floating through space like a shoal of jelly-fishes in a
Mediterranean bay)--the stars seem alien from our life, alien or at
best neutral. All that links us to them is that we are built of the
same stuff, the same elements.
But the last half-century has at least enlarged our view so that we
can perceive that we, as living things, are not alien to the rest of
life--that we march in the same direction, and that our hostility to
and struggles with other organisms are in part but the continuation
of the old struggle, in part the expression of the fact that we have
acquired new methods for dealing with the problems of existence.