CREATION BY EVOLUTION
But the fact of biological progress does show that our ideals and efforts, our whole scheme of values, are not merely isolated flames burning in the darkness of a universe which is neutral or hostile to the effects of its working. It shows, at least as regards the course of events for the several thousand million years during which life has existed on this planet, that the cosmic forces have worked in such a way as to produce a movement that has been not only the most successful movement in evolution but that also chimes in with our sense of values and our Idea of the direction In which we ourselves desire to move.
As a result of the working of the forces of Evolution, man has now become the trustee of the evolutionary process—in other words, of this world's future. It is sometimes asserted that pre-human evolution is purposeful. This, however, is a mistake. As Darwin once and for all pointed out, the adaptation of structure to function, of an animal's means to the requirements of its life, not only require no other purpose at all than the purposes of the contending animals but can be explained only as the result of the automatic working of natural forces, such as heredity, variation, and natural selection; and the same statement is true if we consider the general movement and progress of life's evolution as opposed to the particular evolution of this or that species. These natural forces are in the same category as those which cause chemical combinations, make the chick grow in the egg, or cause our digestive juices to be secreted; but purpose is something that can be defined only psychologically—meaning that a definite end is consciously held in view.
This of course is not to say that there may not be purpose in the background, behind all those apparently blind forces. But we have no means whatever of knowing whether that is so or not; and it Is the first duty of anyone who wishes
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