Evolution and Ethics | Page 7

be unchanging and unchangeable.
* See "On a piece of Chalk" in the preceding volume of these Essays
(vol. viii. p. 1).
But it is also certain that, before the deposition of the chalk, a vastly
longer period had elapsed; throughout which it is easy to follow the
traces of the same process of ceaseless modification and of the
internecine struggle for existence of living things; and that even when
we can get no further [4] 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. Rather
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 transitory expressions. And in the living world, one of
the most characteristic features of this cosmic process is the struggle for
existence, the competition of each with all, the result of which is the
selection, that is to say, the survival of those forms which, on the whole,
are best adapted, to the conditions 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 [5] process in the vegetation
of the downs is seen in the turf, with its weeds and gorse. Under the
conditions, they have come out of the struggle victorious; and, by
surviving, have proved that they are the fittest to survive.
* That every theory of evolution must be consistent not merely with
progressive development, but with indefinite persistence in the same

condition and with retrogressive modification, is a point which I have
insisted upon repeatedly from the year 1862 till now. See Collected
Essays, vol. ii. pp. 461-89; vol. iii. p. 33; vol. viii. p. 304. In the address
on "Geological Contemporaneity and Persistent Types" (1862), the
paleontological proofs of this proposition were, I believe, first set forth.
That the state of nature, at any time, is a temporary phase of a process
of incessant change, which has been going on for innumerable ages,
appears to me to be a proposition as well established as any in modern
history.
Paleontology assures us, in addition, that the ancient philosophers who,
with less reason, held the same doctrine, erred in supposing that the
phases formed a cycle, exactly repeating the past, exactly
foreshadowing the future, in their rotations. On the contrary, it
furnishes us with conclusive reasons for thinking that, if every link in
the ancestry of these humble indigenous plants had been preserved and
were accessible to us, the whole would present a converging series of
forms of gradually diminishing complexity, until, at some period in the
history of the earth, far more remote than any of which organic remains
have yet been discovered, they would merge in those low groups
among which the Boundaries between animal and vegetable life
become effaced.*
* "On the Border Territory between the Animal and the Vegetable
Kingdoms," Essays, vol. viii. p. 162
[6] The word "evolution," now generally applied to the cosmic process,
has had a singular history, and is used in various senses.* Taken in its
popular signification it means progressive development, that is, gradual
change from a condition of relative uniformity to one of relative
complexity; but its connotation has been widened to include the
phenomena of retrogressive metamorphosis, that is, of progress from a
condition of relative complexity to one of relative uniformity.
As a natural process, of the same character as the development of a tree
from its seed, or of a fowl from its egg, evolution excludes creation and
all other kinds of supernatural intervention. As the expression of a fixed
order, every stage of which is the effect of causes operating according
to definite rules, the conception of evolution no less excludes that of
chance. It is very desirable to remember that evolution is not an
explanation of the cosmic process, but merely a generalized statement

of the method and results of that process. And, further, that, if there is
proof that the cosmic process was set going by any agent, then that
agent will be, the creator of it and of all its products, although
supernatural intervention may remain strictly excluded from its further
course.
So far as that limited