Ten million years ago the highest animal on
the earth was a reptile, or, at the most, a low, rat-like
marsupial. The authorities tell us that, unless some cosmic
accident intervene, the earth will remain habitable by man for at
least ten million years. It is safe to conclude that the man of
that remote age will be lifted above the man of to-day as much as
we transcend the reptile in intelligence and emotion. It is most
probable that this is a quite inadequate expression of the future
advance. We are not only evolving, but evolving more rapidly than
living thing ever did before. The pace increases every century. A
calm and critical review of our development inspires a conviction
that a few centuries will bring about the realisation of the
highest dream that ever haunted the mind of the prophet. What
splendours lie beyond that, the most soaring imagination cannot
have the dimmest perception.
And the last word must meet an anxiety that arises out of this
very confidence. Darwin was right. It is--not exclusively, but
mainly--the struggle for life that has begotten higher types.
Must every step of future progress be won by fresh and sustained
struggle? At least we may say that the notion that progress in
the future depends, as in the past, upon the pitting of flesh
against flesh, and tooth against tooth, is a deplorable illusion.
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