The World's Greatest Books — Volume 14 — Philosophy and...

Looking at the several possibilities, and asking what direction this further evolution, this more complete moving equilibrium, this better adjustment of inner to outer relations, this more perfect co-ordination of action is likely to take:—the conclusion is that it must take mainly the direction of a higher intellectual and emotional development. There is abundant scope for development in ascertaining the conditions of existence to which we must conform; and in acquiring a greater power of self-regulation.

What are those changes in the environment to which, by direct or indirect equilibration the human organism has been adjusting itself, is adjusting itself now, and will continue to adjust itself? And how do they necessitate a higher evolution of the organism? In all cases pressure of population is the original cause. Were it not for the competition this entails, so much thought and energy would not be spent on the business of life; and growth of mental power would not take place. Difficulty in getting a living is alike the incentive to a higher education of children, and to a more intense and long-continued application in adults. Nothing but necessity could make men submit to this discipline; and nothing but this discipline could produce a continued progression.

Excess of fertility is then the cause of man's further evolution. And the obvious corollary is that man's further evolution itself necessitates a decline in his fertility. The further progress of civilisation will be accompanied by an enhanced cost of individuation: whether it be in greater growth of the organs which subserve self-maintenance, in their added complexity of structure, or in their higher activity, the abstraction of the required material, implies a diminished reserve of materials for race maintenance. This greater emotional and intellectual development does not necessarily mean a mentally laborious life—for, as the goal becomes organic, it will become spontaneous and pleasurable.

The necessary antagonism of individuation and genesis not only fulfils the a priori law of maintenance of the race from the monad up to man, but insures final attainment of the highest form of this maintenance—a form in which the amount of life shall be the greatest possible and the births and deaths as few as possible. From the beginning pressure of population has been the proximate cause of progress. After having duly stocked the globe with inhabitants; raised all its habitable parts into the highest state of culture; brought all processes for the satisfaction of human wants to perfection; developed the intellect into complete competency for its work, and the feelings into complete fitness for social life; the pressure of population as it gradually finished its work, must gradually bring itself to an end.

Changes, numerical, social, organic, must by their mutual influences work unceasingly towards a state of harmony—a state in which each of the factors is just equal to its work. And this highest conceivable result must be wrought out by the same universal process which the simplest inorganic action illustrates.