is "higher" or "lower." All that
matters is adaptation. The germ of malaria renders whole tracts of the
earth uninhabitable to those whom we consider representative of the
higher culture. In other parts an alteration of the rainfall may crush
out a civilisation, and leave a handful of nomadic tribes as the sole
denizens of lands where once a lofty civilisation flourished. Throughout
the whole of nature there is never the slightest indication that forces
operate with the slightest reference to what we are accustomed to
consider the higher interests of the race.

Moreover, from the standpoint of an apologetic theism, we are entitled
to ask precisely what is meant by this justification of the evolutionary
process in terms of the production of a higher type. The justification
of a painful or a costly experience by an individual is two-fold. First,
it is the only way, perhaps, in which certain things may be learned or
accomplished, and, second, it is the individual who passes through the
experience who benefits thereby. But suppose a person entered on a
course of training with the absolute certainty that he would never
survive it. Should we be justified in forcing the course on him?
Clearly not. The whole would be regarded as a wasted effort and as an
exhibition of gratuitous cruelty.

Now when we look closely at this evolutionary process, who is it that
benefits thereby? In a vague way we speak of the race benefiting. But
the race is made up of individuals, and while it may be said the
individual benefits from the experience through which the race has
passed, it cannot be truthfully said that he is the better because he
has gained from experience. He does not pass through the discipline, he
simply registers, so to speak, the result. And, therefore, so far as he
is concerned, he is exactly in the position that the first man would
have been had he possessed the endowment, social, and individual, which
the present man has. There is no greater fallacy than that contained in
the common saying that man learns through experience. Individually, so
far as civilisation is concerned, that is not true. Were it true,
civilisation would be impossible. If each man had to start where our
primitive ancestors started, and learn from experience, we should end
where the first generation of socialised human beings ended, and the
generations of men would represent an endless series of first steps to
which there would be no second ones. What the