c greater safeguards
than there were in antiquity against unjustifiable excesses and against
the external forces which might endanger the continued existence of
civilisation."]

But even if we reject with Spencer the old dictum, endorsed by Lotze as
by Fontenelle, that human nature is immutable, the dictum of ultimate
harmony encounters the following objection. "If the social environment
were stable," it is easy to argue, "it could be admitted that man's
nature, variable EX HYPOTHESI, could gradually adapt itself to it,
and that finally a definite equilibrium would be established. But the
environment is continually changing as the consequence of man's very
efforts to adapt himself; every step he takes to harmonise his needs
and his conditions produces a new discord and confronts him with a
new problem. In other words, there is no reason to believe that the
reciprocal process which goes on in the growth of society between men's
natures and the environment they are continually modifying will ever
reach an equilibrium, or even that, as the character of the discords
changes, the suffering which they cause diminishes."

In fact, upon the neutral fact of evolution a theory of pessimism may
be built up as speciously as a theory of optimism. And such a theory was
built up with great power and ability by the German philosopher E. von
Hartmann, whose PHILOSOPHY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS appeared in 1869. Leaving
aside his metaphysics and his grotesque theory of the destiny of the
universe, we see here and in his subsequent works how plausibly
a convinced evolutionist could revive the view of Rousseau that
civilisation and happiness are mutually antagonistic, and that Progress
means an increase of misery.

Huxley himself, [Footnote: See Agnosticism in Nineteenth Century (Feb.
1889); Government: Anarchy or Regimentation, ib. (May 1890); Essays on
Evolution and Ethics (1894).] one of the most eminent interpreters
of the doctrine of evolution, did not, in his late years at least,
entertain very sanguine views of mankind. "I know of no study which is
so saddening as that of the evolution of humanity as it is set forth
in the annals of history.... Man is a brute, only more intelligent than
other brutes"; and "even the best of modern civilisations appears to
me to exhibit a condition of mankind which neither embodies any worthy
ideal nor even possesses the merit of stability." There may be some hope
of a large improvement, but otherwise he