influence they exert,
perhaps on very distant generations, if the remembrance of them is kept
alive, be it in legendary or in historical form. Their very failure
can show that a type has taken form which is maintained at all risks,
a standard of life which is adhered to in spite of the strongest
opposition. The question "to be or not to be" can be put from
very different levels of being: it has too often been considered a
consequence of Darwinism that this question is only to be put from
the lowest level. When a stage is reached, where ideal (ethical,
intellectual, aesthetic) interests are concerned, the struggle for life
is a struggle for the preservation of this stage. The giving up of a
higher standard of life is a sort of death; for there is not only a
physical, there is also a spiritual, death.

VI.

The Socratic character of Darwin's mind appears in his wariness in
drawing the last consequences of his doctrine, in contrast both with the
audacious theories of so many of his followers and with the consequences
which his antagonists were busy in drawing. Though he, as we have seen,
saw from the beginning that his hypothesis would occasion "a whole of
metaphysics," he was himself very reserved as to the ultimate questions,
and his answers to such questions were extorted from him.

As to the question of optimism and pessimism, Darwin held that though
pain and suffering were very often the ways by which animals were led
to pursue that course of action which is most beneficial to the species,
yet pleasurable feelings were the most habitual guides. "We see this in
the pleasure from exertion, even occasionally from great exertion of the
body or mind, in the pleasure of our daily meals, and especially in the
pleasure derived from sociability, and from loving our families." But
there was to him so much suffering in the world that it was a strong
argument against the existence of an intelligent First Cause. ("Life and
Letters" Vol. I. page 310.)

It seems to me that Darwin was not so clear on another question, that
of the relation between improvement and adaptation. He wrote to Lyell:
"When you contrast natural selection and 'improvement,' you seem always
to overlook... that every step in the natural selection of each species
implies improvement in that species IN RELATION TO ITS CONDITION OF
LIFE... Improvement implies, I suppose, EACH FORM OBTAINING MANY PARTS
OR ORGANS, all excellently adapted for their functions." "Al