t modification of the more mysterious theory which it
was its boast and merit to have supplanted. According to Geddes and
Foster and others of their school, it is the species-subserving
qualities that Nature selects; and these, in the higher grades of life,
are equivalent to the altruistic, social, and ethical qualities. It is
in virtue of the parental and maternal instincts of self-sacrifice,
self-diffusion, self-forgetfulness in the interests of the offspring,
that species are preserved and prevail. Selfish egoism leads eventually
(as we see in some modern countries where _laizzez-faire_ liberalism
prevails) to social disruption, decadence, and chaos; and this is the
universal law of life in every grade. At first indeed the unit struggles
to live, for life is the condition of propagation; but the root of this
instinct is altruistic; it is the whole asserting itself in the part;
and all "self-regarding" instincts are to be likewise explained as
subordinate to the "other-regarding" instincts. As soon as this
sub-ordination is ignored in practice, regress takes the place of
progress. The transit, we are told, from the unicellular to the
multicellular organism cannot be explained by individualism, but implies
a diminution of the competitive, an increase of the social and
subordinative tendency. The argument from economics to biology and back
again, is said to be nearing exposure; the "progress of the species
through the internecine struggle of its individuals at the margin of
subsistence," is the outgoing idea. Yes, and with it goes out all that
made Evolution a simple and therefore popular explanation of the world;
and there comes in that "organic" conception of the process which
clamours for theism and finalism as its only coherent complement.

3. But though Evolution so conceived makes the "argument from
adaptability," as well as the arguments for theism, stronger rather than
weaker; we must not shut our eyes to the difficulty created by the fact
(too little insisted upon by Evolutionists) that there is no solid
reason for thinking that progress is all-pervading. We have already said
that progress in commerce may be regress in art or in religion or in
morality. Also, progress in benevolence may co-exist with regress in
fortitude and purity; progress in one point of morality with regress in
another; progress in ethical judgment with regress in ethical practice.
And in every realm, growth and decay, life and death, seem s