n of to-day. But if the question is
whether he WILL rise far above the civilisation of to-day, we can, in
my opinion, give a confident answer. There is no law of evolution, but
there is a fact of evolution. Ten million years ago the highest animal
on the earth was a reptile, or, at the most, a low, rat-like marsupial.
The authorities tell us that, unless some cosmic accident intervene, the
earth will remain habitable by man for at least ten million years. It
is safe to conclude that the man of that remote age will be lifted above
the man of to-day as much as we transcend the reptile in intelligence
and emotion. It is most probable that this is a quite inadequate
expression of the future advance. We are not only evolving, but evolving
more rapidly than living thing ever did before. The pace increases
every century. A calm and critical review of our development inspires a
conviction that a few centuries will bring about the realisation of the
highest dream that ever haunted the mind of the prophet. What splendours
lie beyond that, the most soaring imagination cannot have the dimmest
perception.

And the last word must meet an anxiety that arises out of this very
confidence. Darwin was right. It is--not exclusively, but mainly--the
struggle for life that has begotten higher types. Must every step of
future progress be won by fresh and sustained struggle? At least we may
say that the notion that progress in the future depends, as in the past,
upon the pitting of flesh against flesh, and tooth against tooth, is
a deplorable illusion. Such physical struggle is indeed necessary to
evolve and maintain a type fit for the struggle. But a new thing has
come into the story of the earth--wisdom and fine emotion. The processes
which begot animal types in the past may be superseded; perhaps must be
superseded. The battle of the future lies between wit and wit, art and
art, generosity and generosity; and a great struggle and rivalry may
proceed that will carry the distinctive powers of man to undreamed-of
heights, yet be wholly innocent of the passion-lit, blood-stained
conflict that has hitherto been the instrument of progress.

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