evolution than
modern science does; that, in fact, modern science has no philosophy
of evolution at all. For the fundamental problem here is, if we speak
of higher and lower beings, what rational ground have we for calling
them higher and lower? That the lower passes in time into the higher
is no doubt a very interesting fact to discover, but it dwindles into
insignificance beside the problem just indicated, because, on the
solution of that problem it depends whether the universe is to be
regarded as futile, meaningless, and irrational, or whether we are to
see in it order, plan, and purpose. Is Spencer's doctrine a theory of
development at all? Or is it not rather simply a theory of change?
Something resembling an ape becomes a man. Is there development here,
that is, is it a movement from something really lower to something
really higher? Or is it merely change from one indifferent thing to
another? Is there improvement, or only difference? In the latter case,
it makes not the slightest difference whether the ape becomes man, or
man becomes an ape. The one is as good as the other. In either case,
it is merely a change from Tweedledum to Tweedledee. The change is
meaningless, and has no significance.

The modern doctrine of evolution can only render the world more
intelligible, can only develop into a philosophy of evolution, by
showing that there is evolution and not merely change, and this it can
only do by {310} giving a rational basis for the belief that some
forms of existence are higher than others. To put the matter bluntly,
why is a man higher than a horse, or a horse than a sponge? Answer
that, and you have a philosophy of evolution. Fail to answer it, and
you have none. Now the man in the street will say that man is higher
than the horse, because he not merely eats grass, but thinks,
deliberates, possesses art, science, religion, morality. Ask him why
these things are higher than eating grass, and he has no answer. From
him, then, we turn to Spencer, and there we find a sort of answer. Man
is higher because he is more organized. But why is it better to be
more organized? Science, as such, has no answer. If pressed in this
way, science may of course turn round and say: "there is in the
reality of things no higher and no lower; what I mean by higher and
lower is simply more and less organized; higher and lower are mere
metaphors; they are the human way of looking at things; we naturally
call higher what is ne