I do not suggest, I affirm, with the support of all science at my elbow and all reason at my side, that the world in its development has exhibited only one constant direction, and that direction is toward what we call the good or, in other words, progression toward the complex.
That the development of forms by natural selection is only a part of the real business of the universe, whose mighty labours have, from the very beginning of earthly things, been directed toward one distant ideal.
What is the Ideal? Who knows? We only know that on the covering directions of the sealed orders, which man may not open till he is fit to read them, are the words: Advancement, Love, Mercy, Kindliness, Protection, and every other word which the mind of man has marshalled under that mysterious and general term, The Good.
Blind matter carried those sealed orders in its body and the first fishes carried them under their fins, the first claw was made to catch them and to carry them through ferocious times, till the hand of the first monkey seized them. “Advancement” was the only word on the cover then; but, age after age, hitherto invisible directions began to appear letter by letter, till “Love” stood out, and “Mercy,” and all those other words that form the basis of Progress.
Accident and the stress of growth have sometimes obliterated those words for years and centuries. Civilisations have misinterpreted some of those words and barbarisms have rubbed them out, schools of Religions and schools of thought have meddled with them and altered them, yet they have always returned, and not only returned, but brought other words with them.
The aim and object of life, Haeckel, are the carriage of those sealed orders, and the implicit obedience of the directions that appear age by age on their envelope, till, who knows, some day the word “Open” may be found there, and some glimpse of the great Ideal be permitted to the eyes of man.