Munich, Jan. 1923.
PROGRESS, BIOLOGICAL AND OTHER
“Usus et impigrae simul experientia mentis
Paulatim docuit pedetemtim progredientes.”
—Lucretius.
“As natural selection works solely by and for the good of each being, all corporeal and mental environments will tend to progress towards perfection.”
—Charles Darwin.
“Social progress means the checking of the cosmic process at every step and the substitution for it of another which may be called the ethical process.”
—T. H. Huxley.
“It is probable that what hindered Kant from broaching his theory of progress with as much confidence as Condorcet was his perception that nothing could be decisively affirmed about the course of civilization until the laws of its movement had been discovered. He saw that this was a matter for future scientific investigation.”
—J. B. Bury.
What is the most fundamental need of man? It would be interesting to conduct a plebiscite of such a question, a plebiscite of the same sort that was conducted by one of the French newspapers some years ago, to discover the opinions of its readers as to who was the greatest Frenchman of the century.
When I say the most fundamental need of man, I do not mean those basic needs for food and drink and shelter which he shares with the animals: I mean the most fundamental to him as man, as an organism differing from all other organisms in the power of thought, in reflection and self-consciousness. What variety of answers would be given, I dare not guess; but I hazard the belief that the majority, if the suggestion were put before them, would agree that his deepest need was to discover something, some being or power, some force or tendency, which was moulding the destinies of the world—something not himself, greater than himself, with which he yet felt that he could harmonize his nature, in which he could repose his doubts, through faith in which he could achieve confidence and hope.