538 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
progress, but, like organic progress, it may and does result in the extinction of deficient and the preservation of efficient races and institutions.
Reverting to the figurative expression employed in the fifth paper, we may now perceive that just as the origin of feeling, except as a condition to function, was a matter of entire indif- ference to Nature, so this social progress, like organic devel- opment, is equally immaterial from the standpoint of Nature's purposes, and only useful in so far as it incidentally com- passes the furtherance of those purposes. In other words, just as Nature does not care whether desire is satisfied or not, so long as life is preserved and perpetuated, so she in like manner has no concern for this social progress in and for itself, but only in so far as it becomes a means to her ends. Still more broadly put, it is no part of the scheme of Nature to bring about change, but only to secure growth and multiplica- tion. Everything else is extra-normal and unintended.
It certainly seems a startling proposition that social progress forms no part of the scheme of Nature, but it is true in this sense, and civilization itself belongs to the class of extra-normal products. This would of course be a futile speculation but for the important practical truth that flows from it as a corollary. This is that man is living under a new dispensation. He has cut loose from his natural moorings and is afloat upon a great sea. He has started on a voyage in search of an El Dorado. He left the mother country against the protestations of his country- men, and now he must, like a real hero, discover the rich land of his dreams or else he must ignominiously perish. He is too far out now on this great voyage of discovery to turn back, and therefore he can only go forward. He is therefore pushing on, and already the dim outline of the distant land is looming upon the horizon.
To drop the figure, this blind genetic progress which has, without man's knowledge or solicitude, wrought out the civiliza- tion that we have, has nearly reached the point at which society itself will awake to collective consciousness and usher in an era
