For this is one of the most remarkable facts of evolution--that consciousness, until a very late period, has played in it a negligible part. Indeed the rise of consciousness to become a factor of importance in evolution has been one of the most notable single items of progress. Darwin gave the deathblow to teleology by showing that apparently purposive structures could arise by means of a non-purposive mechanism. “Purpose” is a term invented to denote a particular operation of the human mind, and should only be used where a psychological basis may reasonably be postulated. On the other hand, a result can be attained by conscious purpose without the waste of time and of living material needed by the indirect method of natural selection; and thus the substitution of purposed for unpurposed progress is itself a step in progress. As another corollary of our concept of progress, it follows that we can and should consider, not only the direction of any evolutionary process, but also its rate. An evolutionary process, if it is to be considered progressive, must have a component in one particular direction--a direction which we have already defined. But this is not all; for even if it be moving in the right direction, and yet be moving extremely slowly, it may, if it have any interaction with a much more rapid progressive movement, actually exert a drag on this; its relative motion--relative to the main current of progress--will be backwards, and we may have to class it as the reverse of progressive. For example, the interaction of carnivore and herbivore, pursuer and pursued, led during the development of the vertebrates to the evolution of much that was good--speed, strength, alertness, and acuity of sense--and of many noble types of living things. But with the advent of man, different methods have been introduced, new modes of competition and advance; and the tiger and the wolf not only cease to be agents of progress in its new form, but definitely stand in its way and must be stamped out, or at least reduced to a condition in which they can no longer interfere as active agents in evolution. Some such considerations as these will help perhaps to resolve various difficulties of ethics--how, for instance, that which seems good to me may seem evil to another. Even the good, if it be a drag on the better, is evil. Expressed thus, the proposition is a paradox; but expressed in terms of direction and relative speed, it is at once intelligible. But the test of any such general biological theory as I have outlined will be its application to human problems. And here too, I venture to say, the value of biological method is apparent. What we ask, and rightly ask, is whether in the laws of biological progress we can find any principle which we can apply directly to guide us in devising methods for human progress.