Development is, therefore, really the exception rather than the rule. It covers only those cases in which a cumulative or forward metamorphosis has taken place. It is characteristic only of those species in which identity has been extended. Indeed, development might be called the law of higher life, or of that life which advances by gradual steps from the homogeneous to the heterogenous, which, in fact, _unfolds itself_ only to reveal and to perpetuate ever fresh and new attributes and activities. Development is a name which, though not descriptive of all organic evolution,[3] certainly describes the changes of a species _that has grown_ through its thousands of generations--grown, that is to say, in the sense of having become more and more--more and more capable of multifarious activities and adaptations. Development in this correct and restricted sense of “growth,” thus implies “becoming more,” “extending identity.” Becoming more, therefore, is a principle of higher life. Now what does this conclusion necessarily involve in the terms of humanity? It means that the _ascending_ line of life in the genus Homo Sapiens, at least, has not only become more and more, but must also have been characterised by the spiritual counterpart of this physical striving, which consists in desiring to become more and more--that is to say, to extend identity. Any slackening, any reversal, any paralysis of this desire to become more and more, may thus be regarded as the beginning of the other movement--the movement of retrograde development, of decline. In each healthy individual of a truly _developing_ species, we should therefore expect to find the _conscious_ counterpart of the principle of higher life, which will be the desire to become more and more, to extend identity. To assail this desire to become more and more is therefore tantamount to a conspiracy against life, it is tantamount to a denial of the healthiest instinct of the species. It is the hand of death outstretched across the _ascending road_ of the animal man. Call this adverse criticism or hostility [p35] what you will--Socialism, Communism, or Bolshevism, it is all one. It is the cry of those who have lost ascending or developing life’s strongest instinct against those who still possess it. Or else it is the cry of the envious in life’s battle, who pretend to have lost life’s strongest instinct, in order to acquire power over those who have not.