Revelation, Rationality, Knowledge & Truth — Page 444
NATURAL SELECTION AND SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST will always take the right decisions at the right moment and will not leave them to the throw of a dice. . H. OW CAN IT be possible for evolution to continuously march forward in the direction of man while at each moment the possibilities of its taking the wrong steps backwards are overwhelmingly larger? The only possible solution to this otherwise insoluble dilemma would be to follow the backward escape route envisaged by a boy during a rainy day. Once, it is said, a boy reached his school very late. When severely reprimanded by his teacher, he offered the excuse that the road to school was so muddy and slippery that as he took one step forward in the direction of the school, he slipped back two steps. 'How on earth did you reach the school at all?' shouted the angry teacher. ‘Excuse me, sir,' was the apologetic reply of the boy, ‘It struck me rather late, that I should start walking in the direction of my house instead of that of the school. The moment I did it, I began to slide backwards towards the school at an even faster speed than I ordinarily maintain. . And here I am sir, hitting the back of my head against the school wall, such was my haste to reach here, backwards all the way. '. The dilemma that life faces, if left entirely to the mercy of chance, is far more exasperating than the case of that boy. At each step forward, evolution driven by chance should have slipped a hundred thousand steps backwards. . But for life with no prefixed direction, as some naturalists believe, the concept of a step forward simply does not arise. . Forward in which direction and to what end, are the questions which can never be answered in relation to chance being its creator. Every step it took could be in any direction. Hence even turning the journey of life backwards could not resolve the problem. Man not being the ultimate 431