Thread by @YUKOWAS

"This is the basis of the correct view of human evolution. There is no compulsory, mechanical evolution. Evolution is the result of conscious struggle. Nature does not need this evolution; it does not want it and struggles against it.

Evolution can be necessary only to man himself when he realizes his position, realizes the possibility of changing this position, realizes that he has powers that he does not use, riches that he does not see.
And, in the sense of gaining possession of these powers and riches,

evolution is possible.
But if all men, or most of them, realized this and desired to obtain what belongs to them by right of birth, evolution would again become impossible. What is possible for an individual man is impossible for the masses.

"The advantage of the separate individual is that he is very small and that, in the economy of nature, it makes no difference whether there is one mechanical man more or less. We can easily understand this correlation of magnitudes if we imagine the correlation

between a microscopic cell and our own body.
The presence or absence of one cell will change nothing in the life of the body. We cannot be conscious of it, and it can have no influence on the life and functions of the organism.

In exactly the same way a separate individual is too small to influence the life of the cosmic organism to which he stands in the same relation (with regard to size) as a cell stands to our own organism.

And this is precisely what makes his 'evolution' possible; on this are based his 'possibilities.'
"In speaking of evolution it is necessary to understand from the outset that no mechanical evolution is possible. The evolution of man is the evolution of his consciousness.

And 'consciousness' cannot evolve unconsciously. The evolution of man is the evolution of his will, and 'will' cannot evolve involuntarily. The evolution, of man, is the evolution of his power of doing, and 'doing' cannot be the result of things which 'happen.'

"People do not know what man is. They have to do with a very complex machine, far more complex than a railway engine, a motorcar, or an aeroplane—but they know nothing, or almost nothing, about the construction, working, or possibilities of this machine;

they do not even understand its simplest functions, because they do not know the purpose of these functions. They vaguely imagine that a man should learn to control his machine, just as he has to learn to control a railway engine, a motorcar, or an aeroplane,

and that incompetent handling of the human machine is just as dangerous as incompetent handling of any other complex machine.
Everybody understands this in relation to an aeroplane, a motorcar, or a railway engine.

But it is very rarely that anyone takes this into account in relation to man in general or to himself in particular. It is considered right and legitimate to think that nature has given men the necessary knowledge of their machine.

And yet men understand that an instinctive knowledge of the machine is by no means enough. Why do they study medicine and make use of its services? Because, of course, they realize they do not know their machine.

But they do not suspect that it can be known much better than science knows it; they do not suspect that then it would be possible to get quite different work out of it."