It was Darwin’s birthday this week, and I should have thought to post this on the day. Not to worry. Here’s a wee bit edification for you from C.S. Lewis. (No, he isn’t talked about the Tax-the-Future bill on the verge of becoming law when he says, “Lead us nobody knows where,” though it would apply.)

Lead us, Evolution, lead us

Up the future’s endless stair;

Chop us, change us, prod us, weed us.

For stagnation is despair:

Groping, guessing, yet progressing,

Lead us nobody knows where.

Wrong or justice, joy or sorrow,

In the present what are they

while there’s always jam-tomorrow,

While we tread the onward way?

Never knowing where we’re going,

We can never go astray.

To whatever variation

Our posterity may turn

Hairy, squashy, or crustacean,

Bulbous-eyed or square of stern,

Tusked or toothless, mild or ruthless,

Towards that unknown god we yearn.

Ask not if it’s god or devil,

Brethren, lest your words imply

Static norms of good and evil

(As in Plato) throned on high;

Such scholastic, inelastic,

Abstract yardsticks we deny.

Far too long have sages vainly

Glossed great Nature’s simple text;

He who runs can read it plainly,

‘Goodness = what comes next.’

By evolving, Life is solving

All the questions we perplexed.

Oh then! Value means survival-

Value. If our progeny

Spreads and spawns and licks each rival,

That will prove its deity

(Far from pleasant, by our present,

Standards, though it may well be).