4.
Mankind surely does not represent an evolution toward a
better or stronger or higher level, as progress is now understood. This
“progress”
is merely a modern idea, which is to say, a false idea. The European of
today, in his essential worth, falls far below the European of the
Renaissance; the process of evolution does not necessarily mean
elevation, enhancement, strengthening.
True enough, it succeeds in isolated and individual cases in various
parts of the earth and under the most widely different cultures, and in
these cases a higher type certainly manifests itself; something
which, compared to mankind in the mass, appears as a sort of superman.
Such happy strokes of high success have always been possible, and will
remain possible, perhaps, for all time to come. Even whole races, tribes
and nations may occasionally represent such lucky accidents.
