ABSTRACT
IT is only when we pass on from the sub-human world to deal with the evolution of man that ethics must, in its own right, enter the picture. In the human species, all the factors of the biological evolutionary system undoubtedly persist: the genetic system, the epigenetic system, the exploitive system, and the natural selective system. But that is not the end of the story. An extremely important advance in theoretical biology was made by Darlington when he discussed in detail what he speaks of as 'the evolution of genetic systems'. In the production of genetic variations, which can be submitted to the action of natural selection, the process of mutation is supplemented by various processes involving the segregation, reassortment and recombination of genetic units. Darlington uses the phrase 'genetic system' to refer to the whole complex of processes by which hereditary variation is brought into being and transmitted, including these processes of recombination as well as those of mutation. He argued that there will be a natural selection in favour of more efficient genetic systems; that is to say, systems which most effectively throw up hereditary variations of the kind that natural selection will favour. The character of the evolutionary mechanism is therefore sufficient to ensure that evolutionary changes will occur in the direction of an increasing efficiency of the genetic system. In this particular respect, therefore, one can see an inevitable and not merely a contingent direction of change.
