be introduced into this mass of dead mathematical facts? The answer of some representatives of science in our day is well known to us. Whatever else is doubtful, say such men, there stands fast the great law of progress. Evolution in the physical world becomes actual progress in the world of human life. The world, under the influence of all these far-reaching laws, is actually growing forever better. Thus natural law agrees with morality. Thus there is a religious aspect to the mechanical laws of the universe.
Let us consider once more the law of progress. We spoke of it in a previous chapter. There it did not help us. For we wanted to agree upon the nature of morality. We were not helped towards such agreement by the knowledge that there is in the world a physical evolution. For we could not tell what ought to be, merely by considering what is. We had first to agree upon a moral law, before we could decide whether evolution is actually progress. But now, perhaps, we can make use of the law of evolution to aid our inquiry into the religious aspect of reality. For now, having defined what the good is, we may estimate whether the world is growing toward the good. And if the world is morally progressing, then one great demand of the religious consciousness is fulfilled. Then there is a power not ourselves that works for righteousness. Or is this really the consequence of the law of evolution?
The first answer is that if there is any tendency at work in the world that as time goes on more and more helps men in their struggle towards morality, this tendency is indeed, as far as it goes, what we
