want to find. And if such a tendency is found, as we are told, in evolution, the result is in just so far encouraging. Although the external world still often hinders moral growth, yet, we are told, as evolution reaches higher and higher stages, the world comes to harmonize more and more with man’s moral growth. This also seems to be what we seek. In time morality will become a natural product of early childhood. Men will be born with characters that we now seek in vain to develop by a life-time of labor. Natural evolution, then, does help moral progress, and the world is more moral to-day than ever before. This then is to be the religious aspect of the outer world. Does it contain enough of the truth of things to content us?
We are far from doubting the scientific worth of the natural laws that have been discovered of late years, and that have made so clear to us the great truth of far-reaching physical evolution. But let us reflect before we accept these facts as furnishing any deeply important contribution to our present problem. We thoroughly believe in evolution; but we must take, in these matters, a very high position. If the world of powers apart from man is to have a religious aspect, then this aspect must belong to this world as a whole. A minor power for good is not enough. It will not suffice to find that one bit of reality fights for our moral needs while another bit of reality fights against them, unless we can in some way harmonize these conflicting aspects, or unless we can show that they that be with us are not only more important or significant than they that be
