230 ESSAYS OF A BIOLOGIST 



ligion brought about by changes other than those in 

 religious beliefs themselves. Most important, of 

 course, are the spread of education on the one hand, 

 and the spread of the facilities for the most varied 

 spiritual enjoyment on the other. If the people is 

 educated to a point at which it can judge for itself, 

 it wants no special priests or clerical mediators; its 

 mediators are those who are specially fitted to un- 

 ravel the intellectual, emotional, and moral difficul- 

 ties of its own day and for all time — poets, philoso- 

 phers, and men of science. The spread of facilities 

 for reading, for seeing plays and works of art, and 

 hearing good music, means of course that, whereas 

 in ruder epochs the Church provided the principal 

 way of psychological sublimation, now sublimation 

 and spiritual refreshment can be achieved equally or 

 more effectively (and every whit as religiously) with- 

 out ever frequenting a "place of worship" or belong- 

 ing to any denomination. This tendency towards 

 fluidity and plasticity, towards many possibilities of 

 sublimation instead of one, may by some be la- 

 mented. But, as a matter of fact, it is in full accord 

 with all we know of biological progress.. Man has 

 attained his position of biological pre-eminence sim- 

 ply and solely by virtue of the plasticity of his mind, 

 which substitutes infinitude of potentiality for the 

 limited range of actuality given by the instinctive 

 reactions of lower forms. Humanity will always 

 have some religion, and it will always be of the ut- 

 most importance to man, both as individual and as 



