RELIGION AND SCIENCE 247 



finally, with the rise of evolutionary biology and 

 psychology, there seems to be no place any more for 

 a God in the universe. 



Stated thus, the opposition is complete. But let us 

 return on our footsteps, and trace for one thing some 

 of the history of religious beliefs, for another re- 

 investigate, from a slightly unusual standpoint, the 

 actual knowledge of the Universe which science has 

 given us. 



Man has developed: in early stages, his physical 

 and mental capacities developed; in later stages de- 

 velopment has been mainly restricted to his tradi- 

 tions, ideas, and achievements. As part of his devel- 

 opment, his religious ideas have altered too. 



At the beginning, he appears to have no ideas of 

 a God of Gods at all — merely of influences and pow- 

 ers, obviously (he would say) inherent in the forces 

 of Nature, magically inherent in certain objects 

 and actions — fetishes and incantations. He seems 

 scarcely to have been conscious of himself as an indi- 

 vidual, or of the full distinction between self and the 

 external world. 



Later, perhaps as the idea of his own personality 

 grew, he began to ascribe a more personal existence 

 to the forces with which he ca,me into contact, and 

 so to turn them more and more into beings that can 

 properly be called Gods: polydaemonism arose and 

 in its turn gave place to polytheism. 



But while rigid custom was at first the only moral- 

 ity, and each external power and each human activ- 



