276 ESSAYS OF A BIOLOGIST 



been many and various; but they all operate by sup- 

 pression, repression, and sublimation, or by a com- 

 bination of these. 



It can at once be said that sublimation is the right 

 and highest way, and that two of the criteria of re- 

 ligious progress are to be found in the stress laid upon 

 sublimation, and in the enlargement and the eleva- 

 tion of the dominant ideas at work in the sublimat- 

 ing process. It is the right and highest way because 

 through it no spiritual energy is wasted, and the age- 

 long path of progress towards ever higher levels of 

 complexity in organization is still continued. 

 Among religious teachers, both Jesus and Paul laid 

 great stress on this — on the freedom, the emancipa- 

 tion from the shackles of an external law made pos- 

 sible by the apprehension of some highest harmoniz- 

 ing principle and the subordination of all other ideas 

 and desires to it. Once one can see and learn to 

 follow such a principle, whatever one does is in a 

 sense right, because one's desires are all subordinate 

 to a desire for right, and to something which is right. 

 Perhaps it would be better to say that they appear 

 right to oneself, that the haunting, terrible sense of 

 sin is laid to rest, and one's life liberated into free 

 activity, one's energy made all available for achieve- 

 ment. 



The sense of sin, if not universal at one or other 

 period of life, is almost so, and comes from an appre- 

 hension of inner disharmony. As one would expect, 

 selfishness and sex are its most common roots; and 



