RELIGION AND SCIENCE 297 



to-day, and showing an acceleration of speed on 

 which we may raise our hopes for the future. 



We do not know all. For instance, I have stu- 

 diously avoided ever mentioning the word immortal- 

 ity, since I believe that Science cannot yet profitably 

 discuss that question. But the discovery of unity 

 in all that has so far been studied gives us reasonable 

 faith that its wings will reach out to cover all that 

 we shall still be enabled to learn, while the unbroken 

 continuity of evolutionary direction gives us the same 

 sort of right to believe that it will continue to- 

 morrow and on into time as we have to believe that 

 apples will continue to fall to the earth. 



The study of evolution may give us a further help. 

 We have seen how the final steps of the highest forms 

 of animals have been in the direction of plasticity of 

 organrzation : we see it in the rise of man from mam- 

 mals, in higher as against more primitive levels of 

 human culture, in great men as against ordinary 

 men. There can be no doubt that its acquisition 

 constitutes a step in evolutionary progress. Plastic- 

 ity is needed in any new religion. And plasticity 

 means tolerance, means the reduction of fixity of 

 ritual, of convention, of dogma, of clericalism. 



It is clear that, as complexity increases, need will 

 be felt for a finer adjustment of satisfaction to mood, 

 a more delicate adaptation of religion to the indi- 

 vidual. A few types of ceremony satisfied primitive 

 races : an elaborate system, fixed in essence, fluctuat- 

 ing in detail, has grown up in modern Christianity. 



