THE NATURALNESS OF THE SPIRITUAL WORLD 



naturalism was so revolutionary that in his own time it was not well 

 understood. Moreover, he fully appreciated the fundamental point 

 that evolution is not over, and that our present social system is not 

 the best of which man, and hence nature, is capable. "Why should 

 evolution," said Drummond,^ "stop with the organic?" "These 

 kingdoms," he concludes his book, "rising tier above tier in ever 

 increasing sublimity and beauty, their foundations visibly fixed in 

 the past, their progress, and the direction of their progress, being 

 facts in nature still, are the signs which, since the Magi first saw his 

 star in the east, have never been wanting from the firmament of truth, 

 and which in every age with growing clearness to the wise, and with 

 ever-gathering mystery to the uninitiated, proclaim that the Kingdom 

 of God is at hand." This is surely only another way of saying that 

 the new world order of social justice and comradeship, the rational 

 and classless world state, is no wild idealistic dream, but a logical 

 extrapolation from the whole course of evolution, having no less 

 authority than that behind it, and therefore of all faiths the most 

 rational. 



It costs something to say this, for these words are written after 

 the news of the outbreak of what must come to be called the second 

 world war. It is incredible that the agonies of 1914-1918 are again 

 to be repeated. But even so gigantic a set-back as a war of this magni- 

 tude unleashed by fascism cannot shake a faith which is based on the 

 considerations which convinced Drummond and Spencer, Engels and 

 Marx. The way may be long and we may not live to see, but the 

 triumph of the rational spiritual man is sure. 



S.S. President Harding [Lone Star State] 

 At sea^ September 6", iS)39 



1 NLSW, p. 401. 

 41 



