time: the refreshing river 



(Nature, delivered from every haughty Lord 

 And forthwith free, is seen to do all things 

 Herself, and through herself of her own accord, 

 Free of all Gods.) 



On the one hand there is the cosmic force which is "responsible" 

 for the vast evolutionary process wherein we form a part, if any- 

 thing is responsible for it. The modern mind finds the ancient schol- 

 astic arguments for the existence of this force or "prime mover" 

 in no way convincing, still less that it partakes of the nature of what 

 we call "mind" or "personality," and even less still that its essence 

 is good. The good seems to arise out of the evolutionary process 

 rather than to have been in it from the beginning. But the good is an 

 immediate datum, and the holiness of good actions is an immediate 

 datum. These are the occasions of modern religion. 



From this point of view, the bonds of love and comradeship in 

 human society are analogous to the various forces which hold particles 

 together at the colloidal, crystalline, molecular, and even sub-atomic 

 levels of organisation. The evolutionary process itself supplies us 

 with a criterion of the good. The good is that which contributes 

 most to the social solidarity of organisms having the high degree of 

 organisation which human beings do in fact have. The original sin 

 which prevents us from living as Confucius and Jesus enjoined^ is 

 recognisable as the remnants in us of features suitable to lower levels 

 of social organisation; anti-social now. If such an idea is accepted, 

 the insistence that we must have some extra-natural criterion of ethical 

 values ceases to have any point. The kind of behaviour which has 

 furthered man's social evolution in the past can be seen very well by 

 viewing human history; and the great ethical teachers, from Confucius 

 onwards, have shown us, in general terms, how men may live together 

 in harmony, employing their several talents to the general good. 

 Perfect social order, the reign of justice and love, the Regnum Dei of 

 the theologians, the "Magnetic Mountain" of the poets, is a long way 

 in the future yet, but we know by now the main ethical principles 

 which will help us to get there, and we can dimly see how these have 

 originated during social and biological evolution. There is no need 

 for perplexity as to whether we ought to call evolution morally 



^ There is, of course, the incidental difficulty of continually modifying the letter 

 of the teaching of the great ethical "mutants" to fit changing techniques and increasing 

 knowledge, without losing their spirit. 



S6 



