THE TRENDS OF EVOLUTION 183 



a Study of all nature, aided and abetted by knowledge 

 gained through individual, subjective experience. They, 

 too, could obtain truth by the only means by w^hich it may 

 be obtained— the discipline of the methods of science. Rei- 

 ser's dream of a "Supreme Imagination (impersonal and non- 

 anthropomorphic)" which will "weld into one world-view 

 the Pantheism of the Stoics, Bruno and Spinoza" is not out- 

 side the realm of possibility. Certainly, man cannot afford 

 to be forever confused by a multiplicity of gods and by a 

 multiplicity of conflicting "truths." 



The great value of the church to mankind lies in its help 

 toward a "way of life," in so far as this way is in keeping 

 with the basic teachings of Gautama Buddha, Confucius, 

 Jesus Christ, and the innate capacities for mutual aid that 

 are a part of man's nature. We all know that the teachings 

 of humanists, early and late, have sometimes been all but 

 smothered under the theological edifice and ritual of the 

 churches. In spite of their shortcomings, however, the 

 churches have been of help in bringing to conscious level 

 the innate nature of man, who, like all the rest of the ani- 

 mal world, is strongly inclined toward the companionship 

 of his fellows. That innate capacity is there to be brought 

 out, and religion as a way of life is one of the agencies that 

 serves to encourage and augment the inclination. No threat 

 of Hell or promise of Heaven is necessary. The basic ethic 

 of mutual aid is as much a part of man and all other animals 

 as is their desire to eat and to reproduce. To be sure, in man 

 mutual aid is not as highly developed as might be desired. 

 It is, then, the role of religion and science alike to do all in 

 their power to improve upon the innate capacity. Their 

 power to improve will be increased only through a sincere 

 facing-up to factual nature so as to know man through na- 

 ture and not through some myth and through finding the 

 ways and means to guide the early formative years of each 

 individual's life into the channels of peace and understand- 

 ing. 



