THE DOGMA OF EVOLUTION 



it failed to touch the imagination. For the source of 

 our present humanitarian rehgion we must turn to 

 Fiske and the other popularisers of Spencer's philoso- 

 phy. With Fiske begins the introduction of sentimen- 

 tality into the doctrine of evolution which is now the 

 creed of eugenics and of humanitarian righteousness. 

 He started the doctrine that religion is an adjustment 

 to a larger and larger environment. According to him, 

 humanity is to be saved by removing the inequalities 

 of material fortune rather than by acting on the faith 

 that righteousness is the highest reward of life, what- 

 ever may be its temporal misfortunes. He wished to 

 promote by every method the "deanthropomorphiza- 

 tion" of God and he succeeded only in promoting the 

 "anthropomorphization" of religion so that what 

 used to be called the house of God is better charac- 

 terized as an institutional church. 



Fiske softens the Absolute Unknowable of Spencer 

 into what he calls a quasi-human God. We are to be 

 permitted to say that God is Spirit but not that God 

 is Force, and we must avoid scrupulously the use of 

 the words, Intelligence and Volition, with regard to 

 the Deity. He finds that we feel a sense of dependence 

 upon the Unknowable which gives to our search for 

 the fulness of life in conforming to a larger and larger 

 environment a certain association with a feeling for 

 reverence for the Absolute, — and this is religion. This 

 would indeed be a religion for the few. He recog- 

 nized, what Spencer failed to understand until to- 



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