EVOLUTION AND RELIGION 



of mind. Unless the righteous life can be shown to be 

 the inestimable reward of existence and unless its at- 

 tainment is accompanied with a certain indifference 

 to success and comfort there is little value in religion. 

 And I can find in the doctrine of evolution no guide 

 to such a standard of life. In spite of the degradation 

 by superstition and idolatry of which they are ac- 

 cused, the great religions have held faith in things 

 unseen steadily before us; they have given an incen- 

 tive for piety and the spiritual life which has held 

 and satisfied the best minds of the past. I can find no 

 symbol and no law to satisfy our spiritual nature in 

 the quasi-Christianity of the humanitarian applica- 

 tions of evolution. The real tendency of evolution is 

 to be found in the philosophy of Nietzsche and not in 

 the life of Christ. 



In the past, society turned to the precepts and ex- 

 ample of a few gifted individuals for a standard of 

 conduct. These teachers were so endowed with the 

 wisdom of analysing human hearts and motives, and 

 they set an example in the practice of their lives so 

 unattainable by others, that they were called prophets 

 and were considered to be divine. 



However the religions instituted by these men may 

 differ, they were all singularly united in the fact that 

 their fundamental commandments were few in num- 

 ber and simple in precept. And they had this most 

 essential quality in common ; they were almost exclu- 



r383 3 



