THE EVOLUTION OF SERVICE 4" 



Science seeks truth and discovers righteousness. Eeligion seeks 

 righteousness and discovers truth. Both acquire knowledge of nature's 

 right and wrong methods of making progress, and both point the same 

 way to right living. 



Science is the deliberate, conscious interpretation of nature. Eeli- 

 gion is the instinctive, unconscious expression of natural law in terms 

 of feeling. 



Eeligion is the instinctive feeling for truth, justice and righteous- 

 ness. Nature is truth, and her way is the way of justice and righteous- 

 ness. Science takes cognizance of it in measured terms. 



Eeligion is the feeling of wonder, adoration, gratitude and humil- 

 ity. It is largely justified and satisfied by the contemplation of nature 

 through science. 



Eeligion is the recognition of our own imperfections, and a desire 

 for perfection. Nature is a conflict of imperfections. Science shows 

 that the conflict is aimed at, and moves toward, perfection. 



Eeligion demands service. Nature is a growing fabric of co- 

 operating services. Science surveys the process and points the way 

 toward higher service. 



In science and religion, there is strife through organized service to 

 discover and attain perfection. Each reflects in its own way the essen- 

 tial character of a universal natural law. 



We are at present in a better position to use the panoramic vision of 

 science than ever before, because we have now reached a point where 

 the outlook on the evolution of life extends to the horizon, and we 

 may see mapped out in broad perspective the grand preliminaries to life, 

 and the general trend of life's highways. 



These great highways of organic evolution, that run back for many 

 millions of years, through the whole gamut of vertebrate and inverte- 

 brate life, from man to the simplest and minutest kinds of living things, 

 show us in large terms what organic evolution really is and how it has 

 been accomplished. They reveal to us the ethics and the morals of 

 nature, the fundamentally right and the fundamentally wrong methods 

 of living, for throughout all the highways of progress nature declares, 

 and declares with insistent repetition, that the actual creation of new 

 things and of new powers for service, or the evolution of the varied 

 products' and activities of nature, is never compassed by competition 

 and selfishness; never by destruction, nor by discord, nor by dominion; 

 but by union and by cooperation ; by sympathy, submission and mutual 

 service. Until some other being appears, greater than man, the age 

 long processes that have produced him are justified by their product, 

 and are thereby standardized as righteous and moral processes. 



(To be continued) 



