Religion as a Factor in Human Evolution 677 



sizing ordinary moral rules, and less preoccupied with incul- 

 cating special duties to the deity." It should be said however 

 that on a nearby page (p. 737), and when speaking of Christi- 

 anity, he accepts it "that its chief strength lies not in its ab- 

 stract doctrines but in the simple personal following of Christ." 



It has been one of the sad misfortunes of the situation in 

 the past century that, while religionists have feigned to ignore, 

 to discount, or even denounce many scientific discoveries, 

 scientists have too often pooh-poohed the entire subject of 

 religion, owing wholly or in part to false claims made, and 

 unreasonable dogmatic attitudes assumed, by its votaries. 

 But, even if we accept it that religious feeling or the religious 

 attitude flows from a teratological or pathological condition, 

 science has ignored or neglected one of its legitimate fields of 

 inquiry, when it has failed to examine religious phenomena 

 carefully and systematically. 



The sign is a welcome one that, since the acceptance of the 

 evolutionary principle, many students of comparative religions 

 have defined or connoted their inquiry as "The Science of 

 Religion." But too often they have contented themselves 

 with the historical exhibitions of it, and have overlooked the 

 causes at work in developing such histories. 



It is an equally welcome sign that even the leaders of some 

 of the purest Christian faiths have forsaken the old dogmatic 

 and unreasoning attitude in favor of one that hails inquiry 

 and knowledge from every side. Thus an Edinburgh theo- 

 logian recently said before an assembly of foreign mission- 

 aries that "religions had been formerly classified into true 

 and false, now they were generally classified into perfect and 

 imperfect, every one of the great religions being accepted as 

 containing some element of truth, and being of some good 

 to its followers." He then invited those present to state 

 freely what they regarded as helpful elements in the different 

 religions, other than the Protestant Christian, with which 

 they had come in contact. 



In passing it may be noted that even he still clung to the 

 idea that earth possessed a perfect thing. The definition of 

 "perfect" or perfection was not given, however. 



