Religion as a Factor in Human Evolution 685 



When this ceases to be the cardinal conception, discussion 

 almost invariably descends to mere metaphysical specula- 

 tion and assertion. Thus E. Caird in "Evolution of Religion" 

 (215: 188) has suggested that human religious evolution ex- 

 hibits three successive stages, "in which the form of his con- 

 sciousness is successively determined by the ideas of the object, 

 of the subject, and of God as the principle of unity in both." 

 That is, man first "looks outward, not inward," and so con- 

 siders objects around him rather than his own personality. 

 Second, there succeeds "a period in which the form of self- 

 consciousness prevails, and determines both the consciousness 

 of objects and that of God." Third, "the final form of con- 

 sciousness is that in which the object and the self appear, 

 each in its proper form, as distinct yet in essential relatioi, 

 and, therefore, as subordinated to the consciousness of God, 

 which is recognized as at once the presupposition and as the 

 end of both." 



Such views are entirely contradicted by the history of man 

 as now known to us; neither do they accord with the stages 

 of religious advance, as shoT\ai by existing nations in their 

 gradation from the lowest to the highest religious aspiration; 

 nor do they outline to us a steady proenvironal advance toward 

 ever higher and wider views of mankind, of the world, and 

 of the universe, as all interrelated to man. They also lead 

 the author to say first: "So long as God is conceived under 

 the form of abstract objectivity or abstract subjectivity. He 

 is not conceived as He is in truth"; and to follow this in a 

 nearly succeeding sentence by the words: "It is impossible 

 for any one who has breathed the spirit of modern science, 

 modern literature, and modern ethics to believe in a purely 

 objective God; to worship any power of nature or even any 

 individualized outward image." 



Assertions of such nature are alike logically incorrect and 

 scientifically unthinkable, for they would compel us to believe 

 that since God is neither a subject, nor an object, nor a "power 

 of nature," his supposed personality and existence are a shad- 

 owy figment of the human intellect. Man has reverenced — 



