Religion as a Factor in Human Evolution 697 



by the relations he bears to other organisms and to the world 

 around him. But each human being owes personality to 

 conjoint biotic, cognitic, cogitic, and spiritic energy combina- 

 tions, that form the complex molecules we call living matter. 

 If such energy combination can live on, when the molecules 

 that conduct this energy have died or become disrupted, then 

 immortality is a thinkable state of individual existence. At 

 present absolutely no proof of such can be adduced. 



Fourth, Christ taught that he desired not to supersede the 

 moral law, as condensed in the ten commandments, but that 

 he endeavored to enforce it willingly through operation of 

 the grander law of love. In other words, his great aim in 

 life was to establish a social polity on earth, that would be 

 a fulfillment of the herald words, "Peace on earth, good will 

 to men." When his true followers have consistently aimed 

 for and practised this, the world and social life will have proved 

 sweet and desirable heritages. But most of his professed 

 followers — clericals, kings, courtiers, lawgivers, merchants, and 

 others — have eluded or openly flung aside his most cherished 

 convictions and aspirations. So the world of humanity is 

 still an armed camp that is only slowly being shamed out of 

 existence, and social competition is still more prevalent than 

 social cooperation, that nevertheless is steadily advancing to 

 ultimate triumph.* 



The above we regard as Christ's cardinal teachings, and 

 they are equally the teachings of Paul, his most distinguished 

 Gra?co-Judaic follower. Their entire life-efforts were directed 

 to teaching mankind how to live alike individually and socially, 

 not how to die or how to live in a post-resurrection state of immor- 

 tality. Neither of the latter states receives any important 

 consideration at their hands, and some of the assertions that 

 have been used by Churchmen in the past to support the latter 

 views are clearly forgeries by post-pauline editors. 



* The above, written in 1912, receives melancholy confirmation in the colos- 

 sal war of today. Its saddest feature also from the religious standpoint is 

 that a God — God alone — is constantly invoked to bless the breaking and trans- 

 gression of every human moral law. Man is today doing what no groups of 

 ants would do, and so is proving his moral inferiority. 



