728 Causes and Course of Organic Evolution 



response after another. Such responses led him through the 

 successive stages of ancestral ism, naturalism, animism, poly- 

 theism, and heliotheism to the final recognition of one supreme 

 Power, Energy, or Principle that moved the universe. Ani 

 since man could think of or conceive nothing higher or more 

 complicated in cognito-cogitic relation than his own individual 

 existence, and all the thoughts, words, and actions that he 

 and mankind had experienced, he of necessity gave a dim 

 and yet vaguely anthropomorphic conception to his final pro- 

 environed response or picture. At the same time he felt how 

 far he was from reaching out to, or understanding, or being 

 even distantly equal to, the spiritic picture of universal power 

 and bounty and beauty that he had formed from his summa- 

 tion of all the sensory impressions inherited or received from 

 day to day. 



So reverence, worship, adoration, have ever been the true 

 attitude of the noblest spirits among mankind; while prayer 

 and communion witli that greatest mental realization of the 

 human intellect have been and are a true index to the intensity 

 of the proenvironal aspiration. This attitude also is exactly 

 consistent with, and yet different from, that of the pure sci- 

 entist as he endeavors to follow some law in nature, to trace 

 the interaction of some stars, to unravel the development 

 of some animal, or to explain the intricacies of some psycho- 

 logical processes in terms of brain structure. Here the ob- 

 server concentrates his mind on a small realm of nature; shuts 

 out other areas of action and reaction that might interfere 

 with his direct line of inquiry, feels interest in, and expresses 

 admiration for, the results that accumulate from his investi- 

 gations, but the very concentrating on a small field of study 

 that ensures his success, prevents this wide outlook over the 

 world and the universe that has developed and that still fos- 

 ters the religious attitude. 



The unfortunate feature in the past has been that some 

 members of the group which we might call the professional 

 religionists have introduced dogmatic but erroneous teachings, 

 miracles, and magic arts, necromancy, and so-called prophetic 



