742 Causes and Course of Organic Evolution 



and sect, filled often with a lower human bigotry and zeal, 

 has denied the community of thought and result, in their effort 

 to prove their own the only true religious faith. But mankind 

 is beginning to perceive the true trend of events, and to be- 

 lieve and live accordingly. 



So toward the close of the pre-Christian era the more earnest 

 sjjirits of the civilized nations of the world had sought after, 

 proenvironed, and accepted the existence and power of a great 

 Energy or Guiding Will of the universe. To feeble, timidly 

 outreaching man this Will could only be realized by semi- 

 anthropomorphic or anthropomorphic terms, for no other 

 measuring line could gauge such. Thoughts and words and 

 actions were molded, guided, advanced, and summated, so 

 as to conform to the highest human conception of this Power. 



Mankind was thus yearningly reaching out toward ever 

 higher aspirations, or in other words was proenvironing ever 

 higher ideals. The brilliant and saintly mind of Channing 

 has well expressed it thus (223: 931): "The desire for an 

 excellence never actually reached by humanity, the aspira- 

 tion toward that ideal which we express by the word perfec- 

 tion, this is the seminal principle of Religion. And this is 

 the root of all progress in the human race. Religion is not 

 an exclusive impulse. It does not grow from an emotion 

 that is centered wholly upon God and seeks no other object. 

 It springs from the same desire for whatever is more perfect 

 than our own nature and our present life, which has impelled 

 man toward all his great spiritual acquisitions and to all great 

 improvements of society." 



Linked up with this realization were belief in the connection 

 of God with man, as a great felt but unseen power who could 

 help, benefit, and bless each one who strove to mold life-con- 

 ditions to the highest conception of God. Such were the 

 noble aims and aspirations of Zarathushtra, of Abraham, of 

 Moses, of Cyrus and Darius, of David, of Socrates Plato 

 and Aristotle, of Gotama, of Daniel and the later Hebrew 

 prophets, as well as of thousands more, regarding whom the 

 world has no record. But these all regarded God as a distant 



