750 Causes and Course of Organic Evolution 



adapted and expanded by Christ and Paul in that condensed 

 couple of sentences: (1) "thou shalt love the Lord thy God 

 with all thy heart and soul and strength and mind"; (*2) "thou 

 shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." The first stands for evolved 

 and condensed religion; the second stands for evolved and con- 

 densed morality. The two are distinct, but the former is 

 gradually built upon, and is aided by the latter. For self 

 and neighbor are, according to highest moral standards, emana- 

 tions from God, the one great energizing Power of the universe. 



So the highest aim of each proenvironing human being 

 should ever be: (1) to reverence, to aspire after, to seek knowl- 

 edge regarding the great final Power, Energy, or Spirit of the 

 Universe, and reverently — not unscrupulously, nor insolently, 

 nor flippantly — to strive in each life to live out the Natural 

 Laws that embody and exemplify that Spirit; (2) as leading 

 up to this is the innate sense which higher evolving man grad- 

 ually realizes, namely, to war against, to deceive, to in any 

 way injure one's neighbor the world over, is disintegrating 

 and destructive. 



Therefore there should be a constant double aspiration, 

 namely reverent love for God, and reverent love for fellow- 

 man; also a constant double repression, namely repression of 

 all that would traverse or minimize God's law^s or evolutionary 

 workings, and repression of all that would injure one's neighbor. 



Cooperation then is the great evolving ideal for man in rela- 

 tion to his fellowman; reverent affection and investigation 

 form the great evolving ideal of man in relation to God. Christ 

 is that noblest human spirit who has gathered up and linked 

 together all of these ideals into the humanized phrase, "Our 

 Father." 



Finally, the great law that all such effort exemplifies, is 

 that shown alike by inorganic and organic bodies, namely: 

 progressive energy condensation accompanying and ejecting pro- 

 gressive ether aggregation. 



