Man in the Light of Evolution 



right." But whatever has persisted and strength- 

 ened through past ages, whatever has stood the 

 storm and stress of time since man arose on the 

 globe, whatever has survived in widely different 

 races and civilizations and under widely differ- 

 ing conditions — this, as it seems to me, has been 

 sufficiently tested. It has been verified by the 

 grand experiment of life, and has won the ver- 

 dict of history. It must survive. 



Conceptions of God and duty, of loyalty and 

 fidelity, of heroism and unselfishness, have in 

 one form of clothing or another come down the 

 ages of human history. Wherever man has 

 tried the experiment of life and survived, much 

 more if he has at the same time advanced, these 

 conceptions have held their ground and grown 

 and improved, and have strongly molded life and 

 character. In some form or other they are prac- 

 tically universal. The religious systems of sav- 

 ages are hard to discover; they are not talked 

 of before strangers. We easily misunderstand 

 them. But we are continually discovering them 

 where their existence has been denied. Man is 

 a religious being, explain it how you will. A 

 second fact Is that these moral and religious con- 

 ceptions are the mental furnishings or characters 



136 



