CHAP, xix HYPER-DARWINISM IN SOCIOLOGY 255 



or manifestation of reason. " Ethics " and " ^Esthetic " 

 are as rational as abstract scientific knowledge ; how 

 could they arise save in a rational consciousness ? And 

 assuredly religion also must be a superstructure reared 

 on the foundations of reason. But it is not true, as 

 the intellectualists hold, that morals or aesthetics add 

 nothing to that which is presented to us in knowledge. 

 It is not true, as Hegelianism seems to imply, that 

 goodness and beauty are mere allotropic forms of 

 rational system, or that logic furnishes the master key 

 to their meaning. Our knowledge is real knowledge, 

 but has its limits ; and the meeting -point of these 

 various stems lies underground, well out of sight. To 

 God, their connection may be self-evident, their 

 interdependence manifest; to man, these great truths 

 must continue largely matter of faith. 



And therefore we do not speak idly when we say 

 that reason finds its fulfilment not strictly in itself, 

 but above and beyond itself, in religion. Men do not 

 need religion to make it their interest to be good. 

 That is, most deeply, our human interest. Yet man 

 is in bondage. "The good that we approve we per- 

 form not ; the evil that we allow not, that we do." 

 By a " pleasureless yielding " to " petty solicitations 

 of circumstance," we destroy ourselves. Deliverance 

 comes from above. " What the law could not do, in 

 that it was weak through the flesh," has yet been done, 

 and done in a Diviner way. Here is the true apologetic 

 vindication of religion. Keligion is no superfluity, though 

 reason itself so far as its influence goes inclines us to- 

 wards what is good. Religion is the breath of life, the 

 touch of God, making that a reality, strong and victori- 

 ous, which apart from it would be nothing but a faint 

 aspiration or a bitter and hopeless regret. 



