226 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 



CHAPTER X 



GENERAL CONCLUSIONS 



WE have already seen that, agnostics themselves 

 being judges, man must have a religion, and that if 

 he makes the material universe the highest object of 

 veneration this must be to him his God, while if he 

 is content to take humanity as his highest ideal, he 

 must look for the best possible manifestations of 

 human nature, else his religion can have no elevating 

 power. To the theist the universe is not in itself 

 God, but may testify to God as its Creator ; to the 

 Christian the noblest ideal of humanity along with 

 divinity is the Lord Jesus Christ. 



It is evident, however, that the current Darwinian 

 and Neo-Lamarckian forms of evolution fall entirely 

 short of what even the agnostic may desiderate as 

 religion. 



yjf the universe is causeless and a product of for 

 tuitous variation and selection, and if there is no 

 design or final cause apparent in it, it becomes lite 

 rally the enthronement of unreason, and can have no 

 claims to the veneration or regard of an intelligent 



