ECCLESIASTICAL RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT. 823 



Dogmatic theology, with its promises of rewards and threats 

 of damnation, bears a diminishing ratio to the insistences on 

 justice, honesty, kindness, sincerity, etc. 



654. Assuming, as we must, that evolution will continue 

 nlong the same general lines, let us now, after this retrospect, 

 ask What is the prospect? Though Ecclesiastical Institu 

 tions hold less important places in higher societies than in 

 lower societies, we must not infer that they will hereafter 

 wholly disappear. If in times to come there remain func 

 tions to be fulfilled in any way analogous to their present 

 functions, we must conclude that they will survive under 

 some form or other. The first question is Under what form ? 



That separation of Ecclesiastical Institutions from Political 

 Institutions, foreshadowed in simple societies when the civil 

 ruler begins to depute occasionally his priestly function, and 

 which, in many ways with many modifications according to 

 their types, societies have increasingly displayed as they 

 Lave developed, may be expected to become complete. Now- 

 a-days, indeed, apart from any such reasons as are above 

 assigned, the completing of it, already effected in some cases, 

 is recognized as but a question of time in other cases. All 

 which it concerns us here to observe is that separation is the 

 ending of a process of evolution, partially carried out in 

 societies of the more militant type, characterized by the pre 

 dominance of structures which maintain subordination, and 

 carried out in greater degrees in societies that have become 

 more industrial in their type, and less coercive in their 

 regulative appliances. 



The same emotional and intellectual modifications which, 

 while causing the diminished power of State-churches, has 

 caused the multiplication of churches independent of the 

 State, may be expected to continue hereafter doing the like. 

 We may look for increased numbers of religious bodies 

 having their respective differences of belief and practice. 

 Though alouo- with intellectual advance there may probably 



