vi Hope for the rejected. 79 



room for the multiplication of the elect and naturally- 

 selected races. In the moral and spiritual world, on 

 the contrary, improvement is propagated not by 

 natural descent but by spiritual influence ; and in the 

 Kingdom of God there will be no want of room for 

 all to develop. 



It is certain that the present Providential govern- 

 ment of both the natural and the spiritual worlds has 

 for its purpose the perfecting of the elect. But in 

 the organic world, the rejection and destruction of 

 the unfit is only the other side of a benevolent selec- 

 tion ; and this real, though veiled, benevolence of the 

 Creative purpose in nature, suggests that the Creator 

 will hereafter allow them opportunity to realise those 

 possibilities which in this life they failed to attain ; 

 or if this is impossible for any reason unknown to us, 

 that they may at least be permitted to pass out of 

 existence. 



Further; the Darwinian principle of progress in 

 the organic world by strife and competition, is not 

 a moral principle not contrary to morality, but 

 beneath it. In human history, no doubt, strife and 

 competition become agencies of moral advancement, 

 by reason of the tendency of such qualities as fidelity 

 and self-devotion to give the victory. But the 

 highest virtues cannot enter into competition ; com- 

 petition is not a moral agency but destructive of 

 morality, when it enters into a higher region than 

 that to which it rightly belongs into the relation 

 between husband and wife, and between parents and 



