IO EVOLUTION AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 



It is impossible to contemplate the fabric of the world without 

 recognizing the certain manifestations of the hand of God in 

 the perfection of its correlations. Reason, when once it has 

 considered and admired so much beauty and so much perfec- 

 tion, feels a just indignation at the dauntless folly which dares 

 to ascribe all this to chance and a happy accident. It must 

 be that the highest wisdom conceived the plan, and infinite 

 power carried it into execution. All things which set forth 

 reciprocal harmonies in nature must be bound together in a 

 ingle Existence on which they collectively depend. Thus there 

 exists a Being of all beings, an infinite Understanding and a 

 self-existent Wisdom, from which nature, in the whole aggre- 

 gate of her correlations, derives existence. It is not allowable 

 to maintain that the activity of nature is prejudicial to the 

 existence of a highest Being. The perfection of its development, 

 the order and harmony of its laws, give conclusive demonstra- 

 tion of the Godhead from whom these relations are derived.* 



The various statements made in this chapter 

 call for further explanation and proof, such as 

 shall be abundantly given in the following chap- 

 ters. There is no antagonism between true 

 science and true religion. And here it may at 

 once be plainly declared by the writer that in 

 the many years spent by him in the study of social 

 questions, or in lectures upon social topics, whether 

 in university classrooms or in the public forum, 

 experience has daily borne in more strongly upon 

 his mind the conviction that the immediate cause 

 of our present evils must be sought mainly in the 

 vast and world-wide propaganda carried on in the 

 interest of an untenable materialistic evolution. 

 Mr. Loeb well expressed the animus of this move* 



4 Translation quoted in Detroit Journal, Oct. 15, 1917. 



