

MORAL EVOLUTION 307 



has for its aim the raising of the lives of the mass of the people 

 to a higher level. It becomes apparent from this, how national a 

 thing religion is. "Italy," said Mazzini, "is itself a religion." l 

 This enables us to see the secret of the success of the French 

 revolutionary armies. They were inspired by a patriotism which 

 had some of the chief characteristics of a religion. But the 

 speedy downfall of revolutionary France shows that there must 

 have been some great defect. Patriotism that has no religious 

 basis is apt to degenerate into mere jingoism, and then to 

 evaporate. But religion that does not include as part of itself 

 an exalted patriotism lacks one essential element. " Look almost 

 where you will in the wide field of history, you find religion, 

 wherever it works freely and mightily, either giving birth to and 

 sustaining states or else raising them to a second life after their 

 destruction. It is a great state-builder in the hands of Moses 

 and Ulfilas and Gregory and Nicholas ; in the ruder hands of 

 Mohammed and many another tamer and guide of gross popula- 

 tion down to the prophet of Utah it has the same character, the 

 same too in the hands of the almost forgotten Numas and the 

 propagators of the Apollo worship who laid the foundation of 

 the Roman and Greek civilisation, and of the pilgrim fathers 

 who founded New England." 2 With these grand words, 

 worthy of the writer of them, and true of all communities since 

 and before the dawn of history, I bring the discussion of this 

 branch of the subject to a close. Enough has been said to show 

 that religion has much to do with the survival or disappearance 

 of nations. 



V 



THE PROCESS OF MORAL EVOLUTION AMONG CIVILISED MEN 



Natural Selection cannot be got rid of. The progress of Natural 

 wealth and science lessen the stringency with which it acts on Se ' ectlon 

 the individual, i.e. the standard of physique that is necessary morality 



1 1 quote this from Seeley's Natural Religion, p. 195. 2 Lot* cit. p. 197. 



