CONDITIONS OF PROGRESS IN CIVILISATION 347 



or, over-matched by their environment, our people would sink 

 into vice and barbarism and lose even their material prosperity. 

 But the latter possibility seems now to have become impossible. 



Similarly what seem at first destructive forces may really 

 exercise a purifying influence upon religion. When geology 

 first made itself heard and came into conflict with the Mosaic 

 account of creation, it was felt that a blow had been dealt at 

 Christianity. But afer a time it was seen that no fundamental 

 religious truth was assailed. When the theory of evolution 

 gained a very general acceptance, what looked like a far more 

 dangerous foe to religion had appeared in the field. Not only 

 was the theory thought to be at variance with fundamental 

 doctrine, but it seemed to favour a materialistic view of life. 

 The alarm was very wide-spread, and extended even to men 

 who were capable of thinking calmly and dispassionately. But 

 the theory of evolution has done more than anything else to 

 make clear a fact that ought to have been clear before : that 

 there is in religion something indestructible, which no scientific 

 theory can endanger. All that such a theory can do is to strip 

 off unessentials, so that the progress of science, in reality, 

 renders great service to religion, if only new discoveries or 

 new ideas are properly faced. But if the new ideas are ignored 

 or treated as dangerous enemies, then there ensues a separation 

 of the nation into two rival camps, the scientific and the religious, 

 than which nothing can be more disastrous. 



To pass on to the consideration of another of the conditions, The im 

 in the absence of which a nation is likely to stagnate and retro- |Jf 

 grade, we owe it to Sir Henry Maine 1 that the importance of 

 a code framed when "usage is still wholesome" has been made 

 clear. If there is not a code to refer back to, there is a constant 

 danger that the national life will be overgrown and killed by 

 unhealthy usage like a noble tree strangled by masses of ivy. 

 There is no difficulty in thinking of examples among nations of 

 arrested progress or absolute decline. On the other hand it 

 is easy to recall instances where reference to a written code has 

 saved the cause of progress. It need hardly be said that by 



1 Ancient Laiv, pp. 14-20. 



