ioo Contemporary Evolution. 



Those imbued with the doctrine of evolution can hardly 

 accept a belief that the process of social development 

 has culminated in Europe, considering how distant from 

 attainable perfection is the stage already reached ; and the 

 assertion that it has done so in the whole world would 

 probably be considered by them a manifest absurdity. 



Going then to the extreme of what can be deemed 

 possible, however wildly improbable, let us imagine that 

 private freehold property in land has been universally 

 abolished, that complicated regulations are in force tend- 

 ing everywhere to depress the capitalist at the expense 

 of the artisan, that throughout Europe a persecution has 

 raged which has resulted in the slaughter of every bishop 

 and the majority of the clergy, as well as the abolition 

 of every religious order, and the destruction of every 

 single church. Let us suppose, also, that purely secular 

 instruction is everywhere compulsorily given, and that 

 relations between the sexes of the extremest degree of 

 laxity become recognised by law. What would be the 

 effect of so profound and extensive a revolution on the 

 Christian Church ? In the first place, the universality 

 of that Church would manifestly enable its supreme head 

 ever to find a shelter, and in the supposed condition of 

 Europe that refuge might well be found in the great 

 republic of the west. Similarly, institutions for the carry- 

 ing on of the traditional culture of the clergy would for a 

 time become extra-European. 



