212 Contemporary Evolution. 



intellectual, moral, and aesthetic tendencies of men of 

 culture. Perceiving the fact that the ascending process 

 of evolution is " integrating " and not " disintegrating," 

 and that, speaking broadly and on the whole, the later 

 developments are superior to the earlier, it seems inevi- 

 table that the rational and consistent evolutionist should 

 go to mass. 



Recognising " the Unknowable " as everywhere pre- 

 sent in nature, the evolutionist must recognise that a 

 fitting worship shall embrace as wide a field of exist- 

 ences and activities as is compatible with historical 

 evolution. He will not affect to despise the senses and 

 emotions any more than the intellect as involved in 

 such worship ; rather, being impressed (as a follower of 

 Herbert Spencer) with the vivid permeability of those 

 channels which lead to irreligious emotions, he will see 

 the reasonableness of facilitating religious emotion by 

 supplying it with easily permeable channels, and of 

 bringing in as much as possible instead of excluding 

 vivid sensations. 



In the various fragmentary relics of the Church's wor- 

 ship which have been adopted by the sects, the reason of 

 the evolutionist can hardly fail to be tried and irritated 

 by a service (which is a product of mere disintegrating 

 action) in which worship consists of sentences distinctly 

 uttered in the vernacular tongue, followed by a sermon 

 with which it is very likely he will have but little sym- 



