Philosophic Evolution. 217 



filter down from the cultured few to the lowest social 

 strata, and become, for good or ill, the very marrow of 

 the bones, first of a school, then of a society, ultimately 

 of a nation. The course of general philosophy, it is here 

 contended, is now returning to its legitimate channel after 

 a divergence of some three centuries' duration. This re- 

 turn cannot affect prejudicially the Christian Church, but 

 must strengthen and aid it, and thus that beneficial action 

 upon it of political and scientific evolution, before repre- 

 sented as probable, will be greatly intensified, and the 

 great movement of the RENAISSANCE hereafter take its 

 place as the manifestly efficient promoter of a new de- 

 velopment of the Christian organism such as the first 

 twenty centuries of its life afforded it no opportunity to 

 manifest. 



