XV DARWINISM APPLIED TO MAN 477 



rest of nature, are but products of the blind eternal forces of 

 the universe, and believing also that the time must come when 

 the sun will lose his heat and all life on the earth necessarily 

 cease — have to contemplate a not very distant future in Avhich 

 all this glorious earth — which for untold millions of years has 

 been slowly developing forms of life and beauty to culminate 

 at last in man — shall be as if it had never existed ; who are 

 compelled to suppose that all the slow growths of our race 

 struggling towards a higher life, all the agony of martyrs, all 

 the groans of victims, all the evil and misery and undeserved 

 suffering of the ages, all the struggles for freedom, all the 

 efforts towards justice, all the aspirations for virtue and the 

 wellbeing of humanity, shall absolutely vanish, and, '' like the 

 baseless fabric of a vision, leave not a wrack behind." 



As contrasted ^ath this hopeless and soul-deadening belief, 

 we, who accept the existence of a spiritual world, can look 

 upon the universe as a grand consistent whole adapted in all 

 its parts to the development of spiritual beings capable of 

 indefinite life and perfectibility. To us, the whole purpose, 

 the only raison d'etre of the world— wdth all its complexities 

 of physical structure, with its grand geological progress, the 

 slow evolution of the vegetable and animal kingdoms, and 

 the ultimate appearance of man — was the development of the 

 human spirit in association with the human body. From the 

 fact that the spirit of man — the man himself — is so developed, 

 we may well believe that this is the only, or at least the best, 

 way for its development ; and we may even see in what is 

 usually termed " evil " on the earth, one of the most efficient 

 means of its growth. For we know that the noblest 

 faculties of man are strengthened and perfected by struggle 

 and effort ; it is by unceasing warfare against physical evils 

 and in the midst of difficulty and danger that energy, 

 courage, self-reliance, and industry have become the common 

 qualities of the northern races; it is by the battle with 

 moral eAdl in all its hydra -headed forms, that the still 

 nobler qualities of justice and mercy and humanity and self- 

 sacrifice have been steadily increasing in the world. Beings 

 thus trained and strengthened by their surroundings, and 

 possessing latent faculties capable of such noble development, 

 are surely destined for a higher and more permanent exist- 



