THE EVOLUTION OF A FATHER. 317 



power, for the moral education of mankind. Feebly, 

 but adequately, in the early chapters of Man's history 

 it fulfilled its function of nursing Love, the Mother of 

 all morality ; and Righteousness, the Father of all 

 morality, so preparing a parentage for all the beauti- 

 ful spiritual children which in later years should 

 spring from them. If life henceforth is to go on at 

 all, it must be a better life, a more loving life, a more 

 abundant life ; and this premium upon Love means — 

 if it means anything — that Evolution is taking hence- 

 forth an ethical direction. It is no more possible to 

 interpret Nature physically from this point than to 

 interpret a " Holy Family " of Raphael's in terms of 

 the material structure of canvas or the qualities of 

 pigments. Canvas may be coarse or fine, pigments 

 may be vegetable or mineral ; but whether the colors 

 be crushed out of madder or ground out of arsenic or 

 lead is of no importance now. Once these things 

 were important ; by infinitely slow processes Nature 

 formed them ; by clever arts the colorman prepared 

 them. But the " Holy Family " did not lie potentially 

 in the madder-bud, nor in the earth with the lead and 

 arsenic, nor in the laboratory with the colorman. He 

 who claims Nature for Matter and Physical force 

 makes the same assumption that these would do if 

 they claimed the painting. In a far truer sense than 

 Raphael produced his "Holy Family" Nature has 

 produced a Holy Family. Not for centuries but for 

 millenniums the Family has survived. Time has not 

 tarnished it; no later art has improved upon it; nor 

 genius discovered anything more lovely ; nor religion 

 anything more divine. From the bee's cell and the 

 butterfly's wing men draw what they call the Argu- 



