PRIMITIVE MAN. 397 



bold pursuit of truth, or what seems to them to be 

 truth; and they are, after all, nobler sinners than 

 those who would practically lower us to the level of 

 beasts by their negation even of intellectual life, or 

 who would reduce us to apes, by making us the mere 

 performers of rites and ceremonies, as a substitute 

 for religion, or who would advise us to hand over 

 reason and conscience to the despotic authority of 

 fallible men dressed in strange garbs, and called by 

 sacred names. The world needs a philosophy and a 

 Christianity of more robust mould, which shall re- 

 cognise, as the Bible does, at once body and soul and 

 spirit, at once the sovereignty of God and the liberty 

 of man; and which shall bring out into practical 

 operation the great truth that God is a Spirit, and 

 they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit 

 and in truth. Such a religion might walk in the 

 sunlight of truth and free discussion, hand in hand 

 with science, education, liberty, and material civilisa- 

 tion, and would speedily consign evolution to the 

 tomb which has already received so many supersti- 

 tions and false philosophies* 



