THOUGHTS ON NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 85 



not, in a sense, help it any more than the sun could 

 help shining. Love for one's own flesh and blood, 

 and one's fellows is the very essence and perfection of 

 religion, and it is the result of the natural evolution 

 of the emotions of men and women. Love, however, 

 is not only a natural product, it is an art, which like 

 other arts may be much assisted, in its individual 

 manifestation, by stimulation, education, study and 

 practice. It is natural that in the process of this slow 

 and gradual evolution of man, thoughts, habits, and 

 customs, more or less imperfect and unbeautiful, 

 should have been manifested both in his ways and in 

 his written words. The product being imperfect men 

 and imperfect religions. But in this as in other 

 things, the survival of the fittest holds good. The 

 unfit may linger on, both in practice, and enshrined 

 amongst the fit in written records ; but that which is 

 unfit will eventually be cast off, like autumn leaves, to 

 find a deserved oblivion, and the fit, the useful, and 

 the beautiful, will survive. The most beautiful of 

 all, the essence and the sum of true religion and 

 morality, love will survive, and go on to perfection. 

 It is here that natural and written religion, and 

 philosophy, that all shades of thought and peoples, 

 meet, to join in the promotion of the manifestation 

 of love to man, to the gradual elimination of differ- 

 ences; and the evolution of pure and true religion, 

 love in activity, unhindered, as far as possible, by the 

 crude superstitions, or errors of thought and conduct 

 of partially evolved humanity. We cannot love too 

 well and too wisely ; it is the life beautiful. I know 

 of no better book to read (with the salt of common 



