IH. V.J BELIGION AS ADJUSTMENT. 471 



the larger part of the world. If it were possible for men to 

 come by the thousand, as on a second day of Pentecost, and 

 embrace the views here expounded, or others like them, 

 without having slowly and surel}^ grown to them, there would 

 be great risk of their going away with a frail and unservice- 

 able religious theory. But as it is absolutely certain that 

 such views will never become prevalent until the scientific 

 philosophy upon which they are based has become generally 

 understood and accepted, and as by that time they will neces* 

 sarily have come to appear quite substantial and practical 

 there appears to be but little weight in the objection re- 

 ferred to. 



Indeed, as the next chapter will plainly show, nothing can 

 be farther from the intentions of the scientific thinker than 

 the demand that contemporary society shall give up any of 

 the religious doctrines with which it is able to rest contented, 

 in exchange for doctrines which to all minds save those suffi- 

 ciently instructed in science are likely to seem shadowy and 

 over-subtle. Far from proposing to institute a new religion 

 which, like Islam, is to overrun the world and wrench all 

 men suddenly from their idols, our aim is simply to point 

 out some of the more important modifications which curren' 

 religious doctrines seem destined to undergo in becoming 

 accepted and assimilated by thinkers whose theories of 

 things are based wholly upon irrefragable scientific truths. 

 That the Doctrine of Evolution, which is now the possession 

 of a few disciplined minds, will eventually become the 

 common property of the whole civilized portion of the 

 human race, is, to say the least, very highly probable. In 

 view of this probability, it seems to me a worthy end for 

 our philosophic inquiry, if we can ascertain that, in spite of 

 the total change in the symbols by which religious faith 

 finds its expression, nevertheless the religious attitude of 

 mankind will remain, in all essential respects, unchanged. 

 I shall endeavour to show, therefore, in the following chapter, 



