MATTER AND MIND 25 



vance brings only a more beautiful apprecia- 

 tion of the divine in nature, and he strains 

 upwards towards it in his own life, and is 

 impelled by his religion to a nobility of life 

 and character, which could scarcely arise ia 

 any other way. 



If this attribute of mind, to recognize some- 

 thing as the highest in the whole range of 

 consciousness which compels the mind towards 

 its highest efforts, exists in millions of the 

 most highly developed of mankind there must 

 be some cause for it other than ignorance. 

 Surely it is part of mental evolution towards 

 the highest — an intensification of that same 

 process which led creation up from undiffer- 

 entiated matter through the long course of 

 organic evolution to man. Man has now 

 become aware of this organic evolution, and 

 there is a consciousness developing in regard 

 to it and making for social progress, which is 

 rapidly becoming the latest and highest deve- 

 lopment of religion. Environment acting as 

 a directing and selecting power upon mutable 

 forms of matter, and lasting through long 

 epochs of time finally brought man upon 

 the earth, purely material environment cannot 

 raise him higher, but in religion in the true 

 sense of the word, increased and intensified 

 by a study of the mind, and of our relation- 



