258 Note on some primitive conceptions [APP. B 



that lies hidden in the humblest religion than to lecture 

 on the outrageous externals that doomed a fossil belief. 

 Evolutionary biology would not have gone far if students 

 had merely had their attention directed to the pompous 

 futility of the glyptodonts, the comic inadequacy of the 

 dodo, or the irritating perversity of the vermiform ap- 

 pendix. In Comparative Religion and in Biology alike, 

 it is the fact of progress that matters : the fact that each 

 shows a process of unfolding. To lay stress on freakish- 

 ness alone shows hopeless lack of grasp. So here. We 

 have in Christianity a dual conception of the activity 

 of God; we find a dual conception of all creative activity 

 permeating earlier religions. Surely it is the part of a 

 wise man to admit that there is a direct connection and 

 sequence between the two, however freely we have to 

 admit that the grounds on which primitive man postu- 

 lated duality were inadequate and mistaken. The fact 

 that in duality he found satisfaction of an instinct, how- 

 ever vague, is what really matters. I believe that a true 

 instinct also underlies his search for a unifying principle 

 in an all-pervading spiritual essence, even if he goes 

 wrong in making the personality of the gods derivative 

 and not primary. He feels the need of unity, of duality, 

 and of personality in the Godhead, and in his simple way 

 he offers the best solution he can. 



CAMBRIDGE: PRINTED BV j. B. PKACI, M.A., AT TH* UNIVERSITY PRESS. 



