234 HERBERT SPENCER’S SERVICE TO RELIGION 
the universal twofold assertion that there is a God, 
who is pleased with the sight of the just man and is 
angry with the wicked every day, and when men have 
fought with one another, and murdered or calumniated 
one another for heresy about the Trinity or about eat- 
ing meat on Friday, it has been because they have 
supposed belief inythe non-essential doctrines to be 
inseparably connected with belief in the essential doc- 
trine. In spite of all this, however, it is true that in 
the mind of the uncivilized man, the great central 
truths of religion are so densely overlaid with hun- 
dreds of trivial notions respecting dogma and ritual, 
that his perception of the great central truths is ob- 
scure. These great central truths, indeed, need to be 
clothed in a dress of little rites and superstition, in 
order to take hold of his dull and untrained intelli- 
gence. But in proportion as men become more civ- 
ilized, and learn to think more accurately, and to take 
wider views of life, just so do they come to value 
the essential truths of religion more highly, while 
they attach less and less importance to superficial 
details. 
Having thus seen what is meant by the essential 
truths of religion, it is very easy to see what the atti- 
tude of the doctrine of evolution is toward these 
essential truths. It asserts and reiterates them both; 
and it asserts them not as dogmas handed down to us 
by priestly tradition, not as mysterious intuitive con- 
victions of which we can render no account to our- 
selves, but as scientific truths concerning the innermost 
constitution of the universe —truths that have been 
disclosed by observation and reflection, like other sci- 
entific truths, and that accordingly harmonize naturally 
