236 HERBERT SPENCER’S SERVICE TO RELIGION 
to moment in every throb of the mighty rhythmic life 
of the universe. 
And this brings me to the last and most important 
point of all. What says the doctrine of evolution with 
regard to the ethical side of this twofold assertion 
that lies at the bottom of all religion? Though we 
cannot fathom the nature of the inscrutable Power that 
animates the world, we know, nevertheless, a great 
many things that it does. Does this eternal Power, 
then, work for righteousness? Is there a divine sanc- 
tion for holiness and a divine condemnation for sin? 
Are the principles of right living really connected 
with the intimate constitution of the universe? If the 
answer of science to these questions be affirmative, 
then the agreement with religion is complete, both on 
the speculative and on the practical side; and that 
phantom which has been the abiding terror of timid 
and superficial minds — that phantom of the hostility 
between religion and science — is exorcised now and 
forever. Now,,science began to return a decisively 
affirmative answer to such questions as these when it 
began, with Mr. Spencer, to explain moral beliefs and 
moral sentiments as products of evolution. For clearly, 
when you say of a moral belief or a moral sentiment, 
that it is a product of evolution, you imply that it is 
something which the universe through untold ages has 
been labouring to bring forth, and you ascribe to ita 
value proportionate to the enormous effort it has cost 
to produce it. Still more, when with Mr. Spencer we 
study the principles of right living as part and parcel 
of the whole doctrine of the development of life upon 
the earth; when we see that in an ultimate analysis 
that is right which tends to enhance fulness of life, and 
