284 EVOLUTION AND THE PRESENT AGE 
when it showed the ultimate welfare of a species to be 
the chief determining factor in selecting such modifi- 
cations as would insure its survival. Darwinism 
certainly displaced many time-honoured theological 
interpretations, but at this point it brought back ten 
times as much theology as it ever displaced. So, too, 
that line of researches first set forth in my “ Cosmic 
Philosophy,” which exhibit man as the terminal figure 
in the long series of development, and insist upon the 
increasing subordination of material life to spiritual 
life, have the same implication. It seems to me that 
the most important effect which the doctrine of evo- 
lution is having is that of deepening and enlarging 
man’s conceptions of religious truth. Forty years ago 
it would have seemed incredible that sectarian bitter- 
ness should have so greatly diminished and Christian 
charity so hopefully increased as we now see to have 
been the case, and I believe this is largely because 
in those days when science was pursued in the mood 
of the stamp collector, the religious world also was 
setting too much value upon things non-essential, 
attaching too much importance to the husks and 
integuments of religious truth rather than to its eter- 
nal spiritual essence. The change that we have seen 
has been in the direction of a life far higher and 
broader, far sweeter, more wholesome, and more hope- 
ful than of old. And for this we have largely to thank 
those methods of study that are teaching us for the 
first time how to look upon nature as an organic 
whole. | 
