PROGRESSIVE MAN. 285 



for man, to enable him in his present phase to counteract 

 the deteriorating tendency of his spirit-element, and so to 

 work out his proper end, are those conditions which, an- 

 nounced to him at the commencement of his present phase, 

 have assumed, under Providence, that form of belief, and 

 that kind of motive to action, which we term Christianity. 



10. It would be out of place to enter here into detail as 

 to the influence which Christianity has exerted on man. I 

 would only impress upon you, as students of science, that 

 science, properly so called, had its origin within the Christian 

 era ; that its progress is one of the results of Christianity ; 

 and, moreover, that one of the greatest dangers to which the 

 Christian system is at present exposed, is the erroneous 

 tendency to elevate science above the other forms of human 

 belief. 



11. Gentlemen, I thought it necessary to touch upon 

 this subject — I trust in a manner due to its nature — for the 

 purpose of enabling you to comprehend more clearly the 

 statement which I made in a former part of the course, "that 

 the human body derives its completeness and its entire charac- 

 ter from its adaptation to its special purpose, as an instru- 

 mentality under the guidance of the human soul towards the 

 end for which man was placed on this globe. 



