1 88 HEREDITY AND SOCIETY 



failed, God working through man can accomplish his 

 purpose. Flesh may shrink from the further conflict, 

 but the Spirit will enter in, re-vivify it and carry it along. 



But to achieve this end, man can no longer be left 

 an unconscious tool in the hands of Fate. He must 

 understand his destiny, take part in the shaping of his 

 inheritance and enter upon it not as an unconscious 

 tool, but as an intelligent helper in the divine scheme 

 of continuous creation. Herein has come the need 

 for revelation for poets, and prophets, and preachers. 

 Some part of the curtain must be withdrawn, some 

 knowledge of the path to be trodden must be vouch- 

 safed, in order that the traveller may at least see as 

 through a glass darkly. No one who is entirely with- 

 out knowledge of the object in view can consciously 

 co-operate in its attainment. The whole of the modern 

 development of science may represent the latest phase 

 of the creative impulse, taking man into a more intimate 

 partnership. We do not require another religion to 

 express the further gain ; the new will transfuse itself 

 into the old, which in its turn will discard the elements 

 in it that have become unessential. Religion will 

 remain what it always has been, the force binding 

 together the human and the divine. 



But, the anxious inquirer will ask, what of those who 

 have fallen by the way, the weak, the unfortunate, the 

 unhappy ? What place have they in this triumphant 

 march towards progress ? If we were to assign them 

 the place of the soldier who has fallen in the battle, 

 still there would be a sense of failure, of injustice, in the 

 minds of many. The soldier fell by chance, he might 

 have joined in the final triumph ; but these others were, 



