174 THE UNIVERSE 



harmony with religion. Then, the assumption that 

 underlies all religion must be true that what we see 

 of the present life is not the whole thing; that there 

 is a spiritual as well as a material side of life; in 

 short, a life eternal. 



"In the whole history of evolution," he continues, 

 "when we see an internal adjustment reach out 

 towards something, it is in order to adapt itself to 

 something that exists. And if the religious cravings 

 of man constitute an exception they are the only 

 exception in the whole process of evolution." This 

 is an argument of stupendous and resistless weight. 

 This puts evolution in harmony with religious 

 thought, and the great religious drift of humanity 

 in all ages, and removes the antagonism that used 

 to appear to exist between religion and science. 



The French materialists of the eighteenth century 

 virtually declared : "We content ourselves with what 

 we can prove by the methods of physical science 

 and we will reject all else." But think how chaotic 

 nature was to their minds compared to our present 

 conception, and how different the universe they 

 saw to what we see to-day. And it is not to be 

 wondered at that there was antagonism between 

 science and religion. Anaxagoras maintained that 

 the human race would never have become human 

 if it were not for the hand, and John Fiske says, 

 "man never would have attained his present psychic 

 powers but for religion" 



This is truth well stated, and the fact that man 

 is the only creature that has a hand, an articulate 

 voice and an aesthetic nature that is never satis- 

 fied, is strong proof that man is infinitely more 

 than a mere animal, or a transient animate ma- 



