EVOLUTION AND SOCIOLOGY 6g 



guarantee of the stability of the results it would 

 not be worth while. 



But all that Mr. Kidd desires is really to be 

 found in Nature. There is no single element even 

 of his highest sanction which is not provided for 

 in a thorough-going doctrine of Evolution — a doc- 

 trine, that is, which includes all the facts and all 

 the factors, and especially which takes into account 

 that evolution of Environment which goes on pari 

 passu with the evolution of the organism and 

 where the highest sanctions ultimately lie. With 

 an Environment which widens and enriches until 

 it includes — or consciously includes, for it has 

 never been absent — the Divine ; and with Man so 

 evolving as to become more and more conscious 

 that that Divine is there, and above all that it is 

 in himself, all the materials and all the sanctions 

 for a moral progress are for ever secure. None of 

 the sanctions of religion are withdrawn by adding 

 to them the sanctions of Nature. Even those sanc- 

 tions which are supposed to lie over and above 

 Nature may be none the less rational sanctions. 

 Though a positive religion, in the Comtian sense, 

 is no religion, a religion that is not in some degree 

 positive is an impossibility. And although religion 

 must always rest upon faith, there is a reason for 

 faith, and a reason not only in Reason, but in 



