EVOLUTION AND SOCIOLOGY 71 



every day making us do more. By the time, indeed, 

 that the world as a whole is sufficiently educated 

 to see the problem, it will already have been solved. 

 There is little comfort, then, for apologetics in 

 this direction. Only by bringing theology into 

 harmony with Nature and into line with the rest 

 of our knowledge can the noble interests given it 

 to conserve retain their vitality in a scientific age. 

 The first essential of a working religion is that it 

 shall be congruous with Man ; the second that it 

 shall be congruous with Nature. Whatever its 

 sanctions, its forces must not be abnormal, but 

 reinforcements and higher potentialities of those 

 forces which, from eternity, have shaped the pro- 

 gress of the world. No other dynamic can enter 

 into the working schemes of those who seek to 

 guide the destinies of nations or carry on the 

 Evolution of Society on scientific principles. A 

 divorce here would be the catastrophe of reason, 

 and the end of faith. We believe with Mr. Kidd 

 that " the process of social development which has 

 been taking place, and which is still in progress, in 

 our Western civilization, is not the product of the 

 intellect, but the motive force behind it has had 

 its seat and origin in the fund of altruistic feeling 

 with which our civilization has become equipped." 

 But we shall endeavour to show that this fund 



