EVOLUTION AND SOCIOLOGY 7^ 



present danger is not in applying Evolution as a 

 method, but only in not carrying it far enough. 

 No man, no man of science even, observing the 

 simple facts, can ever rob religion of its due. 

 Religion has done more for the development of 

 Altruism in a few centuries than all the millen- 

 niums of geological time. But we dare not rob 

 Nature of its due. We dare not say that Nature 

 played the prodigal for ages, and reformed at the 

 eleventh hour. If Nature is the Garment of God, 

 it is woven without seam throughout ; if a revela- 

 tion of God, it is the same yesterday, to-day, and 

 for ever ; if the expression of His Will, there is in 

 it no variableness nor shadow of turning. Those 

 who see great gulfs fixed — and we have all begun 

 by seeing them — end by seeing them filled up. 

 Were these gulfs essential to any theory of the 

 universe or of Man, even the establishment of 

 the unity of Nature were a dear price to pay for 

 obliterating them. But the apparent loss is only 

 gain, and the seeming gain were infinite loss. For 

 to break up Nature is to break up Reason, and 

 with it God and Man. 



