INVOLUTION 441 



or fear, they feel impelled by Love ; they realize the 

 dignity reserved for Man alone in evolving through 

 Ideals. This development through Ideals, the Per- 

 fect Ideal through which all others come, are the 

 unique phenomena of the closing act — unique not 

 because they are out of relation to what has 

 gone before, but because the phenomena of the 

 summit are different from the phenomena of the 

 plain. Apart from these, and not absolutely apart 

 from these — for nothing in the world can be ab- 

 solutely apart from anything else, there is nothing 

 in Christianity which is not in germ in Nature. 

 It is not an excrescence on Nature but its efflores- 

 cence. It is not a side track where a few 

 enthusiasts live impracticable lives on impossible 

 ideals. It is the main stream of history and of 

 science, and the only current set from eternity 

 for the progress of the world and the perfecting 

 of a human race. 



We began these chapters with the understanding 

 that Evolution is history, the scientific history of 

 the world. Christianity is history, a history of some 

 of the later steps in the Evolution of the world. 

 The continuity between them is a continuity of 

 spirit ; their forms are different, their forces con- 

 fluent. Christianity did not begin at the Christian 

 era. it is as old as Nature ; did not drop like a 



