I 



SPIRITUAL AND MATERIAL PROGRESS. 299 



there Is deep symbolic truth In the myth of Prome- 

 theus the Firebearer, which connects the discovery 

 of fire with man's advance to a higher spiritual con- 

 dition. For it Is difficult to realize, and impossible 

 to over-estimate, the importance of this step In 

 the splrltuallzation of Matter, whereby what had 

 seemed hopelessly unmanageable and Immovable 

 vanished and volatilized at the magic touch of flame. 

 And In the splrltuallzation of man the discovery of 

 fire was no less essential, as the foundation of all 

 subsequent spiritual progress. 



And It is still true that spiritual progress In the 

 long run depends on material progress, and this Is 

 equally true of the development of the Individual 

 and of the race. Indeed, It Is even more obviously 

 true In the case of the race, when the process takes 

 place on a larger scale and our survey extends over 

 a longer history. Historically It is true that the 

 higher has developed out of the lower, the moral 

 and intellectual life out of the material, and ulti- 

 mately it can only rise pari passu with the improve- 

 ment of the material. It is a fact to which our 

 vulgar Theodicy loves to blind Itself, that a great, 

 and perhaps the greater, part of the evil in the 

 world Is not due to the perversity of men and 

 institutions, to the tyranny of priests and princes, 

 but to the material conditions of life, and cannot 

 therefore be removed by the mere progress of intel- 

 ligence or morality. These evils are but the reaction 

 of ordinary human nature upon the ineluctable pres- 

 sure of material conditions, and can be eradicated 

 only by a completer command of those conditions, 

 by the knowledge which is power. On the other 

 hand, the growth of knowledge brings with It a slow 

 but sure remedy for these evils : every extension 



