170 GENERAL EVOLUTION. 



the beastly traits find in accumulated power only increased means 

 of gratification, and industry and prosperity sink together. Power 

 is squandered, little is accumulated, and the nation goes down to 

 its extinction amid scenes of internal strife and vice. Its cycle is 

 soon fulfilled, and other nations, fresh from scenes of labor, as- 

 sault it, absorb its fragments, and it dies. This has been the 

 world's history, and it remains to be seen whether the virtues of 

 the nations now existing will be suflQcient to save them from a 

 like fate. 



Thus the history of the animal man in nations is wonderfully 

 like that of the type or families of the animal and vegetable king- 

 doms during geologic ages. They rise, they increase, and reach a 

 period of multiplication and power. The force allotted to them 

 becoming exhausted, they diminish and sink and die. 



II. Of the Individual. — In discussing physical development, 

 we are as yet compelled to restrict ourselves to the evidence of its 

 existence and some laws observed in the operation of its causative 

 force. What that force is, or what are its primary laws, we know- 

 not. 



So, in the progress of moral development, we endeavor to prove 

 its existence and the mode of its operation, but why that mode 

 should exist, rather than some other mode, we can not explain. 



The moral j)rogress of the species depends, of course, on the 

 moral progress of the individuals embraced in it. Eeligion is the 

 sum of those influences which determine the motives of men's 

 actions into harmony with the divine perfection and the divine 

 will. 



Obedience to these influences constitutes the practice of religion, 

 while the statement of the growth and operation of these influences 

 constitutes the theory of religion, or doctrine. 



The Divine Spirit j^lanted in man shows him that which is in 

 harmony with the Divine Mind, and it remains for his free will to 

 conform to it or reject it. This harmony is man's highest ideal of 

 happiness, and in seeking it, as well as in desiring to flee from 

 dissonance or pain, he but obeys the disposition common to all 

 conscious beings. If, however, he attemj)ts to conform to it, he 

 will find the law of evil present, and frequently obtaining the 

 mastery. If now he be in any degree observing, he will find that 

 the laws of morality and right are the only ones by which human 

 society exists in a condition superior to that of the lower animals, 

 and in which the capacities of man for happiness can approach a 



