344 INVOLUTION. 



deviates from its course, it assumes new developments 

 at every stage of the Ascent ; and here, as the last and 

 highest, these specializations, accelerations, modifica- 

 tions, are most revolutionary of all. For the evolving 

 products are now no longer the prey and tool of the 

 Struggle for Life — the normal dynamic of the world's 

 youth. For them its appeal is vain ; its force is 

 spent; a quicker road to progress has been found. 

 No longer driven from below by the Animal Struggle, 

 they are drawn upward from above ; no longer com- 

 pelled by hate or hunger, by rivalry or fear, they feel 

 impelled by Love ; they realize the dignity reserved 

 for Man alone in evolving through Ideals. This de- 

 velopment through Ideals, the Perfect 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 absolutely apart from anything else, there is 

 nothing in Christianity which is not in germ in Nat- 

 ture. It is not an excrescence on Nature but its efflo- 

 rescence. It is not a side track where a few enthu- 

 siasts 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; 



