86 THE PORTAL OF EVOLUTION 



of evolution. I must here again impress upon my reader, who 

 has followed the course of our explanation in Table II., each 

 conception is now three stages behind its equivalent birth in 

 Table III., which he will note likewise shows Government as its 

 resultant. We find that Wisdom was conceived in the Mind 

 on the Eighth Day to give birth by the Sixth marriage of the 

 Trinity to Government on the Eleventh Day ; hence the 

 Eleventh Day of evolution and the Age of Government now 

 come under our review, and are also remarkable as the birth- 

 day of the lowest order of Wisdom. And it is but a small 

 step from the rule by religious laws to that of government by 

 civic ones ; but small as this step appears, it is to effect the 

 downfall of its parent, for the result of this new evolution is 

 that religion ceases to be henceforth based on an appeal to the 

 latent existence of the spirit of revelation, ever dormant in 

 the soul of all mankind. For man now studies to make revela- 

 tion and religion subservient to the aims and objects of 

 Government, the child of Human Will, which soon results in 

 their corruption by the creation of fresh superstitions and new 

 forms of bigotry in the teaching of religion so as to enforce 

 the aims of the successive forms of government in their ever- 

 varying successions, for the early forms of both religion and 

 government rely on Ignorance as their most powerful tool. 

 So we find that each style of religion is perverted and 

 adapted to suit the government in power. But at the same 

 time that it is destroying some of the truths of revelation it is 

 also evolving a better knowledge of new ones. Thus the desire 

 for reverence of the early rulers of mankind makes them 

 aspire to the reverence hitherto granted to the sun, moon and 

 stars, images and idols. But just at the same time that this 

 alteration is doomed in one age of religion to be lost and de- 

 stroyed by bigotry and superstition, it is also making a 

 further development towards religious truth in another form 

 of government. So we find the king now coming into com- 

 petition with the priest, and these powers come into conflict 

 with one another, the outcome of which is that the priest has 

 at last to take the second place ; so man learns the great lesson 

 that an earthly kingdom will not admit of two rulers. And 

 so dawns within the infantile mind of man that heaven will not 

 admit of two Gods. Thus out of the downfall of the early 

 Chinese religions springs the first conception of One God and 



