THE THRESHOLD OF EVOLUTION 



Yet in the midst of war and misery men are refusing to work 

 more than forty-four hours a week. What is the race dwindling 

 down to but a race of wasters, not fit to continue on the face 

 of the earth. Laziness is the one crime for which, more than 

 all others, God, from the days of the mammoth creation till 

 now, has exterminated whole species and races and nations. 



What is the use of knowledge or virtue if by loss of 

 energy we bring upon our heads the curse of extinction which 

 Almighty God for ever inflicts as the punishment of indo- 

 lence ? He often condones murder and immorality, but laziness 

 is for ever punished by the loss to a nation of the powers to 

 breed mind or soul, and finally by the loss of the right to 

 some day become immortal. Let six generations of any family 

 become lazy and too fond of idle pleasure, and no matter how 

 brilliant its past career may have been, either physically or 

 mentally, it is condemned to extinction, or at least the branch 

 of it that fails in energy. So also if the bulk of the people 

 of any nation become indolent and lazy for six generations, 

 the nation degenerates, loses all powers of mental advance- 

 ment, and does not rise again and is unable to progress in the 

 course of advancement in civilisation or brain power until 

 conquered or inter-bred with some other nation whose sur- 

 roundings of greater poverty and hardship have kept up their 

 energy to the standard evolution requires. No extinct race of 

 animals has died out except when its food has become so 

 plentiful that it has not had to seek for it, or when it has 

 been compelled to succumb to some variety that has evolved 

 superior energy under conditions of greater privation, and so 

 has become more developed either mentally or physically. 



So now that mankind has developed the souls of Imagi- 

 nation and Comprehension, and is about to develop the soul of 

 Understanding, it becomes the duty of man as he develops the 

 spirit of wisdom and takes up the work at the point where 

 Christ dropped it, and acquires sufficient mind to understand 

 the truths of revelation, and learns better how to use not abuse 

 the universe God has created, and for him to combat this, his 

 greatest difficulty, and to provide against the growth of indo- 

 lent habits. This will be a far greater difficulty than the 

 adjustment ol the distribution of wealth, or the prevention 

 of crime, and can only be brought about by Religions, Govern- 

 ments and Science combining to impress upon the masses the 



