THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION 157 



in a satisfactory manner for their marked non-advancement 

 when compared with other nations who started at a much 

 later date in the race for civilisation. But I must here ask 

 the reader to remember that in evolution good is generally 

 evolved out of evil, for our virtues are the outcome of the con- 

 quest of our sins and failures. This is why the greatest saints 

 are often in life the greatest sinners, or at least have the 

 greatest attraction for, or desire to sin, and when they fail to 

 make saints become the greatest blackguards. As I have 

 pointed out elsewhere, evolution is an alternate transition from 

 a good minority to a bad majority, and then back to a good 

 minority again, and will become perfect when nature can 

 evolve a good majority. And the same holds good in the evo- 

 lution of our minds and souls as in our bodily development, 

 so every evolution must perfect both its extremes. 



Is it not better to be an Englishman, Turk, Prus- 

 sian, or perhaps Italian, and to have lived through ages of sin 

 or scientific crime, and to be able to look back on a past 

 grandeur of civilisation, such as that of India, Babylon, 

 Egypt, Rome, or Modern Europe, and to be able to say 

 " That is what my fathers have done. It is possible for me 

 to do better," than, like a Chinaman, Negro, or South Sea 

 Islander, to look back only to realise that your nation has 

 stood still on the road of evolution, and lost its way, never to 

 advance, because your ancestors knew not how to conquer sin, 

 and could not therefore evolve to the comprehension or the 

 virtues of ambition, love, judgment, and so had no desire to 

 be superior to their predecessors, charitable to their neigh- 

 bours' crimes, or wiser than their fellow-men. 



So the stagnation of the Chinese and savage nations 

 is not entirely a matter of legislation, but is largely due to 

 the fact that they have never been interbred with races to 

 whom have been vouchsafed the blessings, resulting from ages 

 of contest with, or influenced by, the difficulties resulting from 

 contact with cold and privations, necessary to produce a mind 

 capable of receiving the inspirations of the God-made men, 

 and more particularly of the last and most perfect of these 

 God-made men, Christ, the world's most perfect redeemer. 



Now, what astonishes me most is, not that every religion 

 becomes degenerate and corrupt, and so its truths become 

 buried under such a mass of superstitious rubbish and rotten 



