THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION 173 



through Europe. These Aryans have lost all and every relic 

 of the past beliefs that once belonged to their ancient race, 

 but wherever their blood flows, there also flows Christianity, 

 for their ancestors have shared the same fights throughout 

 the Glacial Period, and are therefore physically fit to compre- 

 hend Christianity. But not so the Turk, Seminoles, Chinese 

 or African races. No law of caste, no law of hereditary 

 descent, no bodily strain in fighting snow, cold and rain have 

 ever fitted them to receive Christianity. No breeding with 

 wives blessed with powers of transmitting female qualities 

 of God has ever softened their native cruelty, or helped to 

 turn their sins into virtues. In many ways they may be better 

 and freer from crimes of drunkenness, etc., than the Northern 

 races, but they are not so advanced in the higher arts of 

 civilisation, such as honour, justice and mercy and invention, 

 though their proficiency in arts of skill, in business acumen, 

 manufacture and production, which are lower forms of evolu- 

 tion than honour, justice and mercy, may be greater. 



Crime must be overcome before we can evolve virtue, 

 but the abolition of sin is not necessary for the perfection 

 of virtue. It is the preponderance of good over evil in 

 the acts of the community, not the absence of evil that creates 

 true virtue and advances humanity. For from the abstract 

 point of view which evolution requires us to take up, it is neces- 

 sary that a certain amount of evil should take place to enable 

 us to comprehend the full value of wisdom. So we find the 

 Southern Races cannot advance so far along the road of virtue 

 and mental evolution as the Northern and Aryan Races. 

 Half-bred Aryan Races are capable of being evolved to a 

 higher degree of mental evolution, so do stop at a fixed point 

 in such a manner ; so certain species have retained certain 

 degrees of physical advancement at certain ages of creation, 

 and thereafter can only evolve in like directions. 



The Eastern child advances along the road of culture 

 and knowledge at a much earlier period of life than the 

 Northern or Western, but his advancement stops at the early 

 age of twelve or fourteen, whereas the child of the more 

 northern races continues to evolve his mental qualities for 

 twenty or twenty-five years. So at the period of evolution, at 

 which we have now arrived, Christianity does but hurl the non- 

 Aryan races into a deeper idolatry and more foolish forms of 



