THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION 183 



progress of man's mind, and scientific investigation, and a 

 better knowledge of past evolutions will in time decide right 

 from wrong; but in the meantime study these matters as 

 much as you like, but do not grasp at every new idea, or you 

 will be like the man who tries to please everybody and ends 

 by pleasing nobody. This is why I have stated elsewhere 

 that if in writing this treatise I have had to tread as heavily 

 or more heavily on my own beliefs than I have trodden on 

 yours, no matter how carelessly I may have appeared to step. 



I could not have written this treatise in a purely abstract 

 and strictly logical manner if I had not first disabused my 

 mind of all and every opinion and belief, except those that the 

 subject demanded me to take under consideration, and holding 

 as I do from my own religious education such diametrically 

 opposite ideas to some of those I have been in this manner 

 called upon to express, I can assure you it has not been an 

 easy task to perform. So ruthless has been the manner in 

 which I have had to stamp on my own beliefs, and I am 

 afraid on yours also, that I tremble lest my efforts to offer 

 you a truer and higher ideal may not have destroyed more 

 than I can rebuild. 



I do not place these assertions before you as proved 

 facts, only as views that may be worthy of further 

 consideration and investigation. And as what appears to 

 my individual mind as the most probable solution of a com- 

 plex and difficult problem. I advise you to do as I 

 intend to do, retain all your old beliefs wherever you can, 

 and put them into practice whenever you can, and trust to 

 God by the inspiration He will in the future; as He has in 

 the past bestowed upon the minds of those who strive to turn 

 the advancements of science and knowledge to good account ; 

 so elucidate and clear up the hidden meanings and 

 mysteries of revelation, thereby to advance the future 

 evolutions of all forms of religious belief. For religion can 

 no more escape from the laws of evolution than can any other 

 branch of science or knowledge. And remember that when 

 you knelt down in your nightdress to breathe your first 

 infantile prayer at your mother's knee, and lisped " God 

 make me a good boy " (or girl as the case may be), she 

 taught you more in that simple prayer than all science and 

 knowledge can teach you. For she taught you that the great 



