The Part played ~by Infancy 115 



out after something that does exist, but of which 

 man, with his limited intelligence, has only been 

 able to gain a crude idea. And the latter seems a 

 far more probable conclusion, because, if it is not so, 

 it constitutes a unique exception to all the opera- 

 tions of evolution we know about. As a general 

 thing in the whole history of evolution, when you 

 see any internal adjustment reaching out toward 

 something, it is in order to adapt itself to some- 

 thing that really exists ; and if the religious crav- 

 ings of man constitute an exception, they are the 

 one thing in the whole process of evolution that is 

 exceptional and different from all the rest. And 

 this is surely an argument of stupendous and re- 

 sistless weight. 



I take this autobiographical way of referring to 

 these things, in the order in which they came before 

 my mind, for the sake of illustration. The net re- 

 sult of the whole is to put evolution in harmony 

 with religious thought, not necessarily in har- 

 mony with particular religious dogmas or theories, 

 but in harmony with the great religious drift, so 

 that the antagonism which used to appear to exist 

 between religion and science is likely to disappear. 

 So I think it will before a great while. If you 

 take the case of some evolutionist like Professor 

 Haeckel, who is perfectly sure that materialism 



