THE LESSON OF EVOLUTION 43 



sufficiently self-confident to affirm at each stage that 

 no further evolution was possible. And it seems to 

 me highly probable that psychological evolution on 

 the earth may also have a prospective purpose ; that 

 it also will lead to a further evolution, which we 

 cannot even imagine, but which must be connected 

 with a spiritual existence beyond the grave. 



And thus, at the dawn of the twentieth century, we 

 come back to the old belief, held by the rude men 

 who inhabited Europe in the neolithic age, that man's 

 spirit does not die with his body. But we hope that 

 we have surer grounds for that belief than had our 

 ancient ancestors ; who, as I have already pointed out, 

 founded their opinion solely on their dreams. 



SUMMARY 



I will now, in conclusion, shortly summarise what I 

 have said. We have seen that natural philosophy was, 

 at first, polytheistic and then became dormant for 

 many centuries. After the revival of the study of 

 nature, scientific teaching was decidedly pantheistic ; 

 but it has now come round to theism ; and this last 

 change was brought about by the establishment of the 

 doctrine of evolution. It appears highly probable that 

 the material universe is not eternal but will in time 

 come to an end. The earth, and consequently the 

 sun, is probably not much more than one hundred 

 millions of years old; and, as the sun is one of the 

 oldest of the stars, it is probable that the origin of the 

 universe does not date back for two hundred millions 

 of years. What went before and what will come after 

 we can never know ; but we may believe with some 



