INVOLUTION. 345 



their forms are different, their forces confluent. 

 Christianity did not begin at the Christian era, it 

 is as old as Nature; did not drop like a bolt from 

 Eternity, came in the fulness of Time. The attempt 

 to prove an alibi for Christianity, to show that it was 

 in the skies till the Christian era opened, is as fatal to 

 its acceptance by Science as it is useless for defence to 

 Theology. What emerges from Nature as the final 

 result of Creation is the lower potentiality of the same 

 principle which is the instrument and end of the new 

 Creation. 



The attempt of Science, on the other hand, to hold 

 itself aloof from the later phases of developments 

 which in their earlier stages it so devotes itself to 

 trace, is either ignorance or affectation. For that 

 Altruism which we found struggling to express itself 

 throughout the whole course of Nature, what is it? 

 " Altruism is the new and very affected name for the 

 old familiar things which we used to call Charity, 

 ' Philanthropy, and Love." * Only by shutting its eyes 

 can Science evade the discovery of the roots of Chris- 

 tianity in every province that it enters ; and when it 

 does discover them, only by disguising words can it 

 succeed in disowning the relationship. There is noth- 

 ing unscientific in accepting that relationship; there 

 is much that is unscientific in dishonoring it. The 

 Will behind Evolution is not dead; the heart of 

 Nature is not stilled. Love not only was ; it is ; it 

 moves; it spreads. To ignore the later and most 

 striking phases is to fail to see what the earlier pro- 

 cess really was, and to leave the ancient task of 

 Evolution historically incomplete. That Christian 

 1 Duke of Argyll, Edinburgh Beview, April, 1894. 



