Conclusion 3 5 i 



method are often the victims of the great Superstition of the last 

 century, the belief in a natural law of progress. This delusion 

 has been lately revived in a curiously crude form by the Italians 

 who claim to represent the dernier cri in philosophy. When we 

 find savagery called " primitive," and a sort of assumption that the 

 later in time is always the better, we may suspect a survival of this 

 superstition. Nobody treats the history of art and poetry in this 

 way, but the delusion has not been completely abandoned in the 

 case of religion. We have discussions on what is supposed to be a 

 serious difficulty in the way of accepting Christianity — that on the 

 Christian hypothesis the highest revelation came to mankind nearly 

 two thousand years ago. 



The truth is that the great religions — Buddhism, Christianity, 

 and Islam — date from the millennium which ends with the career 

 of Mohammed ; and all of them were at their best when they 

 were fresh from the mint. It is quite possible that religious genius 

 culminated at that stage in human history. Our species has been 

 in existence for half a million, perhaps for a million years. The 

 changes in bodily structure which differentiate man from the other 

 Primates belong to a vast period of which there are few records. 

 Mental evolution seems to have checked the progress of physical 

 changes, and the use of tools seems to have brought to an end the 

 growth of the human brain. Intrinsic progress there has been 

 none, or very little, for twenty thousand years. The vast accumu- 

 lation of knowledge, and of mechanical appliances, which we call 

 civilisation, may not be very favourable to religious insight. In- 

 dustrialism has been very injurious to art ; may it not have injured 

 religion also ? There are reasons for thinking that civilisation 

 has been biologically a retrograde movement, which by no means 

 implies that it was not inevitable, or that a return from it is possible. 

 Man the tool-maker has made " inanimate instruments " (as 

 Aristotle says) do his manual work for him ; he is now trying to 

 make them do his mental work for him. Nature has no objection 

 — at a price. The price may be the progressive deterioration of 

 our faculties. Our brains may follow our teeth, claws, and fur. 



The temptation to confound accumulated knowledge and ex- 

 perience with intrinsic progress is almost irresistible ; but it must 

 be resisted. It is quite unnecessary to go to Australia or Central 

 Africa to find the savage ; he is our next-door neighbour. The 

 mentality of the stone age exists on our platforms and in our pulpits. 



