CHAPTEE IV 



RELIGION AS A SOCIAL FORCE 



In a previous chapter we remarked : " We shall come to the 

 further conclusion that, although altruistic influences are not 

 the primary force determining social evolution ; nevertheless, 

 the rehgion of which these altruistic influences form the chief 

 part is an indispensable factor in social development, because 

 it alone is in a position to satisfy the swprasocial wants of man, 

 to respond adequately to that need for expansion which tran- 

 scends society itself." 



In the course of the last two chapters we have been leading 

 up to this conclusion. We have been unable to find either in 

 Liberahsm or in Socialism or in science itself the social force 

 which fulfils the criterion which we have laid down, and which 

 we believe to be in harmony with the essential conditions of 

 progress — the force, namely, which tends to widen the sphere 

 of social conflict and increase its intensity, while at the same 

 time increasing the value of Hfe. Science certainly constitutes 

 one of the highest forms of human expansion, but it leads us at 

 every turn to frontiers which we are unable to cross ; while 

 stimulating our expansion, it also Hmits the possibiHties of that 

 expansion. And Liberalism, while advocatiag the unrestricted 

 competition of all against all, gives us no value for the individual 

 life thus staked in the conflict ; or else, if we follow up the lead 

 of the school of philosophic Liberahsm founded by Kant, we 

 must logically arrive at the Communist theory of the State. 

 And Communism, as we have seen, by restricting the sphere of 



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