152 Spiritual Evolution of Society 



indeed, the world is a vain show, the teaching of the 

 New Testament a sham and a delusion, and poor 

 humanity need only " eat, drink, and be merry, for 

 to-morrow it dies." The law of righteousness makes 

 no appeal to those doomed to die without hope, and 

 self-denial can have no power among men who only 

 survive by means of a selfish struggle, resulting in the 

 destruction of other members of their own species who 

 are less well-equipped for the conflict. 



It must be clear that we had excellent reasons for the 

 discussion of these subjects. The demonstration of the 

 falsity of these doctrines became a necessity if we were 

 to believe in the possibility of the continued progress 

 and betterment of mankind, and of the truth and 

 permanence of Christian ethics, and the gradual up- 

 lifting of humanity to a higher spiritual evolution and 

 a realisation of the immanence of the Divine in all 

 peoples, and nations, and tongues. 



Under the sway of the Darwinian hypothesis all 

 educated men were very easily induced to accept as the 

 creed of science the law upon which they had moulded 

 their lives : that life was a struggle with one's neighbour, 

 and that in the end the fittest must survive. This was 

 called " Natural Selection." Having been established 

 by experience in the past and found true in the present 

 among all sorts and conditions of men, animals, and 

 plants, it became an immutable law of nature, and even 

 among the orthodox it acquired the authority of the 

 law of God, by which He regulated the conditions of 

 existence of all living matter. The moral which man 

 drew was that only he who had the greater power of 

 struggle could attain to the acquisition of the means of 

 subsistence and survive ; and with smug complacency 

 he proceeded with the approval of science to acquire all 

 the wealth and property he could lay his hands on. 

 The animals, we are told, act in this way ; we hear 



