Spiritual Evolution of Society 1 7 3 



society, and be willing to sacrifice himself more and 

 more in the interests of his fellow-men and with the 

 view of improving the lot of the generations yet to 

 come. 



When Mr. Machen comes to deal with the Reforma- 

 tion, which he drags in quite unnecessarily, it becomes 

 yet more evident that he has never attempted to apply 

 the scientific process to the study of history. If it were 

 " the most frightful disaster that ever overtook the 

 race of man," how is it that the only races leading now 

 in the van of civilisation and the most advanced in the 

 social amelioration of their peoples are those who were 

 most affected by the great movement and who threw 

 off the thraldom of the Church ? Who are the back- 

 ward nations of Europe to-day ? Are they not those 

 who remain under the domination of the priesthood 

 and maintain their allegiance to the Church of Rome ? 

 How different is Benjamin Kidd's interpretation of 

 this great historical movement ! And that he is right 

 will be acknowledged by all men trained to a scientific 

 study of the phenomena of history. Mr. Kidd writes 

 (" Social Evolution," p. 189) : " If we are to regard 

 our civilisation as a single organic growth, and if, for 

 the seat of these vital forces that are producing the 

 movements in progress around us we must look 

 to the ethical development which has projected itself 

 through the history of the Western races, it is evident 

 that it is from the epoch of the Renaissance and the 

 Reformation that we must, in a strictly scientific 

 sense, date the modern expansion of society. From 

 the point of view of science, the pre-Reformation and 

 the post-Reformation movement is an unbroken 

 unity seen in different stages of growth. But it is in the 

 period of the post-Reformation development that it 

 became the destiny of the religious system upon which 

 our civilization is founded to release into the practical 



