the attention of rational beings than this determination to investigate and, so far as possible, to attain Truth. The task has its religious sanction no less than its moral and intellectual significance and importance. Indeed, it is the concentration and unison of all man's noblest faculties and aspirations. "Believe me, my good friend," said Locke in a letter to Collins, "to love Truth for Truth's sake is the principal part of human perfection in this world, and the seed-plot of all other virtues." And if it should happen that with all our efforts we fail of attaining Truth—that our ultimate knowledge will always remain the partial product of our puny and circumscribed powers-even then we may take comfort in the reflection that energies so nobly and unselfishly directed have in themselves a great recompense of reward, besides harmonizing with the destiny of all creation, and sharing its groaning and travailing for the Infinite. As Lessing well observed: "It is not the Truth of which any one is, or assumes himself to be, possessed, that makes the worth of a man, but the upright endeavour he has made to arrive at Truth; for not by the possession, but by the investigation of Truth are the powers expanded wherein alone his ever-growing perfection consists." Nay, more: even if our Truth-search should not only fail of Truth, but should even lead us into error, we may still find consolation in the assurance which I will put before you in the oft-quoted words of John Hales, one of the many advocates of free and liberal inquiry of which the Church of England can boast. Writing to Archbishop Laud, he says: "The pursuit of Truth hath been my only care ever since I first understood the meaning of the word. For this I have forsaken all hopes, all friends, all desires which might bias me and hinder me from driving right at what I aimed. For this I have spent my money, my means, my youth, my age, and all I have, that I might remove from myself that censure of Tertullian -Suo vitio quis quid ignorat? If with all this cost and pains my purchase is but error, I may safely say, to err has cost me more than it has many to find the Truth; and Truth itself shall give me this testimony at last, that if I have missed of her, it is not my fault, but my misfortune."

These two quotations, moreover, suggest one final remark: It is impossible to hear or read them without noting the philosophical equanimity, the calm self-reliance, the invincible consciousness of rectitude, the imperturbable tranquillity which both share alike, and which emanates from them like a deep undertone of music. Now the Greek Skeptics affirmed—it was a cardinal article in their belief-that the investigation of Truth induced that high philosophical attitude which they termed Ataraxia, ie, mental serenity, and this apart from any particular conclusion to which the inquiry might lead. These utterances surely tend to prove that a similar condition might be induced in ourselves by a persistent employment in the search and propagation of Truth of those reasoning powers which we may conceive were given us for that purpose. Whatever be our personal success or defeat, it is no small gain to feel assurance, that not only will the enter prise bring with it indirectly its own reward, but that in the proportion

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that we can promote the cause of free inquiry, rouse men from the lethargy of Dogma, and impel them in the path of Truth-search, in the same proportion are we advancing the noblest culture and the highest interests of our fellow.en.

THE MORAL AND RELIGIOUS BEARINGS

OF THE EVOLUTION THEORY.

BY MISS BEVINGTON.

IN trying to give an account of the great philosophical creed of our time one is tempted to write a volume. Its credentials seem to press for notice no less than its gist, and one would gladly offer evidence of its truth before describing the part it plays as creed and as code in the consciousness of its adherents. But in this book we are concerned less with the theoretical justification of our respective bodies of doctrine than with their presentation as they stand related to the moral and religious life of mankind. In the present chapter, therefore, the merest outline and the broadest general features of the evolution theory alone are given, the main effort being directed to making as clear as may be the precise way in which the holding of the theory naturally affects the will, the conduct, the conscience, and the religious sentiment of individuals.

Primarily the doctrine is not a religion. It is the least inaccurate account that can as yet be given of a general natural process. Scientific research arrived at its concrete evidences, scientific philosophy caught sight of its abstract significance, while engaged in the pursuit of natural, actual truth, "for truth's sake," and not for any other sake at all. But the vastness and the persistence of the uniformities that science brings to light do much to strengthen and deepen that "indefinite consciousness of existence transcending relations" which Herbert Spencer recognises as the 66 essence of religion." More than this is true. The theory of evolution brings with it implications which are calculated to affect religiously the emotions, and to affect morally the conduct of any one who has really grasped it, by giving him the most solemn and intimate sense of actual relationship with and participation in that supreme Energy of which the universe, within as without the mind of man, is the manifestation and the working aspect.

I. The process into whose regular workings evolutionists believe themselves to have obtained a glimpse, accurate even where not comprehensive, is nothing less sublime than that of the conversion of chaos-or featureless confusion-into form, order, life, thought, will, and all that lies on the hither side of these.

Even when, as in the hands of Herbert Spencer, the theory is comprehensively applied, and serves as key-note to a philosophy of the whole material, mechanical, mental, and moral universe, it still remains strictly scientific, since it is only this universe as knowable and thinkable-this universe, so far as our present powers can conceive it as built up out of observed natural factors-that is treated of.

As science, the first thing the doctrine appeals to is the hungry, truthseeking part of the intellect, and the hardy, truth-loving corner of the conscience. The human mind at its best has already reached a stage of moral development when truth at all hazards is believed in as valuable, and its pursuit more and more encouraged by that "still, small voice" which makes so little of personal self-seeking. The moral doctrine inclosed within the theory is nothing other than the actual law of life-the law, that is, according to which life is developed and ennobled, its liberties secured, and its powers effectualized-as this law stands revealed in the open, but closely written book of natural fact.

The peculiar characteristic of the evolution doctrine is that it begins and ends at natural history. All that is is regarded as natural, and all that happens is regarded as resulting from the liberation of tendencies inherent in nature. It treats of the normal and constant workings of things everywhere and always among and upon one another. It discloses the part played by these constant workings in the origination, the development, the consummation, and the natural dissolution of this or that individual phenomenon. It notes the absolute constancy of relations, the invariable sequence in which changes occur. It points out how phenomena are everywhere and incessantly emerging in one particular way out of earlier phenomena, and as incessantly merging into yet others; and how all that is passes through phases without jolts or breaks,—no change anywhere or anyhow occurring without affecting a change also in whatever is in any sort of present relation to the incident agency.

The theory includes the natural history of morals, of conscience, of religious systems, and of the religious sentiment itself. The evolutionist preacher might take as his text the words, "This do, and thou shalt live"; but as a fact science is addicted rather to stating than to preaching. Yet it is this very fact, that a luminous and universally applicable code of righteousness has been come upon, so to speak, incidentally, growing naturally like a hardy wild flower right in the broad daylight and open highway of science truly so called, that gives to the evolution theory its special ethical significance at the present critical juncture of human affairs and of human speculation. Since it has been formulated, the actual meaning of conscience has loomed into sight. The natural history of that strange compunction which, within the individual, pleads independently of the individual in behalf of something more permanent than himself is spelt out between the lines of the natural history of Society-Society being an aggregate of interdependent individuals, each more or less at the mercy of all, all more or less at the mercy of each.

II. So much for a general indication of the gist of our doctrine. Now for an outline of the chief constituent dicta of the theory itself.

Inhering in everything and manifested in everything is an energy or cause, which, however, eludes scientific analysis, and remains in its entirety and its absolute nature for ever beyond the reach of thought and imaginaVOL. 1. pt. 2.

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tion. Its effects are perceptible to us under the aspect of nature and natural law. So far as these effects can be observed they are characterized by complete essential uniformity. Like conditions always and every where issue in like result. Hence the belief that the under-lying and all-pervading force is single and identical. It is also conceived as unlimited in time and space, and as absolutely persistent and inexhaustible: “the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever."

Meanwhile the ultimate nature of the primal Energy eludes comprehension, because that which underlies, is antecedent to, and includes the very | conditions of sense, thought, and knowledge eludes any possible or conceivable extension of these powers as such. That Power in which we | "live, move, and have our being" is real, but is not "by searching " to be "found out." It remains unknown and unknowable.

III. The evolution story begins at the knowable. Inherent in every part or point of the known universe there appear to be two antagonist tendencies. Each ultimate unit of existence, whether we call it for convenience an "atom of matter" or a "centre of force," tends persistently to "gravitate," that is, to approach, combine with, and settle in with the rest of things; and yet it tends no less persistently to keep aloof. Even when and while in close combination, it still tends to release itself, as itself. Any aggregate of any kind is therefore, by force of these contrary tendencies in its contained units, constantly tending to pull together, and as constantly tending to go to pieces. If the former tendency is the stronger, the aggregate keeps together, consolidates, concentrates, and loses its superfluous motion; it gets less fidgety and loose, more and more busy and connected, adjusts its parts within itself, adapts itself to whatever it has to do with in its external environment,-in a word, ORGANIZES, and begins to act as a whole made up of parts having a common interest. This whole, once formed, develops more powers (and more various powers) of affecting its environment, and of effecting that which its own sustentation requires. If this process continue long enough unhindered, the aggregate goes on to what may be called its completion, consummation, or perfection. | That is, it reaches a stage where its needs and proclivities are exactly balanced by external occasion; its function is entirely fulfilled. further advance is possible, its harmony with the conditioning environment being at length perfectly established.

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Evolution is the name given to the process by which the formative tendency takes effect. The opposite process, representing the antagonistic tendency, is called Dissolution.

IV. The transformation of chaos into cosmos is an "eternal" process; that is, it tends at every instant to go on everywhere, so far as not thwarted by dissolution. Its order is always alike. It can at every point be analysed into a definite mode of behaviour on the part of the "raw material” of the particular phenomenon under observation, which responds everywhere and alwavs in the same manner on the same provocation. The uniform