st as it was by the slave-driver: he has been liable to
regard men as chattels, as instruments by which the work of evolution
is carried on. The work has got to be done (by men amongst other
animals and things), things have to be evolved, evolution must go on.
But, why? and for whom? with what purpose and for whose benefit? with
what end? are questions which science leaves to be answered by those
people who are foolish enough to ask them. Science is concerned simply
with the individual as a means, as one of the means, whereby evolution
is carried on; and doubtless science is justified--if only on the
principle of the division of labour--in confining itself to the
department of enquiry which it takes in hand and in refusing to travel
beyond it. Any theory of man, therefore, or of the evolution of
humanity, which professes to base itself strictly on scientific fact
and to exclude other considerations as unscientific and therefore as
unsafe material to build on, will naturally, and perhaps necessarily,
be dominated by the notion that the individual exists as a factor in
evolution, as one of the means by which, and not as in any sense the
end for which, evolution is carried on.

{244}

Such seems to be the case with the theory of humanitarianism. It bases
itself upon science, upon experience, and rules out communion with God
as not being a scientific fact or a fact of experience at all. Based
upon science, it is a theory which seeks amongst other things to assign
to religion its place in the evolution of humanity. According to the
theory, the day of religion is over, its part played out, its function
in the evolution of humanity discharged. According to this theory,
three stages may be discerned in the evolution of humanity when we
regard man as a moral being, as an ethical consciousness. Those three
stages may be characterised first as custom, next religion, and finally
humanitarianism.

By the theory, in the first stage--that of custom--the spirits to whom
cult is paid are vindictive. In the second stage--that of
religion--man, having attained to a higher morality, credits his gods
with that higher morality. In the third stage--that of
humanitarianism--he finds that the gods are but lay figures on which
the robes of righteousness have been displayed that man alone can
wear--when he is perfect. He is not yet perfect. If he were, the
evolution of humanity {245} would be attained--whereas at present it is
as