ction of a human society is: to what degree is every person so
placed and treated that he is not only a mere means, but also always at
the same time an end?" and he points {255} out that "this is Kant's
famous dictum, with another motive than that given to it by him." But
if it is reasonable to apply this test to society, regarded from the
point of view of statics, it is also reasonable to apply it to society
regarded dynamically. If it is the proper test for ascertaining what
degree of perfection society at any given moment has attained, it is
also the proper test for ascertaining what advance, if any, towards
perfection has been made by society between any two periods of its
growth, any two stages in its evolution. But the moment we admit the
possibility of applying a test to the process of evolution and of
discovering to what end the process is moving, we are abandoning
science and the scientific theory of evolution. Science formally
refuses to consider whether there be any end to which the process of
evolution is working: "end" is a category which science declines to
apply to its subject-matter. In the interests of knowledge it declines
to be influenced by any consideration of what the end aimed at by
evolution may be, or whether there be any end aimed at at all. It
simply notes what does take place, what is, what has been, and to some
extent what may be, the sequence of events--not their object or
purpose. And the {256} science of religion, being a science, restricts
itself in the same way. As therefore science declines to use the
category, "end," progress is an idea impossible for science--for
progress is movement towards an end, the realisation of a purpose and
object. And science declines to consider whether progress is so much
as possible. But, so far as the subject-matter of the science of
religion is concerned, it is positive (that is to say, it is mere fact
of observation) that in religion an end is aimed at, for man everywhere
seeks God and communion with Him. What the science of religion
declines to do is to pronounce or even to consider whether that end is
possible or not, whether it is in any degree achieved or not, whether
progress is made or not.

But if we do not, as science does, merely constate the fact that in
religion an end is aimed at, viz. that communion with God which issues
in doing His will from love of Him and therefore of our fellow-man; if
we recognise that end as the end that