on a
level with all the rest, not excepting the lowest. A microbe and a man
are on the same footing, both as to their origin and destiny, and as to
their having within themselves all power which is available for making
the most of their respective lives.

"We are part
Of every rock and bird and beast and hill,
One with the things that prey on us,
And one with what we kill."

Darwinism and Marxism constitute one gospel, the only true,
comprehensive and sufficient gospel which the world has ever had or can
have, and there is no hope for the future of mankind except in it. If it
fails the world is lost, but it shall not and indeed cannot fail, for
its words are so many acts or facts of nature.

There is no fact which is not such an act, and every such fact is a part
of the one only law upon the knowing and doing of which terrestrial life
and its happiness are wholly and solely dependent.

Yes, life, long life, happy life, all there is of such human life, or
divine life, (if there be any), depends entirely upon a knowledge of and
conformity to this law which is the doing of nature, and not at all upon
any law which is the willing of a god, if indeed there is such a law.

Neither the religion nor the politics which enters into the constitution
of Marxian or proletarian socialism is at all concerned about the heaven
above or the hell below the earth, if there are such places: but the
concern of both is wholly to ring out a hell from the earth and to ring
in a heaven upon it.

Nor have the religion and politics which constitute this socialism the
least concern about the service of a celestial divinity (Jesus, Jehovah,
Allah, Buddha or any other) by doing his will; but both are much
concerned with the service of humanity, which consists in rightly
learning, interpreting and using the laws of nature, wholly for the
purpose of making the terrestrial lives of men, women and children as
long and happy as possible, and with absolutely no reference to any
celestial life which may be either above or below the earth.

Religion and politics are the complementary and inseparable halves of
the social sphere, religion being its idealism and politics its
practicalism.

Religious idealism is a social soul of which the church should be the
embodiment.

Political practicalism is a social soul of which the state should be the
embodiment.

Contrary to the representations of orthodox Christianism it is
impossible for any so