THIS is a study of the probability, significance, and character of a second coming of Christ. The author believes that " Christ came the first time into men's vision by coming on the plane of their senses ; He comes the second time into men's vision by lifting them up into his plane of spiritual comprehension. It means a new step in the evolution of man." :: :: :: IN MEMQRIAM Charles Josselyn. THE NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION 41 Come unto Me all ye that labor And are heavy laden" Photogravure, after painting by H. Hotimai FUNK6WAGNALLS COM PUBLISHERS NEW YORK 6 LONDON COPYRIGHT, 1902 BY FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY {Printed in the United States of A merica\ Published in November, iqo2 Second Edition, February, 1903 Third Edition, May, 1903 Fourth Edition, March, igoS PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION After six years since the pub- lication of this little book I find that now I would only the more surely express belief in several essential points. Christ's second coming should not be understood to be a literal, physical coming, but His reappear- ance in the spirit and characters of His followers and in the world at large. Thomas said to Christ : How can we know the way, since we know not whither Thou goest? Christ replied, I am the way; no man cometh to the Father but in the way I come; he must be as I am and do as I do, and then he will find the Father and he will i 615804 PREFACE find Me. He who willingly serves others and is kind-hearted and is pure in heart, shall see God. And in the very nature of things, none other can. Evolution explains much of the development of man; but in each kingdom the type life of the next higher kingdom was not evolved, it came from above. John Fiske, himself an evolutionist of author- ity, says: "Cerebral psychology tells that in no possibility can thought and feeling be in any sense the products of matter" ("Destiny of Man," page 109). Wallace is still more explicit. (See foot-note, page 22.) The reappearance of Christ in the characters of those who truly follow Him is becoming increas- ingly manifest. Never was the race of man so unselfish as now. Eecent famines in Eussia, in China, in India touched thou- PREFACE sands of hearts, and relief started spontaneously from many sides. Every year the thought of war between nations is more and still more unnatural, barbarous, brutal. The Brotherhood of Man appears dimly, but it appears above the horizon. Selfishness is becoming more difficult; and that it is short- sightedness is clearly recognized by many "there is that with- holdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty," and natu- rally so. After a while in these growths a thousand years are as one day selfishness will be mani- fest folly. By and by we will be, as a matter of course, our brother's keeper. To be in harmony with the Great Soul of the universe will be seen to be the direction of the least resistance. The way, of the man who opposes it is becom- ing perceptibly harder, and yet iii PREFACE harder it is the way that is so hard. We think and live through to the other side of ignorance, su- perstition, intolerance, all myths, veils. The time is bound to come when platforms and creeds, all outward expressions even churches and governments, and the Bible itself will cease being necessary; they are props and scaffolds, and necessarily tempo- rary. (Each man will be a law unto himself. } Then there will be no need of the sun or moon, for God who is the highest reason, the infinite truth, the soul of all, will be in communication with every intelligence. He will be the light thereof, wholly sufficient. When we think that thought through we will have grasped a great truth. Do we not already know that sunlight conceals, as well as re- veals? The immensities of the iv PREFACE interstellar universe only appear when the sun has set. Also physical life conceals; death also brings out the stars. Now we see through a glass darkly, then we shall see face to face. The argument in this book as- sumes that we have capacities for truth which transcend the senses. Too close attention to the physical sciences often dulls and some- times destroys all appreciation of music, painting, poetry; the fac- ulties that have to do with these things become atrophied. Yet their kingdoms are real, but there has ceased to be that within which responds. Many have eyes but see not, ears but hear not. If there is not that in the reader which responds to the ar- gument, quite likely this book is not for him. I simply express these truths as I understand them, PREFACE not stopping to give syllogistic reasons. They are true to me. Moral and spiritual truths carry conviction up to the level of our development. The esthetic, fac- ulty recognizes beauty up to its level ; so with music, so with con- science. And hence that is an evil and adulterous generation who seeketh after lower proofs for things that are moral and spir- itual. I am sure there are readers who will fully understand me. PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION THIS brief study in evolution appeared first about a year ago as an introduction to a revival of the story of George Croly's "Sala- thiel," rechristened " Tarry Thou Till I Come." The study has been so favorably received by some whose judgment I esteem that I have ventured to recast it somewhat, enlarging it here and there, and to send it abroad in its present form. THE NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION IN the legend of the Wander ing Jew, the words " Tarry Thou Till I Come " smote the offender like successive thunder-claps, tho uttered without the noise of speech. At once a doom and a prophecy this Jesus, now climb- ing Calvary to His death, would come again, and the Jew could not perish from the earth until His coming. Dr. George Croly based his story " Salathiel," or " Tarry Thou Till I Come," on this old, pathetic legend. He believed that "The Wandering Jew " typical of the 9 NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION Jewish race is about to end his wearisome journeyings, as Christ is soon to come.* * It has been believed by many from the early ages of the Christian era that among the signs of Christ's coming would be the recognition of Him by the Jews as "one sent of the Father," and that they would then be restored to the Father's favor; that this recog- nition would be accompanied by a re- colonization of the Jews in Palestine ; that from this vantage-ground they, as a nation among nations the " inherent genius of the Jews for things religious" again reasserting itself would lead the nations of the earth in final triumph into the kingdom of the spiritual man. Prof. R. Gottheil, of Columbia Uni- versity, and president of the Federa- tion of American Zionists, said, before the Zionist Congress, in the summer of 1900, in London : " It is time the na- tions understood our motives. Our purpose is to colonize Palestine. We political Zionists desire a charter from the Sultan authorizing us to settle in our Holy Land, and we ask the Powers to approve and protect this charter. " 10 t..i A^teL ^ 1^ "Zt.* J*?44*}-S*'9** 4****~ ,+.***& NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION That the Christ is corning, and that this coming is near at hand, is believed to-day by millions. He is coming but how? Hear Him: The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven which a woman hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened the life and nature of the leaven reappearing in the quickened mass. Again : The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard-seed, the least of all seeds, so little that it is likely to be lost sight of in the count of forces; but it has life in it, and the power to grow and multiply, and it spreads its branches in every direction, each laden with seeds the life and nature of the first grain reappear- ing in every one of the myriads of grains. 11 NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION And again : The kingdom of heaven is as if a man should cast seed into the ground ; and it should spring up and grow, he knoweth not how; first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear. It is all natural: the earth does its work; the sun, the air, the water do their work, and the life and nature of the seed grow and multiply, reappear- ing in each grain in exact accord- ance with the nature of the seed. It is natural, but marvelous : the man " knoweth not how " it is done ; but no one says, therefore, that that growth is supernatural, miraculous. Whence the germ of life in the seed? Whence the germ of life in the kingdom of heaven? Who can tell? The wind bloweth where it listeth. Thou seest the 13 NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION effect of it, but canst not tell whence it cometh, nor whither it goeth. So is life, wherever you find it, whether at the birth of a yeast-plant, of grains of mustard- seed and of corn, or at the birth of the natural and spiritual man. But the leaven, and the grains of mustard-seed and of corn, and the kingdoms of the natural and the spiritual man, grow and reach per- fection by natural processes that is, in harmony with cause and effect each process subject to critical and scientific analysis, if that analysis goes deep enough, and wide enough, and far enough. Life reappears in new life. The leaven and the seed and the Christ life all reincarnate themselves in more leaven, more seed, more of the Christ life. "In that day," said Jesus, " ye shall know that I am in you." Those who study 13 NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION the New Testament can not but be impressed with how often and under how many forms is there uttered the thought Christ formed in you. This is the coming of Christ. Not that it is the only coming; many millions of earnest men and women believe that in the near future He will come in a way pal- pable to our physical senses as He came nineteen hundred years ago. "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven " (Acts i. ii). Yet experiences on the physical plane are of little comparative value comparative. Jesus bade the doubting Thomas to reach forth his hand and touch Him, 14 NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION that he might have tangible evi- dence : Now, Thomas, you believe because you have seen and felt; but blessed is he who believes on the higher plane of spiritual know- ing. It is " an evil and adulter- ous generation " that seeketh after proofs of spiritual things on the sensuous level. Men saw and touched Jesus in Palestine who were millions of miles from Him. Were Christ to appear in visible form, it might easily be of no value whatever to come into phys- ical contact with Him, to meet Him on Broadway or on the Strand ; but who can measure the value of having Christ recreated in himself, as the leaven is recre- ated in the meal, and as a seed is recreated in new seed, so that men, when they see that man, and talk to him, and deal with him, shall feel ttyat they have been with Christ? 15 NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION One day I saw in a neighbor's flower-bed a little plant, that, as it pushed its way above the ground, had brought with it the mother seed from which it grew. That was a literal reappearance of the planted seed; but it was not the reappearance, not the res- urrection of the seed, for which a seed grows. Christ came the first time into men's vision by coming on the plane of their senses; He comes the second time into men's vision by lif ting them up to His plane of spiritual comprehension. This coming of Christ involves a new birth, a new creation, a new kingdom. It means a new step in the evolution of man. As man has stepped from the mineral kingdom to the vegetable king- dom, and from the vegetable king- dom to the animal kingdom, and 16 NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION from the animal kingdom to the kingdom of the natural man,* so now he steps from the kingdom of the natural man to the kingdom of the spiritual man, every portion of this step a natural process sub- ject to critical scientific analysis, if that analysis goes deep enough, wide enough, far enough. It is the continuance of evolution with- out a break, without a leap (" Na- ture never makes leaps," says Leibnitz ; the leaps are only seem- ing), lifting the race by a new birth through Christ, the type- life, up to the plane of spiritual being and knowing. Is the visible second coming of Jesus fancy or truth? Increasing multitudes to-day believe it true. * This is simply a name ; both king- doms, that of the natural man and that of the spiritual man, are in harmony with the laws of sequence. 2 17 NEXT STEP AY EVOLUTION Among these are many of the foremost Christian teachers of this generation, as that quartet of great preachers recently dead, Charles H. Spurgeon, Newman Hall, A. J. Gordon, and Dwight L. Moody; Theodore Monod, Arthur T. Pierson, F. B. Meyer, J. H. Brookes, C. Cuthbert Hall. There is evidently near at hand a notable revival of this belief. THE ESSENTIAL COMING OF CHRIST This coming is in harmony with the laws of sequence and conti- nuity. Each of the successive steps or kingdoms has had its type-life. The plant that is, the physical basis of the plant life came from the inorganic matter ; the animal that is, the physical basis of the animal life came from the plant and through the plant from the mineral kingdom ; the natural man that is, the physical basis of the life of the natural man came from the animal and the kingdoms below it ; the spiritual man that is, the physical basis of the life 19 NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION of the spiritual man comes from the natural man and the kingdoms below him. The development from kingdom to kingdom was a natural unfold- ing ; yet the new creature of the next higher order always came through a new birth a double birth: (1) the birth of the new type -life of the next higher king- dom into the evolutionary order of nature, through the hereditary chain; and (2) the birth of each individual into this type-life. Let us attempt to climb quickly as may be the spiral stairway of the evolution of man, from plat- form to platform kingdom to kingdom. FIRST STEP IN LIFE, The Vegetable Kingdom. After ages of preparation in the inorganic world, the material which sup- NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION plies the physical basis of the vegetable life vegetable proto- plasm was ripened through the marvelous chemistry of nature. But when all was ready for the plant, whence came the plant life? Scientists are now practically unanimous in saying that there is not a scintilla of evidence that the inorganic or mineral world has ever evolved a plant life.* * " There is not a shadow of trust- worthy direct evidence that abiogene- sis [spontaneous generation] does take place or has taken place within the period during which the existence of life on the globe is recorded." HUX- LEY, under "Biology," "Encyclopedia Britannica," vol. iii., p. 689. " I do not forget the alleged facts of spontaneous generation ; but even after the very extended investigations of the last ten years, it may still be stated as a general result of the innumerable ex- periments which have been made, that, in no case has even the lowest type of an organic cell been produced from 21 NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION "To the scientist," says Darwin, "it is a hopeless inquiry as to how life originated." Life from an egg is still the latest dictum of science, that is, life only from life. When all was ready for the plant, the life came from above.* This life was imparted to and in- carnated in the prepared matter, possessing the power to reorganize after its nature, that is, after the pattern that goes with each type- life, and possessing the power of multiplication, so that the earth unorganized matter, unless through the natural processes of growth from a preexisting germ." COOKE, "Religion and Chemistry," ch. vii., p. 222 (1897). "These are the generations ... of every plant of the field before it was in the earth" (Gen. ii. 4, 5). * " Still more surely can we refer to it [the spiritual world] those progressive manifestations of life in the vegetable, the animal, and man. " WALLACB, "Darwinism" p. 476. JV EXT STEP IN EVOLUTION was covered with all the many varieties of plant life, varieties resulting from the law of selec- tion through difference in climate, through food distribution, and through other causes, and from the law of heredity. SECOND STEP IN LIFE, The Animal Kingdom. No plant, no animal. The plant was neces- sary to prepare the inorganic world for the animal ; the plant is the essential go-between. The animal can not digest and assimilate the mineral, but the plant can, and then the animal can digest and assimilate the plant. But ages elapsed in the preparation of the animal protoplasm, that is, in fit- ting material for the physical basis of the animal life. Then again, when all was ready, whence came the animal life? Scientists now substantially agree that there k 23 NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION not a scintilla of proof that an animal life has ever been de- veloped from a plant. The phys- ical basis of animal life was ripened through the plant and mineral world, and when the basis was ready, animal life came. This life also came from above, it did not come from below. It came with the new birth of an animal type-life into the heredi- tary chain of evolution ; and the animal type-life was imparted to and incarnated in the prepared physical basis, bridging in itself the chasm between the two king- doms. This type-life also had the power to reorganize after its na- ture, and from it all animal life was developed. In some, as in the lowest protozoa, it was arrested at a single cell ; in others, it pro- gressed to two, three, a score, myriads of cells ; in some it pro- gressed in lateral ways, ending 24 NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION in birds, elephants, monkeys, wolves, lions in one preparing the way for man. THIED STEP IN LIFE, The Kingdom of the Natural Man. Again, ages elapsed in the prepa- ration of the human protoplasm, that is, in fitting the material for the physical basis of the natural man ; and when all was ready, the human type -life was imparted to and incarnated in the prepared matter, being born from above into the evolutionary order through the hereditary chain, and having pow- er to reorganize after his nature.* *"That it [human consciousness] can not possibly be the product of any cunning arrangement of material par- ticles is demonstrated beyond perad- venture by what we now know of the correlation of physical forces." FISKE, " The Destiny of Man," p. 42. " Cerebral psychology tells us that by no possibility can thought and feeling 25 NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION From this type-life sprang the races of mankind. More and more with each succeeding king- dom evolution has changed its di- rection upward from the physical be in any sense the products of matter. " Idem, p. 109. "It would be immeasurably inter- esting to gaze within and follow the processes of such a cerebral mechanism, as we observe the operations of a cal- culating-machine. ^It is all through and forever inconceivable that a num- ber of atoms of carbon, hydrogen, ni- trogen, oxygen, and so on, shall be other than indifferent as to how they are disposed and how they will be moved. It is utterly inconceivable how consciousness shall arise from their joint action. "4-DuBOis-REYMOND, " Ueber die Grenzdn des NaturerJcen- nens," p. 42. Huxley, November, 1871, Contempo- rary Review, said: "In my belief con- sciousness and molecular action are capable of being expressed by one an- other, j ust as heat and molecular action are capable of being expressed in terms 26 NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION to the psychical, protoplasm giv- ing way to psychoplasm. FOURTH STEP IN LIFE, The Kingdom of the Spiritual Man. Now other ages elapsed. The natural man evolved a higher and higher degree of perfection, evolution finally ceasing along the lines of the coarser physical man, the direction becoming wholly psychic, immensely developing that portion of the brain which is the organ of the psychic powers.* of one another," but he accompanied this statement with these words: "I really know nothing, and never hope to know anything, of the steps by which the passage from molecular movement to states of consciousness is effected." * Reasoning upon "the dawning of consciousness " in his " Destiny of Man " John Fiske points out that the psychic power depends upon the upper and outer portions of the brain" the cere- brum and the cerebellum." These are 27 NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION In the fulness of time there was developed in him what may be called, for the sake of a name, the spiritual protoplasm, or the psychoplasm, * the exalted physi- cal and psychic basis of the inner man, the new creature of the king- dom of the spiritual man. When all was ready, again whence came not visible in the lowest forms of ani- mals, but grow large as the scale is ascended. " The cerebral surface of a human infant is like that of an ape. In an adult savage, or a European peas- ant, the furrowing is somewhat marked and complicated. In the brain of a great scholar the furrows are very deep and crooked, " and numerous, the cere- bral surface, "the seat of conscious mental life, has become enormously enlarged in area. " *"The psychoplasm or sentient material forming the psychological me- dium from which the soul derives its structure and its powers. " LEWES, "Problems of Life and Mind," vol. i., p. 111. NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION this new life? As was true with the other kingdoms, it could not conie from below. That which is born of flesh is flesh that which is born of mineral is mineral; that which is born of vegetable is vegetable ; that which is born of animal is animal; that which is born of the natural man is natu- ral man ; and that which is born of the spiritual man is spiritual. Again, the life came from above. It came with the new birth of a spiritual type-life into the evolu- tionary order through the heredi- tary chain in strict accordance with the law followed in the pre- ceding kingdoms. The spiritual type-life was imparted to and in- carnated in the prepared psycho- plasm, or the spiritual protoplasm. In this combination in the inner, the spiritual realm, this life has the power to reorganize after His nature, after the pattern that goes 29 NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION with each type-life has within Himself the power of imparting spiritual life, that is, of the mul- tiplication of corresponding indi- vidualities. None of the previous transitions from a lower to a higher kingdom has taken place within historic times. The cradle at Bethlehem flashes a searchlight down the spiral stairway up which man has come from platform to platform, kingdom to kingdom. Here we see clearly that the type-life of the kingdom of the spiritual man is born from above into the hered- itary chain of evolution. Many times, and in many ways, He de- clares I am "from above." He is born a natural man, and yet pos- sesses the life of the kingdom next higher, and proceeds to lift the natural man by a new birth into the kingdom of the spiritual man. 30 NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION He is born the son of man and the son of God, bridging the chasm with His own being. Again and again He says, "I am the life v ; "I have come that ye may have life"; except ye partake of Me "ye have no life in you." He calls Himself the "bread of life, " "the water of life. " This would all be meaning- less were Christ talking about the life of the kingdom of the natural man which all now have and have had. As the spiritual type-life lifts the natural man into the spiritual kingdom, so the type-life of the natural man lifted the animal into the kingdom of the natural man, and the animal type-life lifted the vegetable, and the vegetable type- life lifted the mineral. There is no break in the golden thread that runs through all this 31 NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION series of development from the mineral world up to the new crea- ture in Christ Jesus. There is nothing in this last development contrary to nature; it follows along exactly the same laws of natural unfoldment as did the other kingdoms. The law of con- tinuity holds.* Christ is born * Alfred Russell Wallace, who was joint discoverer with Darwin of evolu- tion, and is its greatest living expo- nent, in his book "Darwinism," p. 474, shows the fallacy as to new causes in- volving any breach of continuity these new causes embracing vegetable life, animal life, and the higher powers of man. He says, pp. 475 and 476 : " These faculties [the higher powers of the natural man] could not possibly have been developed by means of the same laws which have determined the progressive development of the organic world in general, and also of man's physical organism. . . . Still more surely can we refer to it [the spiritual world] those progressive manifestations of life in the vegetable, the animal, and NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION really into the kingdom of the nat- ural man, and the natural man is born into the spiritual kingdom, through Christ, the type-life. In this last stage of man's ascent, as in the previous ones, nature makes "no leap." "Think not," says Christ, " that I have come to de- stroy the law ; I have not come to destroy, but to fulfil. " He came to carry on His work in harmony with the processes of the universe. What is law but the method that the immanent God, everywhere and forever, pursues in His work? man." Also, in "Natural Selection," p. 185, he tells us that the advance of man is due not to the survival of the fittest, but to those " glorious qualities which raise us so immeasurably above our fellow animals and at the same time afford us the surest proof that there are other and higher existences than ourselves, from whom these qual- ities may have been derived, and toward whom we may be ever tending." 3 33 NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION True, segments of the circle He follows are easily out of the reach of our vision. Huxley tells us that he has no doubt that even on the physical plane, most impor- tant work is being done far beyond the reach of the most powerful microscope. He might have said, and kept easily within bounds, the important work. The crystal is matter plus the principle of crystallization; so the plant, the animal, the natural man always the creature of the kingdom below with the plus sign, for a birth is an unf oldment and something more. And so, the Christ life takes the character, the soul, the spirit of the natu- ral man, which have developed through the ages takes them through a new birth, this time with man's consent. "Marvel not that I say unto you, ye must be born again." "Verily, verily, 34 NEXT XTEP IN EVOLUTION I say unto thee, except a man be born from above, he can not see the kingdom of God " (John iii. 3). Ye are "babes in Christ," "Ye are new creatures." We become heirs "of God through Christ," crying "Abba, Father." " In love's hour Eternal Love con- ceives in us the child of God" through the spiritual type-life of Christ Jesus. Christ could not have been more explicit or more scientifically ex- act in declaring Himself the tffpe- life of the spiritual man. "Tarn the door, " " the way," " the life " ; " no man can come to the Father but by me." "He that hath the Son hath life ; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life " ; he may be a Caesar leading armies against Pompey, or a Cicero de- claiming his matchless oration against Catiline, and yet be dead. 35 NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION In the inspired picture-history of creation, an Adam is the type- life of the kingdom of the natural man; in the New Testament, Christ is presented in every way as the type-life of the kingdom of the spiritual man. " The first man Adam was made a living soul ; the last Adam was made a quick- ening spirit. Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural ; and after- ward that which is spiritual " (1 Cor. xv. 45, 46). Here, also, the law of conform- ity to type is manifest. Each type-life is perfect, but those who are born through the type-life begin at the bottom ; the " fall " is great from the type-life to the beginning of growth in the next higher kingdom. But from that onward the battle of evolution is to secure likeness to the type. 36 NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION " We all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory" (2 Cor. iii. 18). We shall be "conformed to the image of his Son " (Kom. viii. 29) . " As we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly " (1 Cor. xv. 49). After the night is over we shall awake in His likeness. Newton said that he made a splendid guess at the universal law of gravitation when he saw the apple fall. Why may it not be permissible for us to guess, from the law of conformity to type, that in every kingdom the new creature carries with it the pattern of its type-life, and that after this pattern, in the lower kingdoms, the accompanying cells strive to weave a nature corre- sponding with its kingdom, and in the kingdom of the spiritual 37 NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION man the Holy Spirit strives to weave the nature of the spiritual man? * In the lower kingdoms it is a survival of the fightest, in the highest a survival of the fittest, the struggle for life for ourselves merging into a struggle for life for others. Even among men in the earlier days, to discover the great- est man, the measuring-string was placed around the muscle. That was the age of Hercules. Then the time came when the measur- ing-string was placed around the head. That was the age of Bacon * " After watching the process hour by hour [in the semi-fluid globule of protoplasm of the embryo] one is almost involuntarily possessed by the notion that some more subtle aid to vision than an achromatic would show the hidden artist, with his plan before him, stri- ving with skilful manipulation to per- fect work." HUXLEY, "Lay Sermons," p. 261. NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION and Shakespeare. But the time conies in the rapidly advancing future when the measuring-string will be placed around the heart, and he who measures most there will be most conformed to the Mas- ter, for he is greatest who most fully gives himself for others. Evolution goes on, hereafter, in the inner and upper world, out- side and beyond our vision, ma- king many and many variations doubtless, as in the lower realms. In the Father's spiritual house also are many mansions. We are stepping from the physiological to the psychological, from body and mind to spirit. As in all pre- vious growth, the latest type-life is reappearing in His generation in the " new creatures " of His kingdom. To-day, in the unfolding em- bryo of every child, nature mar- 39 NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION velously and clearly retells the history of the evolution of the physical nature of the human race from the one-celled moneron to the billion-celled man. For the embryo of the child is a historic map, done in flesh and blood, of the evolution of man, of the forms he has assumed, broadly speaking, as he climbed nature's stairway.* But more than man's physical nature was evolved. * Romanes, in "Darwin and After Darwin," chap, iv., says that the em- bryo is a resume or recapitulation of the successive phases through which the being has been developed with ex- planable omissions. On p. 102 he tells of the young salamander that is so complete in its gills shortly before birth that if it is removed from the womb and placed in water it will be able to live, breathing like a fish through its gills. II The physical nature of man has perdured through heredity, com- ing up through the vegetable kingdom, the animal kingdom, and the kingdom of the natural man, no break in the chain from the unicellular monera and ameba the protozoa. The oak grows from the acorn that has in it a cell which has in it the vitality and pattern of the parent tree. That cell divides and subdivides into the millions of cells that weave the new oak, but there is not one cell of the millions that did not come from the single cell given to the acorn by the parent oak; so back through the chain, along which that oak has come, 41 NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION through the myriads of centuries from the plant type -life ; not one of these cells in all the ages out of line, not a break in the chain, no chasm, no leap. Every twig, every leaf in the wide- spreading oak, has its thread unbroken through the ages back to the prim- ordial cell back to the original that came from above. But the outward evolution that of the physical marvelous beyond thought, is comparatively insignificant. The chief evolution has been and is within. The scientist is unscientific who ignores the greater evolution and builds his explanatory system wholly on the lesser on the least. Psychology is also a science. Has nature one method for the development of the physical part of man's being, and another for the development of the non-material and spiritual? NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION Nature is not divided. What means the hereditary likeness, mental and spiritual not less marked than the physical ? These marks often skip many generations and then reappear again in full. They can not, therefore, be the result of education or imitation. Nor is it easy to believe that they were placed within us by a direct act of creation, as the old-fash- ioned theological professor taught that God mixed the fossils with the plastic stones at creation, somewhat as a cook mixes raisins and other fruits in the dough for her plum-pudding. What means the gradual devel- opment in the brain of the cere- brum and cerebellum, the organs of the soul powers, enlarging from generation to generation? These are scarcely visible in the lowest animals. They become larger as we advance up the animal scale 43 NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION of intelligence, or psychic power ; large in the ape, who came far along the same line that man came ; four times as large in the lowest Zulu as in the ape, but far larger in the European and Amer- ican civilized man thus slow- ly made perfect through awful struggles and sufferings, painfully growing a million years or more. Is it not then reasonable to believe that there is a corresponding psychic or soul development from generation to generation in the unseen individuality, the ego, which uses the cerebrum and cer- ebellum as organs; that up the spiral stairway of evolution the whole man has come his person- ality, with its soul powers, and the physical organs of these pow- ers in the brain, and the entire physical man? Is it hard to believe that our 44 NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION individuality has been born and reborn through the line of ances- try back to the type-lives, and through them back to the " begin- ning," when God took of His own life to develop, through ages of conflict, personalities other than His own who would, of their own free-will, choose goodness? Is it hard to believe that at every suc- cessive birth each parent has placed his stamp upon the indi- viduality, but that the individual- ity has perdured being reborn again and again into successive higher kingdoms? Does it seem hard to believe tfcat we should be born many times? Is it then harder to believe that we should be born after we have lived than that we should be born when we have not lived? The profoundest mystery is in the first birth, in which we all believe. And why should it be thought by us incred- 45 NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION ible that, with the mingling of the parental cells, the individuality exactly fitted should be reborn in the line of heredity, receiving the parental stamp, being attracted by the law which answers to that law which guides the atom unerringly to its place in the crystal that same law wonderfully exalted? Whatever and wherever character is, it must be obedient to the law that draws it, for the law of at- traction is even more irresistible in the inner world than is the law of gravitation in the outer world. Every man as he comes to his birth comes to his own place ; in a profound sense he chooses his parents and his surroundings. As he was, he is, plus his birth- gain and his growth through con- sent and volition; his past leads him. And in this last transition each man is conscious that his individ- 46 NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION uality continues, altho he passes from one kingdom into the next. The dictum of science is "no leap, no break " continuity. Then it is reasonable to believe that the individuality will con- tinue through succeeding future changes, as it has continued these millions of years through the suc- cessive past changes. It would require much credulity to believe that nature has travailed in pain these untold ages to develop a personality that would of its own free-will choose goodness, only to destroy that personality as soon as made. John Fiske has well said : * " The materialistic as- sumption that . . . the life of the soul . . . ends with the life of the body, is perhaps the most colossal instance of assumption that is known in the history of philosophy." *"The Destiny of Man," p. 110. 47 NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION That was a provincial notion about the universe which was held before Copernicus J s time the be- lief that the sun, planets, stars, all revolved around the earth. Copernicus was called the de- stroyer of faith and bitterly de- nounced. His idea made the earth but a speck, and the Milky Way billions of miles long the mere yard-stick of the universe. All this has immensely enlarged faith did not destroy it. Darwin, too, was called the destroyer of faith; but now we begin to see that evolution, in giving man countless eons of growth, instead of keeping him a creature of yes- terday, bounded by the cradle and grave, has immensely enlarged faith, and beyond thought has added to the dignity of man. The new birth of the natural man into the kingdom of the spiri- 48 NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION tual man, the reborning of his personality, making him a child of God after the type of Christ, is the tap-root of Christianity, is the chief artery. Cut that and all is gone. Keep that and let the " new creature " grow toward his fulness, then Christ is recre- ated, reincarnated in him, and through him He is manifest again among men. Ill At each succeeding birth the individuality, to thrive, must be in harmony with its changed sur- roundings, and the cells that swarm in every living body strug- gle to bring this to pass. It is the business of the cell to obey the pushings of the governing force in the organization to which it be- longs. The plant needs water, minerals, air, sunshine. Its at- tendant cells hear the cry of their master and build roots into the ground and branches into the air, and weave leaves into lungs and laboratories. Note a vine in some cave how it works its way toward the hole through which sunshine is streaming, and how it 00 NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION causes some roots to build out toward a vein of water; others toward a skeleton many feet away and along the bones of that skele- ton hungering and thirsting for minerals, water, light, heat. Hungering and thirsting asking, knocking the plant receives. Seek and ye shall find ; strive and it shall be yours. This is the law in the plant life, the law in the animal life, in the life of the natural man, in the life of the spiritual man. After ages of need in the ani- mal kingdom and tireless struggle, guided by an intelligence im- planted in the cells, at last the eye was built, so the ear, and so the other senses, that the animal might have its desires and feed on the surrounding waves of light, waves of sound, and have the advantage of odor, of taste, and touch. Thus : the personality had 51 NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION the inner capacity to enjoy sound, and to take advantage of this in the struggle for existence. There was an outer world of sound, but there was no connect- ing instrumentality. The inner life blindly yearned for harmony with its surroundings; the cells hearkened and built the ear. It took ages, but in an eternity and a boundless universe to work in what are a million years or ten million years more or less? Seek is the law of growth. Its suggestion we see in the plant working its way toward the sun- shine. This law comes to perfec- tion in the prayer of the spirit. I desire, therefore I pray, there- fore I have. In a deep sense, as a man thinketh so he is. The universe of cells within each man calls him master. Ye are gods; kings upon thrones; your slightest wish is heard, your ear- 52 STEP IN EVOLUTION nest persistent desire compels obedience. Answer to prayer is a growth, a building up or down to what you wish. Wishing is asking. Ask what you will and from that instance receiving you receive. Here is the Christian doctrine of answer to prayer ; here is Christian science ; here also are psychological control, mind-heal- ing, mesmerism. Do I ask, longingly, Why was God more near to Abraham and Moses than to me? If Enoch walked with God why not I? He who so questions has already his hand upon the latch of the door of the new kingdom. Translate John xiv. into the language of evolution : Let not your spirit have unrest. In the inner kingdom are many stages and forms of growth. If it were not so I would have told you. I go within, away from your outer 53 NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION sense of sight, of hearing, that ye may more truly yearn, seek after, that which is spiritual, and thus by exercise of your spiritual pow- ers grow inward and upward to God's plane and know God; then my Father and I will be able to abide in you, and I can more truly manifest myself to you, and then ye shall know that I am in my Father, ye in Me, and I in you. Now you see Me on your plane of knowing; then you will see Me on my plane of knowing ; now you see through a glass darkly, then you will see and know as you are seen and known ; that is, you will be a creature of the spiritual kingdom, and will be equipped with its powers of knowing. Christ can never fully come into a man until the man has grown up to the level of spiritual things. It is a sensuous generation that seeks to be satisfied with con- 54 NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION solation through the physical senses. All of our faculties carry their own demonstrations of truth up to the level of their development. To the pure and loving, purity and love need no witnesses. Every man has had placed in his hand a latch-key to the beauty and wis- dom to all of the excellences of the universe; but there is only one way of using that latch-key effectively. We must grow to a level with the latch. I must have an eye fitted for the landscape, and must have a poetic soul be- fore the landscape can read its poetry to me. I may believe that Beethoven's Ninth Symphony is music because a master of music has told me so; that is belief based on authority; or, I may measure the waves of sound and scientifically demonstrate that it 55 NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION is music : But such evidences are beggarly, and praise based on them would drive a composer mad. But let me hunger and thirst after music ; seek, pray for musical sight and soul until I develop up to the level of Bee- thoven's Symphony; then as quickly as I hear it I exclaim: " That is music ! " Do you ask : " Who told you? " I answer : " No one ; I know it ! " My latch- key enters, for I am on a level with the latch. I asked, I sought, I knocked, until I grew up into the musical world. I must grow up to God before I can know Him ; I must grow up to Christ before I can see Him. The pure in heart shall see and hear spiritual things. I must be on God's level before even the lowly flower can tell me the thought that was in His mind when He created it. If any man will do His will he 56 NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION shall grow the character that will enable him to know of the doc- trine whether it be of God or of man; truth is self -demonstrable up to its level. Seek is the law of growth in all kingdoms ; and it is the law of development and of the adjust- ment of the feeders through which each kingdom asserts itself to its creatures and gives them their food and consolation. Who has not smiled many times at the serio-humorous reflection of Rob- ert Louis Stevenson on hearing of the death of Matthew Arnold : " So, Arnold is dead ! I am sorry ; he won't like God." There is a profoundly solemn truth under this witticism. There is health for the plant in sun-rays; the plant in the cave had need of light, and its cells heard the cry and built toward 57 NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION the light. That capacity for light and that groping of the cells proved the existence of the sun. The conscious feeling after God among people everywhere proves the existence of God and of the spiritual world. The new-born child must adjust its lungs to the atmosphere into which it comes or it must die. It hereafter must eat and drink with its mouth, breathe with its lungs ; it must have new feeders. The bird, as it chips its way out of the egg, adjusts itself to its new surroundings. It is a hard trial often for a child to be weaned, yet it is love that does it. It is done to give it more abundant life, not less. The spiritual man has meat and drink that the world knows not of. He is willing to lose his life, and thereby saves it. He is care- 58 NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION ful for nothing, and thereby has all things . The meek inherit even the earth. It becomes safe for a man to have riches only when he can easily do without them. When the feeders of our soul are fastened upon God, it becomes a small thing for us to be judged of man really fearing praise more than blame. To such a one re- venge, malice, passion, appetite, grow empty. Christ spoke a sim- ple truth, not a paradox, when He said : " They shall lay their hands upon you and persecute you, and ye shall be betrayed both by parents and brethren and kins- folks and friends; and some of you they will cause to be put to death, and ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake, but not a hair of your head shall per- ish. " He who has been born into the kingdom of the spiritual man knows that all these things can 59 NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION not harm one iota of that new na- ture which is to be henceforth for- ever the whole of himself. He leaves all for all. He conquers desire by the deepest possible desire. He has learned the art of communing with, correspond- ing with, feeding upon, the inner world. He walks and talks with God. In all this is the truest philosophy we overcome the lower by finding that we do not need it. We conquer by repla- cing ; we are weaned from depend- ence upon the kingdom of the nat- ural man by finding far more satisfying meat and drink than what we knew of before. This is the meaning of self- denial, fasting, repentance, suffer- ing the weaning of the feeders from the old to the new environ- ment the feeders that give food and consolation. We enter into the kingdom of the spiritual man 60 NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION as the babe enters into the king- dom of the natural man. Every new creature grows up from the grave of the old. Up the stairs of holy patience we climb the heights of the inner kingdom. Our will henceforth is to yield our will, but the sensuous man contests every inch with the spiri- tual. The perishing of the old man day by day is painful, and so is the renewal of the inner, for birth also is painful. We learn to love love, hate hate, and fear only fear ; but every move upward has in it birth-pangs. We are in the soul's gymnasium on its battle-field. The creature was made subject to vanity for a cause.* Says Kuskin: "I do not * " It is an inevitable deduction from the hypothesis of evolution that races of sentient creatures could have come into existence under no other condi- tions [than those of pains and pleas- 61 NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION wonder often at what men suffer, but I wonder at what they lose." I wonder rather that they hesi- tate to suffer when I think of what is to be gained. Corrective experiences are repellant medi- cines, net always in capsules of honey, but they are medicines. On the plane of this lower life we can not explain suffering. On the plane of the egg life we can not explain the breaking of the egg. For the explanation we must look up to the singing-bird in the branches. Paul speaks in the language of evolution when he tells of the law of the spiritual man fighting against the law of the members; the fighting and the suffering are essential for growth. I have made great gain when I have learned what Christ meant when He said, "Seek ye ures]." HERBERT SPENCER, " Princi- ples of Psychology '," section 124. NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things [temporal consolation] will be added unto you," that is, when you conquer the lower things by the higher, then, and only then, the lower yields the helpfulness that is in Christ. It is a marvelous way, marvel- ous beyond imagination, in which the new creature of the next higher kingdom is developed, a spiritual man is created, a being is made after the type of Christ and in whom Christ manifests Him- self. It doth not yet appear what we shall be, but when He appears we shall be like Him, and He can never so appear to us until we are like Him. This is the end toward which all evolution on the earth has tended. Nature has taken millions of years and endless 63 NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION struggles to produce the new spiritual man. All things have moved together for the develop- ment of his personality, his psy- chic nature, and his body, the body to be, as well as the body that is. The end is the person- ality reborn through the Holy Spirit into the Christ type, and with the Christ nature on whom the henceforth intimate God presses on all sides, within and without, as an atmosphere in whom he consciously lives, moves, and has his being. God hence- forth becomes his conscious envi- ronment from whom he receives all nourishment and consolation. To be a Christian is not to get somewhere, but to be something, to be recreated in the image of the Father, the living God, after the pattern Christ Jesus. The value of this creation can be measured only by the ages of 64 NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION conflict that it has taken to pro- duce such a free individuality. We see all around us those in whom is being wrought out through the divine spirit of Christ a spiritual nature; a true son of God, of immortality. How, 7 strange it is to look into a human ( face, and to look into human eyes, ; and to think that a son of the liv- 1 ing God is veiled there to think of the greatness of that creature, \ for the accomplishment of which / all creation on earth has been in travail for these untold ages ! Often not anything extraor- dinary impresses us, as we look upon a comrade in whom this Christ nature has begun ; but wait : we now see this kingdom of the soul only in its germ. The bulb of the tiger lily is not over pretty, but to the eyes that see the possi- bilities of the tiger lily, that bulb is a poem. The step from the 5 65 NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION highest morality of the natural man to the lowest round in the kingdom of the spiritual man is a stupendous one. John the Bap- tist was the greatest of those born of women greatest of those in the kingdom of the natural man but the least in the new kingdom of the spiritual man is greater than he. God broods over every soul, waiting, ever waiting, for desire, for invitation. Seeking begins and continues growth in the inner kingdom. It is the first and last round in the ladder that Jacob saw, and all the intervening rounds. As a man seeketh, so he becometh. The one thing needful is not the power of logic, or the courage to step out on the conclu- sions of syllogisms; it is right dispositions, intention, choice. The willingness to heed the inner 66 NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION voice opens the door to Christ the type-life, to the new birth of the personality, and to the beginning of the accompanying new nature by which each personality grows into correspondence with its new surroundings. It is not necessary to have heard with the outer ear the words of God or the name of Christ. All that is necessary is within the reach of any man in any age or clime, within the reach of an Abraham or Buddha, or Confu- cius, of a Paul, or Maimonides, or Savonarola, or Luther, before or after Christ was in the flesh. Come whosoever will. God lis-! tens to prayer with His ear on the/' man's inner heart, not at his lips,\ and an answer to prayer is the growth of the inner nature into \ the fitness to receive the request. ' The heat and light which the plant absorbs measure its capacity, not 67 NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION the ability of the sun. Every soul gets what it is fitted to re- ceive. He that willeth to do the will of God develops the nature that is the touchstone and the absorbent of spiritual truth. By the law of our being we grow a fitness for that which we desire an earnest desire is bound to re- veal itself in action. "He that keepeth my words, and doeth my will, he it is that loveth me." We grow by seeking; we confess by doing, for deeds are the inter- preters of the inner growth. What we love fastens itself to our spirits ; we are in bondage to that we love. We set our affec- tions on God, but He is perfect wisdom, and perfect right, and perfect love, hence this bondage is the perfection of liberty ; it is the bondage of pure intellect, of pure heart, love. This is a per- fect servitude that leads to full NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION freedom. Here is the turning- point, the crux willingness to transfer the feeders of our nature from the lower kingdom to the higher. Hence Christ's constant insistence, Except ye hate (cease depending upon) the world, food, clothing, the loves of the kingdom of the natural man, ye can not enter into the kingdom of the spiritual man, can not live in this kingdom. It is a change of cen- ter from self to God, from the world of sense to the world of spirit. Do not say that you can not be born again. You can and must. It is natural to step into this king- dom, as natural as growth is. The natural response of the heart is Christian, says Tertullian. Our experience supports and justifies this necessity. Choice persisted in means 69 NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION growth of the spiritual nature character and this is that crys- tallization of faith that removes mountains. This inner life is a growth, slow growth, but a growth, and with the growth is a corresponding development of brain substances, and which in its turn measures its growth. As the hart, the pursued hart, panteth for the water-brook, so yearneth, hungereth, thirsteth after God the soul that is bom and grows into the new kingdom. Holy desire ever leads the way. Seeking is exercise, and exercise is always the law of growth in the inner as in the outer world. But man must be good because it is good to be good, not because he escapes from wrath, or receives some benefit. The kingdom of heaven is goodness, and all good- ness leads that way, Christ is 70 NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION the way because He is good. There must be another conception of God than that against which the Buddhists warn us, that He is a "cow to be milked." The great original sculptors of Greece whom all the world now studies, as Emerson would say, stayed at home to study, and did not bother much with going to Egypt or Mesopotamia. God is a rewarder of those that diligently / seek Him, not by imitation, not i outwardly, not with the noise of i words that men may hear, but in the closet, in the silence of the inner chamber of the soul. Every man must find himself, and be himself. There is no kingdom of heaven where there is no kingly soul. In a sense color comes with the eye- sight. Until the ear is created, where is the world of sound? 71 NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION Who by searching could find it? It exists only to those who have the corresponding faculty. If there is a God, why does He not show Himself, and why does He not make the spiritual world man- ifest as He does this world? This He does do exactly, but each after its own order. Where there is a corresponding sense there is vis- ion, hearing, or touch; the other senses are each but the shadow of the corresponding inner sense. The law of the one suggests the law of the other. God hid Himself behind the world of our physical senses that we, free of all compulsion, might develop the spiritual man; when that is developed He can safely reveal His infinite power and wis- dom and goodness. Who could make free choice in the conscious presence of an infinite one? NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION Nor is this nature transferable, or to be extemporized. If no oil is in my lamp when the moment of the trial judgment comes, I am helpless. Will or wish at the mo- ment is not sufficient. If there is no development of the inner nature I am not a child of the inner kingdom, and can not be recognized by the Master. He can never manifest Himself to me. Many will say in that day : " Lord, Lord, have we not proph- esied in thy name? And in thy name have cast out devils, and in thy name have done many won- derful works? " but who will not have the spiritual nature which alone is the recognizable visible substance in the inner world. It is choice that exalts in the spiritual kingdom, not birth. Out of stones God can make children of Abraham on the physical side; but even omnipotence and 73 NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION omniscience are not able against free choice to make one in deed and truth an Israelite. Consent of the soul is the essential element, otherwise we have an automaton, and in the inner kingdom there are no automatons ; that is a world of free spirit. Except your righteousness shall exceed that of the priests and of sacraments and of the memorizing of creeds, ye can not enter. The only thing that profits is the new birth into the new king- dom the birth and growth of the Christ life. A man may say scores of Ave Marias and pater- nosters daily, visit regularly the communion-table, erect the family altar, and read daily his Bible, yet not have the inner life. He may give his property to feed the poor, and his body to be burned that he may have a tablet in the Hall of Fame, or that he may win 74 NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION a far-off heaven, and yet Christ or the inner kingdom may never have been known to him. The most pathetic and pitiful thing in all the world is to see the multitudes striving to get out of the kingdom of the natural man what is not in it. The man is father to himself; long before the child is the man was. Long before Abraham was he is. By the acts of his own free- will he determines his place in the universe. The law of attraction in the inner world is as irresisti- ble as the law of gravitation in the outer world. The ego as it comes to its birth in the kingdom of the natural man goes to its own. I can not gravitate by an arbitrary will in the non -material and spiritual world, but I can de- termine my character, and what- ever and wherever that is it must 75 NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION be obedient to the law that draws it. It goes more certainly and swiftly to its place than the atom in the forming crystal. Evolution is a sword that cuts both ways. It chooses, it con- demns. The fittest survive. There are many called but few chosen. Punishment comes, but it is largely within; (degeneracy is, through persistent wrongdoing, the law of nature, fixed, inevita- ble!^ If a man will not choose to ascend he loses his power to ascend, and must be reborn. God never abandons a soul. Tho I make my bed in hell thou art there. The soul may lose sight of God, but God never of the soul. He lights the sun and sweeps the universe that He may find the missing coin. He goes after the lost sheep, leaving the ninety and 76 NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION nine ; He yearns for the returning prodigal. His is untiring, infinite love. More valuable to Him is the most worthless of men than many sheep to the human shep- herd. There is pain in the Fa- ther's heart until the wanderer returns ; nor will that pain cease until somewhere and somehow in the universe the last wanderer has returned. IV The scientist is short-sighted and narrow-sighted who walls science in at the boundary of his senses a mole accounting for phenomena, and leaving out the eye ; a Laura Bridgeman account- ing for whatever came into her life by her two or three physical senses. Foolish wise men, not to know that the surest of all proofs is to be looked for in inner experience ; that the most real things in the world are made clear not by phys- ical proof, but by life! Darwin reached the point where poetry and music were little to him ; yet the world of music and of beauty are more certain than is Mont 7$ NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION Blanc or Mount Washington ; but there is only one way to know them, and that is to grow the fac- ulties of music and beauty. To the Roman soldiers who may have heard it, how unsubstantial was the Sermon on the Mount; yet its truths of the brotherhood of man, of the fatherhood of God, of meekness, of loving, of justice, of faith in the inner things, out- lasted the Eoman armies, saw the empire ground to dust, and their speaker, nineteen hundred years afterward, by far the most potent personality that ever lived. The mother's love will outpull gravity, and yet what scientist has chemic- ally analyzed it, or what dissect - ing-knife has revealed its where- abouts? There are brute women to whom this love is "unthink- able," " unknowable, " but let them grow the mother-heart, and then they can think it, know it. 79 NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION Foolish wise men, ye can dis- cern the shadow of things ; look up and behold the substance! Rochefort said to Gambetta: " Deafness is not politics. " When will scientists learn that true science must have eyes and ears open to all experience within as well as without ? Once scientists among moles held a congress, and learnedly re- solved that they would believe in nothing that could not be sub- mitted for proof to their four senses. One learned mole with bated breath said: "There must be something above our four senses. I one day broke through the crust of the earth and felt strange sensations, and had a glimmering in the rudiments called eyes by our older philos- ophers. " " Nonsense ! " said a grayhead among them. "Let us 80 NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION have no transcendentalism ; every- thing tb^t is must be explained by sound, or by touch, or by smell, or by the taste. All this talk of a great central sun with light, making landscapes and from which all things come, we have no way of proving ; and hence to believe it, or to admit it as an element in accounting for things, is unscientific. The scientific method, let us never forget, is to account for all things by the elements which come within the range of our four senses and the reasoning based upon these per- ceptions." So it happens that to this day in the cosmic science accepted among moles the sun has nothing to do with the growth of plants, the formation of coal-beds, and the rotation of the seasons. How imperfect that history 6 81 XEXT STEP IX EVOLUTION that would content itself with writing a biography of the acorn, and never take into account the oak that comes from the acorn and for which the acorn exists! The oak reveals the acorn ; with- out the oak the acorn is not ex- plicable. How can any one un- derstand the evolution of man and not consider the vastly greater segment of his nature, which is the non-material and spiritual? The scientist believes in the inde- structibility of matter. The step is a short one to the belief in the indestructibility of spirit. He be- lieves in substance infinitely ex- tended ; the step is not a long one to belief in the personality that is infinitely extended. He believes that in all matter is a " thinking substance." Is it harder to be- lieve that over and in all things is a thinking spirit? * The scientist * " We adhere firmly to the pure, un- NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION endows matter with the powers it needs to do all these things, and then says it does all these things. Yet science, when it comes to know, when it conies to take in all the facts, to go deep enough, and wide enough, and far enough, will be the arbiter. Creed, dog- ma, authority, must give way to it. Magellan said: "The Church declares the world is flat, but I have seen its shadow on the moon, and I had rather believe a shadow than the Church." That is true only when the Church makes provision for but a part of the truth, and when science is equivocal monism of Spinoza : Matter, or infinitely extended substance, and spirit (or energy), or sensitive and think- ing substance, are the two fundamen- tal attributes or principal properties of the all-embracing divine essence of the world, the universal substance." ERNST HAECKEL, " The Rictdte