UC-NRLF 
 
 The RELIGION 
 
 ofThe 
 
 SPIRITUAL 
 EVOLUTION 
 
 of MAN 
 
LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 Class 
 
The Refigion 
 
 OF THE 
 
 Spiritual Evolution of flan 
 
 CHICAGO 
 
 E. A. ROGERS 
 
 4O7-429 DEARBORN ST, 
 
(Si, -4 
 Wf 
 
 COPYRIGHT 191O 
 
 ANONYMOUS 
 
DEDICATION 
 
 THIS BOOK IS, OF NECESSITY, 
 DEDICATED 
 
 TO ALL MANKIND 
 
 203759 
 
OF THE \ 
 
 UNIVERSITY I 
 
 OF / 
 
 H&^ 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 THE name of the author would add nothing to 
 the weight of this book, and for reasons which seem 
 justifiable it is published anonymously. 
 
 For more than thirty years the author has felt that 
 Science owed to humanity a religious philosophy 
 which would comprehend all ascertained truth and 
 assert its rational relations to the Infinite One. 
 
 More than a decade ago the loss of one whose 
 wifely companionship greatly blest the author's life, 
 led to a deeper study of the import of the great 
 process under which man has evolved, and always 
 there has appeared to the author the urgent neces- 
 sity for a constructive religious work which would 
 definitely advocate the acceptance and strong organi- 
 zation of a religion which looked only to Science and 
 rationality for its authority. 
 
 This book is an attempt to answer that necessity. 
 The intent of the book is not that of a philosophical 
 treatise. It assumes much as scientific truth which 
 is so demonstrated in the observations and conclu- 
 sions of evolutionary scientists and philosophers dur- 
 ing the past half-century. 
 
 It is not claimed as a work of original thought. 
 It is presented as a work of assimilation, suggestion 
 and construction. The author cannot fitly acknowl- 
 edge in this work the assistance given by many writers 
 
 5 
 
THE RELIGION OF THE 
 
 to whom the ideas of the book assimilated in part, owe 
 their origin or development, as the sources are lit- 
 erally hundreds in number. Some are shown in 
 the book itself, but modern scientific thought in the 
 field of ethics is everywhere pregnant with all which 
 this book constructively re-states. 
 
 The attempt is made not only to fill the construc- 
 tive necessity of the process which makes for right- 
 eousness, for the comprehension of evolutionists who 
 have thrown away the shackles of Christian orthodoxy, 
 but also to suggest, in relative simplicity, to those who 
 are still clinging to fragments of orthodoxy under 
 the name of "the higher criticism," that there is a 
 loftier and holier field for their endeavors in attain- 
 ing harmony with the scientifically revealed purposes 
 of the Infinite One than in trying to reconcile the 
 sayings of a religious teacher of twenty centuries 
 ago with the great import of the Spiritual Evolution 
 of man. Another object is to stimulate amongst all 
 men a never-ending search for all truth. 
 
 The author wishes to acknowledge a certain un- 
 worthiness in presenting such a work to his fellow- 
 men. He does not feel that either his outward life 
 or his inner self has been such that it has best 
 conformed to the high ideals of the Religion of the 
 Spiritual Evolution of Man, and yet he has longed 
 greatly for a chance to help in the organization and 
 development of this religion of the future, and always 
 has supremely felt in his soul the highest love and 
 worship of the Infinite One. 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 THE NEW DAY 
 
 THAT there is a new day dawning in the Spiritual 
 life of mankind, a day whose growing light will 
 unite many of the farthest evolved of the race in 
 strongest purpose for the uplifting of the souls of all 
 men, is not now a dream of idealists, but a fact of 
 evolution plainly discernible. 
 
 That there is the highest and greatest work for 
 humanity ever attempted now devolving upon those 
 who see the light and who temporarily represent the 
 most advanced in the upward current of racial evolu- 
 tion seems very clear. 
 
 That within strict fidelity and adherence to scien- 
 tific knowledge and eternal truth, there lies a won- 
 derful constructive religion, higher in its purposes 
 and immeasurably truer in its relation to the Infi- 
 nite One than any of the religions of the past or any 
 other religion or cult of today, is now the firm convic- 
 tion of many who have been seeking the fundamen- 
 tal truths of existence. That the world for more 
 than half a century has been rapidly growing towards 
 the actual strong constructive organization of the 
 Heligion of the Spiritual Evolution of Man will soon 
 be clear to the, now, very large number of thinking 
 men and women, who, more or less distinctly, have 
 
 7 
 
8 THE EELIGION OF THE 
 
 seen the coming of the great day when Science and 
 Eeligion shall be one in very truth. 
 
 If the message of this book fails not, then we, who 
 see the light of the dawn of this better day for 
 humanity, will soon bend every best endeavor of our 
 souls towards establishing the Eeligion of Spiritual 
 Evolution, the religion of Science, which must of 
 necessity be the great religion of the future, and 
 ultimately the universal religion of earth. 
 
 That this coming religion will seek as its greatest 
 purpose "Kace Salvation/' through united effort of 
 its adherents to uplift all humanity to higher spiritual 
 planes of living, will distinguish it in part from 
 a religion which places individual salvation, as a 
 paramount duty, and this new religion will correl- 
 atively teach that the only individual salvation which 
 is worthy and which belongs within the great design 
 of the Infinite One is to be gained by constantly 
 striving to make the race itself advance spiritually. 
 
 To one who has pondered for years over the grow- 
 ing inadequacy of any organized religion of the pres- 
 ent to fairly meet, within the realms of truth and 
 knowledge, the spiritual wants of educated human- 
 ity, there has been brought the increasing conviction 
 through a decade, that there remains for humanity 
 a revelation, through Science itself, of a new religion 
 which can be accepted by every human being who 
 dares to think for himself and seek the truth, and the 
 
SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION OF MAN 9 
 
 message of this book is written for each man or 
 woman of the race who will open his or her eyes to 
 the real problems of existence, and who will fearlessly 
 cast away superstition, ignorant faith and false 
 beliefs. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE BREAKING OP IMAGES 
 
 BEFORE attempting the constructive portion of this 
 book it may be well to briefly state wherein the Relig- 
 ion of Spiritual Evolution must necessarily destroy 
 the false images of spiritual life which Christianity 
 and other religions have set up for humanity to 
 believe in and to worship. 
 
 Borrowing materially in ideas from the recent lec- 
 ture of Dr. Charles W. Eliot upon "The Religion of 
 the Future" the adaptation is made to conform to the 
 further purpose of this work. 
 
 I. With the coming of the Religion of Spiritual 
 Evolution, no longer among reasoning men and 
 women shall the ideas prevail that individual salvation 
 is the necessity of any soul, in the sense that the Infi- 
 nite one had become angered at the children of men 
 and perforce had to require a blood sacrifice of the life 
 of an innocent man, even His own son, to appease His 
 wrath, and that only the souls of those who accepted 
 this vicarious atonement could survive destruction 
 or torture. Such an idea as the sacrifice of a Son of 
 God, while higher in an ethical scale, is one with 
 
 10 
 
SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION OF MAN 11 
 
 the idea that burnt offerings of beasts or human 
 beings can placate the wrath of God. 
 
 The Keligion of the Spiritual Evolution of Man 
 holds supremely higher concepts of the Infinite One. 
 The import of the Cosmic Process (the process which 
 evidences the unfolding and progress of everything 
 which exists in the Universe, including Matter, 
 Force, Life and Spirit), as revealed through science 
 and exhibited in the life history of the race of man- 
 kind on earth, is unalterably opposed to any idea 
 that any man at any time aroused the wrath of the 
 Creator of the process. The shadow of the "wrath 
 of God" has never been a reality, and its menace in the 
 souls of man which has often darkened lives, and has 
 well served priests to bind humanity with chains of 
 fear, when Science brings the strong light of truth 
 to the problems of man, simply represents certain 
 effects of the forces of evolution. 
 
 What man, be he priest or prophet, dares to impute 
 to the Infinite One, who rules in infinite spirituality 
 a universe of countless millions of solar systems, an 
 attribute of wrath against any soul which owes its 
 existence solely to His great process. 
 
 President Eliot says : 
 
 "The religion of the future will not be propitiatory, 
 sacrificial or expiatory. In primitive society, fear of 
 the supernal powers, as represented in the awful 
 forces of nature, was the root of religion/-' These 
 dreadful powers must be propitiated or placated and 
 they must be propitiated by sacrifices in the most lit- 
 
12 THE RELIGION OF THE 
 
 eral sense ; and the supposed offenses of man must be 
 expiated by sufferings which were apt to be vicarious. 
 Even the Hebrews offered human sacrifices for gen- 
 erations, and always a great part of their religious 
 rites consisted in sacrifices of animals." *-'' 
 
 II. That the Religion of Spiritual Evolution 
 rejects wholly so-called "revelations," conversations 
 of the Infinite One with human beings, "inspired" 
 visions, messages from God on golden plates, or tab- 
 lets of stone, and such child-like conceptions of the 
 way man shall ascertain the truth or learn the Will 
 of the Infinite One, need not shock any reasoning 
 person. 
 
 It is not compatible with any rational view of the 
 truths of Science that the Creator of the Process 
 which has brought mankind to the present stage of 
 race advancement, ever directed and commanded the 
 awful cruelties ascribed by the Hebrews in their 
 Bible to Him, Whose unalterable purpose for the chil- 
 dren of men has been that they shall progress towards 
 higher ideals. Nor can it be true that even the lofty 
 thoughts of so-called "inspired writers" were directly 
 revealed by the Infinite One. It is actually within 
 the Spiritual Process that great uplifting thoughts 
 shall come to those who are temporarily the highest 
 evolved of humanity ; the process itself demands this, 
 but this is not direct revelation and may be only the 
 foreshadowing of truth, and not truth itself. 
 
SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION OF MAN 13 
 
 There are revelations of science which conform to 
 eternal truth and reveal the Will of the Infinite One, 
 and these revelations cast aside every false or deluded 
 claim of every religion which represents its founder 
 or its prophets as directly inspired of God or receiving 
 messages from God. 
 
 III. No race, or people, or sect has ever been 
 "the chosen people of God." Neither Israel, nor 
 Islam, neither Jew nor Christian, neither Catholic 
 nor Protestant nor Buddhist, nor any other class of 
 religionists has at any time been "chosen of God" 
 for any purpose. The evolutional process is not one 
 which can possibly admit of either racial, religious, or 
 individual "favorites" of the Creator of the Process. 
 Differences in the condition of advancement of the 
 several races and nations of the earth eventuate 
 through the operation of social, economic and spiritual 
 laws and not because the Infinite One stultifies His 
 Divine Plan by purposely selecting "favorites" 
 amongst the evolving races of man. 
 
 IV. The Eeligion of Spiritual Evolution leaves 
 no room in the universe for any "devil" and, likewise, 
 rejects entirely the doctrine of a hell and eternal, 
 or any damnation of the wicked. If the wicked sur- 
 vive physical death their souls must survive as poten- 
 tially capable of advancement towards righteousness; 
 there seems to be no other conclusion under the 
 
14 THE RELIGION OF THE 
 
 process which is evidenced in Spiritual Evolution. 
 
 The personification of imaginary evil forces, into 
 a devil and his fallen angels, finds no place in the 
 truths of science. As Dr. Eliot says : "The religion 
 of the future . . . will believe in no malignant 
 powers, neither in Satan nor in witches, nor in the 
 malign suggestion. When its disciple encounters a 
 wrong or evil in the world, his impulse will be to 
 search out its origin, source, or cause, that he may 
 attack it at its starting-point. He may not speculate 
 on the origin of evil in general, but will surely try 
 to discover the best way to eradicate the particular evil 
 or wrong he has recognized." 
 
 V. So, too, the Religion of Spiritual Evolution 
 does not admit within its scope the Heaven of Chris- 
 tianity. Science lends no atom of truth to the idea 
 that the physical body of man will survive physical 
 death or ever be resurrected from the grave, or 
 that any man will be changed to a perfect being in the 
 twinkle of an eye. The body is merely the physical 
 machine which human personality uses in its sojourn 
 on earth and, as will be shown hereafter, the import 
 of the great Spiritual process under which person- 
 ality makes its earthly pilgrimage, is, that with its 
 individuality unimpaired, man's personality, his soul 
 (at least, if fit) passes the cataclasm of physical death 
 just as it is, to progress higher and higher in a 
 spiritual realm, and that no magic change perfects 
 
SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION OP MAN 15 
 
 his character spiritually, but he must ever strive 
 and learn the higher way, in that realm beyond the 
 grave. 
 
 VI. The Religion of Spiritual Evolution, for rea- 
 sons hereafter stated, wholly denies that any "miracle" 
 ever occurred. The great process admits of nothing 
 supernatural. The process and its ever-changing 
 results are revelations of the Infinite One, and there 
 is no room for even a belief of supernatural inter- 
 vention within either human rationality or sane 
 human faith. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE REIGN OP LAW 
 
 "BE there or be there not any other revelation, we 
 have a veritable revelation in science a continuous 
 disclosure through the intelligence with which we are 
 endowed of the established order of the universe. 
 
 ' ' This disclosure it is the duty of every one to verify, and 
 having verified to receive it with all humility." 
 
 Herbert Spencer, First Principles. 
 
 !STo religion which does not find itself at oneness 
 with all that science discloses can survive; for science 
 is simply the truth of the Infinite One. So, too, no 
 religion which is not broad enough to adapt itself to 
 the ever-widening disclosures of science is worthy of 
 adoption by all men. That the Religion of Spiritual 
 Evolution must, of supreme necessity, be always in 
 unity with science and must, of like necessity, always 
 welcome every rational advance of knowledge, will 
 hereafter be demonstrated. That this new religion is 
 based upon the verities of the universe and of the 
 Cosmic Process in its fullest import is the primal 
 belief of those who are ready to teach humanity 
 its greatness and its truth. If we fail at any time to 
 properly comprehend the real "revelations" of the 
 Infinite One, as disclosed in this great process, it shall 
 
 16 
 
SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION OF MAN 17 
 
 not be aught than our personal failure, and cannot 
 change the ultimate verity of the revelations nor the 
 power of the religion to bring men throughout all 
 future time into uplifting unison with the very 
 purposes of God. 
 
 It is quite essential that anyone who wishes to com- 
 prehend the foundations of the Eeligion of the Spir- 
 itual Evolution of Man shall first be satisfied that 
 throughout the universe there exists "established' l^ 
 order." Most of us recognize now that day and night, 
 the seasons, the revolutions of the moon around the 
 Earth, the revolutions of the Earth around the Sun, 
 the growth of all vegetation, the blowing of winds, 
 the falling of rain and snow, the flowing of rivers, 
 and, in fact, all of the usual physical phenomena of 
 ordinary human observation do not occur hap-hazard 
 or by chance, but belong to the "established order 
 of the universe." 
 
 So, too, if we will reflect, we must admit that all 
 animal life (excluding man for the present) has its 
 "established order" of existence. We know that we 
 rely upon the laws of animal life in all our relation- 
 ship with the lower creatures. We may not have 
 learned all that Darwin and his scientific successors 
 have taught of the evolutional laws which relate to 
 animal life, but we can understand well that the 
 life process from egg to the individual animal is one 
 of so established an order that man relies upon it 
 
18 THE RELIGION OF THE 
 
 every day in breeding and fostering animal life. It 
 is therefore not very hard to comprehend that the 
 physical life of the lowlier animals, including the 
 functions of their bodies, their birth, their growth 
 from infancy, their nutrition, and finally their death, 
 when natural, all conform to the "established order" 
 or, if you please, to the "laws" of their existence. Also 
 the wonderful laws under which all life evolves and 
 to which even all inorganic matter yields obedience 
 are now within man's knowledge to a large extent. 
 
 It may require a little deeper thought on the part 
 of those who have not learned the broader truths of 
 the evolution of all that exists to comprehend that 
 man, as far as his physical life is concerned, like 
 other animals, exists under an "established order" 
 and while it may be quite demonstrable that, unlike 
 other animals, his physical existence may be affected 
 in many ways by the operation of laws which relate 
 to his mentality and his spirituality, yet we should 
 not, through any hasty deductions, place man outside 
 of the "established order of the universe." To the 
 contrary, as soon as one can comprehend that there 
 is a great unity in everything in the Universe which 
 science has brought within the knowledge of human- 
 ity, and that every advance of human knowledge or of 
 human reasoning simply verifies strongly the concept 
 that this "established order of the universe" consti- 
 tutes a great "Process" in which the whole universe, 
 including everything therein contained, has always 
 moved on in the courses of evolution, just as soon will 
 
SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION OF MAN <g> 
 
 the overwhelming import of the Cosmic Process in its 
 relation to mankind become clearer and clearer and 
 just so soon will we gain a growing conviction that 
 even man's moral life may be affected by spiritual 
 laws. 
 
 It is also essential to any fair comprehension of the 
 Process of God, the Cosmic Process, that we should 
 understand that, in a large sense, the entire process 
 goes on under the reign of laws which govern, affect 
 and influence every one of the untold myriad of 
 changes which are constantly going on within the 
 totality of the phenomena of the universe. Spencer 
 says that our "recognition of law" is simply "the 
 recognition of uniformity of relations among phenom- 
 ena/' It is believable, however, that in the new 
 religion we shall demonstrate that the laws of the 
 universe evidence the unchanging will of the Infinite 
 One, and that in recognizing and defining laws 
 we are learning the design of the Almighty. But 
 here Spencer can give us great aid in rationally 
 determining the Universality of Laws. In his essay 
 on "Laws and the Order of Their Discovery," he says : 
 
 "The recognition of Law being the recognition of 
 uniformity of relations among phenomena it follows 
 that the order in which different groups of phenomena 
 are reduced to law must depend on the frequency 
 with which the uniform relations they severally dis- 
 play are distinctly experienced. 
 
20 THE RELIGION OF THE 
 
 "At any given stage of progress those uniformities 
 will be best known with which men's minds have been 
 oftenest and most strongly impressed. In proportion 
 partly to the number of times a relation has been pre- 
 sented to consciousness (not merely to the senses) 
 and in proportion partly to the vividness with which 
 the terms of the relation have been cognized will be 
 the degree in which the constancy of connection is 
 perceived/' 
 
 "The succession in which relations are generalized 
 being thus determined there result certain derivative 
 principles to which this succession must more immedi- 
 ately and obviously conform." 
 
 1st. "The directness with which personal welfare 
 is affected." 
 
 2nd. "The conspicuousness of one or both phe- 
 nomena between which a relation is to be perceived/' 
 
 3rd. "The relative frequency of occurrence/' 
 
 4th. "The succession in which different classes 
 of relations are reduced to law depends in part on 
 their simplicity." 
 
 5th. "Fifth comes the degree of abstractness. 
 Concrete relations are the earliest acquisitions. Such 
 analyses of them as separate the essential connections 
 from their disguising accompaniments necessarily 
 come later. The analyses of the connections, always 
 more or less compound,, into their elements then 
 becomes possible. And so continually until the high- 
 est and most abstract truths have been reached." 
 
SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION OF MAN 21 
 
 "Having roughly analyzed the progress of the 
 past, let us take advantage of the light thus thrown 
 on the present and consider what is implied respecting 
 the future. 
 
 "Note first that the likelihood of the Universality 
 of Law has heen ever growing greater." 
 
 "Out of the countless co-existences and sequences 
 with which mankind are environed they have been 
 continually transferring some group whose order 
 was supposed to be arbitrary to the group whose order 
 is known to be uniform. And, manifestly, as fast as 
 the relations that are unreduced to law become fewer, 
 the probability that among them there are some that 
 do not conform to law becomes less. To put the 
 argument numerically, it is clear that when out of 
 surrounding phenomena a hundred of several kinds 
 have been found to occur in constant connections 
 there arises a slight presumption that all phenomena 
 occur in constant connections. When uniformity has 
 been established in a thousand cases more varied in 
 their kinds, the presumption gains strength. And 
 when the Icnown cases of uniformity amount to myr- 
 iads, including many of each variety, it becomes an 
 ordinary induction that uniformity exists every- 
 where." 
 
 "Silently and insensibly their experiences have been 
 pressing men on toward the conclusion thus drawn. 
 Not out of a conscious regard for these reasons, but 
 from a habit of thought which these reasons formu- 
 laic and justify all minds have been advancing toward 
 
22 THE RELIGION OF THE 
 
 a belief in the constancy of surrounding co-existences 
 and sequences. Familiarity with concrete uniformi- 
 ties has generated the abstract conception of unifor- 
 mity the idea of LAW; and this idea has been in 
 successive generations slowly gaining fixity and 
 
 clearness/" 
 
 ******* 
 
 "This habitual recognition of law, which already 
 distinguishes modern thought from ancient thought, 
 must spread among men at large. The fulfillment 
 of predictions made possible by every new step, and 
 the further command gained of nature's forces, prove 
 to the uninitiated the validity of scientific generaliza- 
 tions and the doctrine they illustrate. Widening 
 Education is daily diffusing among the mass of men 
 that knowledge of these generalizations which has 
 hitherto been confined to the few. And as fast as this 
 diffusion goes on, must' the belief of the scientific 
 become the belief of the world at large" 
 
 That LAW IS UNIVEESAL will become an irre- 
 sistible conclusion when it is perceived that THE 
 PROGRESS IN THE DISCOVERY OF LAWS 
 
 ITSELF CONFORMS TO LAW." 
 
 ******* 
 
 "Having long ago proved uniformity throughout all 
 the lower classes of relations and having been step 
 by step proving uniformity throughout all classes 
 of relations successively higher and higher if we have 
 not yet succeeded with the highest classes it may 
 be fairly concluded that our powers are at fault 
 
SPIEITUAL EVOLUTION OF MAN 23 
 
 rather than that the uniformity does not exist; and 
 unless we make the absurd assumption that the proc- 
 ess of generalization now going on with unexampled 
 rapidity lias reached its limit and will suddenly cease, 
 we must infer that, ultimately, mankind will dis- 
 cover a constant order of manifestation even in the 
 most involved and obscure phenomena." 
 
 It can scarcely be doubted, by anyone who has 
 given any serious thought to the question, that men, 
 as moral beings, are subject to moral forces which 
 evidence certain laws which affect the ethical growth 
 of individuals and communities. Laws of environ- 
 ment and heredity so plainly affect every human 
 being it ought not to be disputed that in some 
 degree the reign of law extends into the Spiritual 
 life of mankind. It will, furthermore, not be diffi- 
 cult of belief (when the full import of the process 
 under which we live is understood), that our whole 
 Spiritual life is within a realm of beneficent laws 
 of which, when comprehended, we can take advantage 
 for the upward progress of the race and for the 
 great advancement of our own souls, just as man has 
 constantly modified terrestrial physical evolution, by 
 intelligent use of the physical laws of the universe. 
 
 It will be well right here to permanently disclaim 
 the idea that because man lives within a kingdom 
 
24: THE RELIGION OF THE 
 
 of law he is, morally., merely the mechanical autom- 
 aton of cause and effect, which some scientists of 
 much learning would make him. Neither determin- 
 ism nor materialism has place in the higher concep- 
 tions of Spiritual Evolution. 
 
 It may be frankly admitted that "free will" may 
 still remain a "riddle" of rationality, as Huxley 
 said, but a recent writer* has effectually demon- 
 strated that neither Spencer nor Haeckel considered 
 all the phenomena of man's existence nor all the 
 import of their own logic, in deducing their deter- 
 ministic and materialistic conclusions. This writer 
 also shows that we would falsify every human expe- 
 rience and all concepts of justice, virtue, bravery, 
 honor, integrity and even truth itself, if we did not 
 concede the power of moral choice to the race of man. 
 
 He also clearly demonstrates that the existence of 
 "free will," or moral choice of actions, is no greater 
 a mystery of rationality and is of the same class 
 as the mystery of rationality inherent in the human 
 concept of time and that of space, which mysteries 
 Spencer so clearly analyzes. It takes but little beyond 
 the fact of the existence of these mysteries which 
 human reason cannot solve, to convince one, who can 
 clearly see the design of the Infinite One in Spiritual 
 Evolution, that human thought and reason were pur- 
 posely halted by these impenetrable barriers, as a 
 pledge of God that human personality (at least of the 
 
 *W. H. Mallock, "The Reconstruction of Religious 
 Belief." 
 
SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION OF MAN 25 
 
 morally fit) should survive physical death; but of this 
 more hereafter. 
 
 The Eeligion of Spiritual Evolution hanishes from 
 its conceptions of the true history of the evolution 
 of man upon the earth, any idea that the account of 
 the Jewish Bible of man's origin gives even "figura- 
 tive" verity. Science has long denied even the poet- 
 ical truth of the story of the Garden of Eden. 
 To adopt the tale of Adam and Eve does not con- 
 form to the true history of man, which is written 
 in unmistakable monuments of evolution, which every 
 man who chooses may read for himself. It does 
 not conform at all to the truths of evolution to believe 
 that the two progenitors of the race were originally 
 created in the present physical form and spiritually 
 perfect and then fell into spiritual degradation, and 
 thus condemned the children of men to inherited 
 displeasure of God. 
 
 Science finds a different "revelation" of the origin 
 of man, evidenced in Nature in many ways, and, 
 while it is not the purpose of this book to amplify 
 the facts which have very many sources of verifica- 
 tion, it may be well to say that science finds man 
 appearing on earth many thousands of years before 
 the chronology of Creation began, as recorded in the 
 Jewish Bible, and finds him as a lowly creature, ape- 
 like, with only the potentialities of growth to higher 
 intellectuality and higher spirituality. It also finds 
 
26 THE RELIGION OF THE 
 
 him then as a descendant of a line of animal life 
 which reaches back millions of years to the micro- 
 scopic single cell, the original form of physical life 
 which evolved on earth. 
 
 It may well be said that, up out of the star dust 
 from which the earth was formed came human life 
 by exceedingly slow stages of evolution; and it is 
 quite possible that better comprehension of the great 
 design under which the race of man exists shall 
 bring the belief that from the Infinite Intelligence 
 Itself came the Spirit of man. 
 
 The iconoclasm of the Religion of Spiritual Evolu- 
 tion goes farther than denying the verity of all other 
 religions. It says that the truth of the "established 
 order of the universe" rigorously excludes the idea 
 that at any time the Creator of the Cosmic Process 
 intervened by special act to change for any man or 
 any people the operation of any law of the process. 
 "Miracles" are inconsistent with the higher concep- 
 tions of the Infinite One brought into the soul by 
 knowledge of His great plan for humanity. 
 
 Also this coming religion cannot sanction the idea 
 that even the prayer "of a broken and contrite heart" 
 can influence the purposes of the Maker of Laws. 
 That prayer can have no objective force or effect may 
 be predicated as a general proposition, although within 
 the realm of law itself and within the great proc- 
 ess, it is not impossible that in the yearnings and 
 
SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION OF MAN 27 
 
 spiritualizing influences of what we may call some 
 kinds of "prayers," there has been a psychological 
 spiritual force which has tended to uplift the souls 
 of others who heard not the prayers as well as sub- 
 jectively those who prayed. The law which would 
 effect such uplifting power would be one of broader 
 scope, also, than here outlined. 
 
 Spiritual Evolution looks to the discovery and 
 expression of beneficent laws, which as yet are dimly 
 perceived. The new religion will give to the souls 
 of men the consolation and spiritual uplift of purer 
 worship of the Infinite One in all the daily life of 
 the individual than ever was dreamed of by man, and 
 the idea that every man exists under one great uplift- 
 ing process, which God Himself will not change, is 
 essentially greatly higher than the conception that 
 priest or layman, Christian or pagan, by petition, 
 however disinterested and pure, can change the Will 
 of God or affect the laws of God's Universe. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE INFINITE ONE 
 ''Canst them by searching find out God?" 
 
 WHAT has the Religion of the Spiritual Evolution 
 of Man to say about God? 
 
 In higher faith than any religion of the past or 
 present we assert that the new religion finds the 
 Infinite One manifested in all that exists, and mani- 
 fested in so great a design (as viewed by finite intel- 
 ligence) as to impel every soul which comprehends 
 the import of this design, to strong uplifting worship. 
 
 The Religion of Spiritual Evolution is distinctly 
 monotheistic. Spencer, whose philosophy illumined 
 half a century of human advancement, found in 
 the Cosmic Process, in its totality, the proof of "an 
 Infinite and Eternal Energy from which all things 
 proceed," but halting at, what he deemed, impassable 
 barriers between the Infinite and the finite, he would 
 not tolerate the idea that we of finite intelligence 
 could ascribe any "attributes" to the "Inscrutable" 
 Power. Mr. Mallock, in his remarkable book, "The 
 Reconstruction of Religious Belief," establishes clearly 
 and scientifically that we are justified by the philoso- 
 phy of both Spencer and Haeckel in finding pur- 
 posive Goodness in things as they are, even though 
 
 28 
 
SPIBITUAL EVOLUTION OF MAN 29 
 
 the scientific mind asserts another of the "mysteries" 
 to bar the conclusion,, as a matter of pure reason. 
 The sooner students of philosophy recognize that, for 
 the purposes of life and human advancement, we 
 must yield to universal human experience to "cut 
 the knots" of the mysteries of our conceptions of 
 time, space, the origin of matter and of motion, moral 
 freedom of man, the existence of our own personality 
 and of our own consciousness, the sooner will they 
 join with us in the great work of race salvation. This, 
 however, is not a conflict between the new religion 
 and science. It is simply a reconciliation of finite 
 rationality with things as they are. 
 
 But, while the new religion finds in the strictest 
 deductions of Science an Infinite Power manifested in 
 all things, and that this Power evidences the existence 
 of the Infinite One, or God, this religion does not 
 permit man to define God as a person in the sense 
 that human beings are persons. It does not permit 
 any man to say that he is formed in the image of 
 God. Man, as a creature, is the product of an 
 evolution which brought his organism up through 
 a process which leaves some of the apes as his lowlier 
 image. If you say that the language in Genesis, 
 which asserts that "God said, 'Let us make man in 
 our image, after our likeness/ " is figurative and 
 should be applied only to the soul or spirit of man, 
 who art thou who asserts that the human finite 
 
30 THE KELIGION OF THE 
 
 soul images the Infinite One. We undoubtedly have 
 through our souls a link with the Supreme Being, 
 a link which has great spiritual significance, but 
 we should be slow to deduce more than that through 
 this link we can have rational hope of the spiritual 
 personality, at least of the morally fit, surviving phy- 
 sical death and of progressing in the spiritual realm 
 beyond death towards the Infinite One, and perhaps 
 eventually finding the higher rationality which will 
 solve the mysteries which now limit human reason. 
 
 In subsequent chapters, in dealing with the import 
 of Evolution on earth and the way humanity can 
 forward the very purposes of the Infinite One, we 
 will be assisted in a comprehension of Him as not 
 only "the Infinite and Eternal Energy from which 
 all things proceed," but also as the Infinite Intelli- 
 gence working in the evolutionary process to help men 
 on the upward way to righteousness and, because His 
 purpose is in the process, we must find Him as imma- 
 nent, in the higher sense, in all things. We must 
 not consider Him as a faraway ruler, nor must we 
 think of Him as simply starting the Cosmic Process 
 and awaiting through untold ages, past and future, 
 for its final consummation, even as far as mankind 
 is concerned. But from the import of Spiritual 
 Evolution we are fully entitled to believe that His 
 will enters into our own personalities in every ethical 
 impulse and that His glory shines not only in a 
 universe of myriads of solar systems vastly greater 
 than our own, as well as in the minutest of existing 
 
SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION OF MAN 31 
 
 things, but, also, in a higher sense, in every righteous 
 deed and most surely in every effort humanity makes 
 towards better spirituality. 
 
 If we wish to define Infinity it can only be done as 
 an outpouring of our souls towards the Infinite One 
 and not as any demonstration of Science, and yet, 
 when the psychical and ethical import of Spiritual 
 Evolution is fairly comprehended, we will be entitle^ 
 to believe as a rational conclusion that God is a 
 Spirit of Infinite Intelligence and Infinite Goodness, 
 and that He is immanent in everything that exists. 
 
 That there is a kinship between our spirits and the 
 Infinite One, not like the earthly kinship of father 
 and son, but something immeasurably higher, will 
 gradually grow within the consciousness of each one 
 who studies Spiritual Evolution. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE DIVINE PLAN 
 
 MANY scientific writers have expressed in one form 
 or another the conclusion that all evolution is proceed- 
 ing under a predestined plan. Huxley (whose lumi- 
 nous mind added greatly to the philosophy of evolu- 
 tion), in the last years of his life, turned his thoughts 
 towards the import of the evolutional development 
 of the ethical in man's nature and in mankind as a 
 social unity. His last published work, "Evolution and 
 Ethics," is most inspiring, and while he failed by 
 reason of death to follow up the constructive ethical 
 work towards which his later philosophy led him, he 
 will always be one of the greatest who foreshadowed 
 the Religion of Spiritual Evolution. 
 
 Reluctant, because agnostic in his mental attitude, 
 to take a single step of undemonstrated belief, how- 
 ever rational it might be, he clearly saw that evolution 
 evidenced "Design." Upon this subject, he says : 
 
 "It is very desirable to remember that evolution 
 is not an explanation of the Cosmic Process, but 
 merely a generalized statement of the method and 
 results of that process. And, further, that if there 
 is proof that the Cosmic .Process was set going by 
 any agent, then that agent will be the creator of it 
 and of all its products, although supernatural inter- 
 
SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION OF MAN 33 
 
 vention may remain strictly excluded from its further 
 course. 
 
 "So far as that limited revelation of the nature 
 of things which we call scientific knowledge has yet 
 gone it tends 3 with constantly increasing emphasis, 
 to the belief that, not merely the world of plants 
 but that of animals, not merely living things, but 
 the whole fabric of the earth, not merely our star and 
 its satellite, but the millions of similar bodies which 
 bear witness to the order which pervades boundless 
 space and which has endured through boundless time, 
 are all wording out their predestined courses of 
 evolution. 
 
 "That which endures is not one or another associa- 
 tion of living form, but the process of which the 
 cosmos is the product and of which these are among 
 the transitory expressions." 
 
 Later it will be shown that Huxley not only per- 
 ceived that all things in the Universe were "working 
 out their predestined courses of evolution," but he also 
 saw, as far as man's spiritual nature is concerned, 
 that the "Design" tended to advance mankind ethic- 
 ally. That he failed to perceive the full import of his 
 own convincing logic is not to be wondered at. 
 Spencer's "established order of the universe" being 
 attributed by him to "an Infinite and Eternal Energy, 
 from which all things proceed," necessarily means 
 that the whole Cosmic Process is developing and 
 unfolding under an Infinite Design, or purpose. 
 
34 THE EELIGION OF THE 
 
 Mr. Mallock, summarizing his conclusions upon this" 
 subject, says: 
 
 "Science, then, in proportion as it is completely 
 rationalized, not merely permits, but actually com- 
 pels the reason to recognize a piurposive mind as the 
 First Cause of the universe, thus completely revolu- 
 tionizing the atheistic or agnostic conclusion to which 
 it seemed to lead, when its implications were insuffi- 
 ciently realized; and it is difficult to exaggerate the 
 profound change which must gradually take place 
 where the recognition of this fact becomes general. 
 The mere recognition, however, of a purposive cosmic 
 Mind, though it constitutes a rudimentary theology, is 
 not itself a religion. In order to become a religion 
 it must be supplemented by the two other beliefs, that 
 the Cosmic Mind is good, and that man is a free 
 agent." 
 
 The Eeligion of Spiritual Evolution claims, there- 
 fore, as a fundamental truth, that all evolution is 
 continuously unfolding the purposes of the Infinite 
 One and that mankind can properly seek in the revela- 
 tions of science respecting terrestrial evolution the 
 import of the Divine Plan upon Man's destiny. 
 
 THE LAW OF THE UPWARD WAY 
 
 We have now reached the most vital, the most 
 inspiring conclusion of science in respect to all evo- 
 lution. Primarily, this conclusion would seem to be 
 
SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION OF MAN 35 
 
 related only to terrestrial evolution; but, as we pon- 
 der its import, there unfolds in the soul a conviction 
 that in this conclusion we have a revelation of the 
 Infinite One which transforms the concept of the Cos- 
 mic Process from that of a process affecting mostly 
 the material things of the universe into a wonderful 
 spiritual process which far transcends in value to 
 humanity all else within the domain of consciousness f 
 and which we may fairly conclude,, pervades the uni- 
 verse and operates on all intelligent creatures in all 
 the worlds of space. 
 
 In order to comprehend what the process means to 
 man, we would better revert momentarily to what 
 science has demonstrated respecting the life history 
 of the human race. The original men and women 
 were necessarily animal like and of a low order of 
 intelligence. So we start in our contemplation of the 
 result of the evolution of mankind with the original 
 progenitors of all humanity appearing far down, we 
 may say, at the very bottom of the pathway which 
 leads upward towards the ideal. 
 
 Struggling hard for a precarious existence, un- 
 housed and unclothed, save in nature's hairiness, 
 weaponless and separate from his kind except for his 
 mate and their children during infancy, the original 
 progenitor of our race fought his battles for posterity 
 with thoughts only of food, shelter and safety. In 
 him there could have been no conscious spirituality 
 and intellectuality of only a rudimentary nature. 
 And yet, of necessity, we must conclude that there 
 
36 THE RELIGION OF THE 
 
 was in him the potentiality of the entire intellectual 
 and ethical or spiritual history of mankind. Every- 
 thing whatsoever pertaining to man is the product of 
 the evolutional process in its entirety and, as we 
 have seen, the unfolding of the process has shown 
 the Will of God. What, then, is the import of the 
 Divine Plan for mankind in its totality? 
 
 The deduction is sure and wholly scientific. 
 Within the Plan man has progressed or retrograded, 
 he has advanced spiritually or has degenerated, and, 
 while always his own volition has marked his path- 
 way, yet the evolutional forces moving upon his spirit 
 have always had a potency upon the life of the entire 
 race of mankind, which would not permit of per- 
 manent spiritual degeneration or of irretrievable 
 vebarbarization. 
 
 Science recognizes, as a matter of clearest dem- 
 onstration, that man has always been climbing an 
 upward pathway intellectually and morally and, while 
 there have been centuries of slipping backwards and 
 of ethical darkness, yet in the larger view there has 
 been no permanent check in the struggle of humanity 
 to climb upward in spiritual life towards the ideal. 
 When we realize that not only the ape-like man, but 
 every man, in his body, mind and soul, is the creature 
 of the process, working out his problems of life 
 within the Design of the Infinite One, we approach 
 the real meaning of the evolution of man. Borrowing 
 from Huxley, we may say that, within the general 
 Cosmic Process, there clearly appears .a wonderful 
 
SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION OF MAN 37 
 
 Ethical Process, which has ever worked upon the 
 souls of men, and it is not unscientific to assert that 
 within this Ethical Process are evidenced spiritual- 
 izing forces which have moved upon the spirits of 
 men with a potency which has eventually uplifted 
 the race. 
 
 Without attempting to array the facts in any detail, 
 it is enough to call attention to the ultimate truth 
 that the Ethical Process through the slow procession 
 of the ages has changed the ape-like man into a 
 Confucius, a Buddha, a Zoroaster, an Aristotle, a 
 Plato, a Christ, a Marcus Aurelius, a Voltaire, a 
 Washington, a Lincoln, a John Fiske, a Darwin, a 
 Herbert Spencer and a Huxley, or, if you please, into 
 the highest evolved spiritual types of men, whoever 
 they may be, and, likewise, has transformed the ani- 
 mal-like mate of the cave-dweller into the pure-souled 
 wife and mother of our generation, who is ever seek- 
 ing higher spirituality. 
 
 Can we state the import of the Ethical Process 
 (of Spiritual Evolution) as a great fundamental 
 principle underlying and making the firm founda- 
 tion of the Eeligion of Spiritual Evolution ? Can we 
 state the Law of the Upward Way ? At least, tenta- 
 tively, it may be formulated as follows: 
 
 BY PKEORDAINED DESIGN OF THE INFI- 
 NITE ONE, MAN, AS THE GRADUALLY 
 
38 THE EELIGION OF THE 
 
 EVOLVED HIGHEST CREATURE OP TERRES- 
 TRIAL ORGANIC EVOLUTION, FROM THE 
 FARAWAY TIME OF THE ORIGINAL PRO- 
 GENITORS OF THE RACE, HAS ALWAYS AD- 
 VANCED INTELLECTUALLY AND ETHIC- 
 ALLY OR SPIRITUALLY UNDER A PERSIS- 
 TENT SPIRITUAL PROCESS WHICH, WHILE 
 NOT DEPRIVING HIM OF HIS FREE WILL, 
 HAS EVER IMPELLED HIM UPWARD AWAY 
 FROM ANIMALISM, FROM IGNORANCE AND 
 FROM VICE, AND TOWARDS HIGHER INTEL- 
 LECTUALITY AND HIGHER SPIRITUALITY. 
 
 BY THE SAME PREORDAINED PLAN THE 
 UPLIFTING FORCES EVIDENCED IN THE 
 SPIRITUAL PROCESS INEVITABLY PREPON- 
 DERATE IN ULTIMATE RACIAL UPLIFTING 
 POWER OVER THE NECESSARILY OPPOSED 
 FORCES WHICH TEND TOWARDS RACIAL 
 REVERSION TO ANIMALISM RETROGRES- 
 SION AND DEGRADATION. 
 
 ALSO UNDER THE DIVINE PLAN THIS 
 SAME PREPONDERATING SPIRITUAL PROC- 
 ESS WILL CONTINUE TO FURTHER UPLIFT 
 HUMANITY THROUGH ALL THE FUTURE OF 
 THE RACE TO THE END THAT NOT ONLY 
 INDIVIDUALS BUT THE WHOLE RACE WILL 
 BECOME SPIRITUALLY DEVELOPED AND 
 PERFECTED TO AN EXTENT NOT NOW DIS- 
 CERNIBLE BUT, BEYOND QUESTION, FAR 
 ABOVE THE PRESENT STAGE OF ADVANCE- 
 
SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION OF MAN 39 
 
 MENT AND POSSIBLY APPKOACHING THE 
 IDEAL. 
 
 The great principle just stated has received many 
 sanctions from scientists. It is so tremendously vital 
 and so interwoven with the history and destiny of 
 man that philosophers of evolution cannot generalize 
 the import of man's origin and his intellectual and 
 ethical progress without recognizing, more or less 
 clearly, this Law of the Upward Way. But we 
 have in this supreme principle a religious import 
 which must require us to revalue all things which 
 lie within consciousness. 
 
 Wonderful, indeed, is the evolution of the inor- 
 ganic portion of our world, perhaps more wonderful, 
 the process controlling organic life, but now we must 
 regard the evolution of inorganic matter and of living 
 things as truly subordinate. The vital and controlling 
 fact of terrestrial evolution is that the highest form 
 of growth amongst the creatures of earth ts the spir- 
 itual life of man and the ultimately triumphant forces 
 operating upon humanity are the unmaterial forces 
 which make for righteousness. 
 
 When once our souls have been lifted up to the 
 comprehension of this, the greatest of truths, we 
 can see in all reverence that through the evolutional 
 forces God has ever moved and ever will move upon 
 the spirits of men, seeking to impel them towards 
 righteousness, while always giving the individual the 
 
40 THE RELIGION OF THE 
 
 power, through his freedom of choice of actions, 
 either to climb upward spiritually or to slip backwards 
 towards moral degradation. 
 
 It is His Will that the race of mankind must 
 eventually climb the upward way of spirituality, but 
 the individual, through the gift of moral freedom, 
 has cast upon him the power of either advancing to 
 better spirituality himself and of assisting the race 
 to advance or of degenerating in his own soul and 
 of hindering the advance of his fellow-men. 
 
 The Law of the Upward Way thus becomes doubly 
 the foundation of the Religion of the Spiritual Evo- 
 lution of Man. It is a revelation of science which 
 discloses the Infinite One as the Power which makes 
 for Righteousness and it also reveals the spiritual duty 
 of every man and woman to consciously assist in 
 uplifting the race. 
 
OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF 
 
 itifi 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE RELIGION OF SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION THE RELIG- 
 ION OF THE FUTURE 
 
 THE world is ready for the Religion of Science, the 
 Religion of Spiritual Evolution. All the other relig- 
 ions of today and all the religions of the past have a 
 fading power over the souls of the now very great 
 number of men and women who believe that religion 
 and science must exist in harmonious unity. 
 No other religion can claim any rational unity with 
 the revelations of science. Science has widened con- 
 ceptions of the universe from the childlike views 
 of all other religions into a Cosmos so vast that our 
 earth is but a grain of sand on the sea shore, in com- 
 parison with the immensity of the myriads of suns 
 which have been photographed ; and ever the widening 
 marvels of infinite space overwhelm the narrowness 
 of the teachings of all other religions. So, too, the 
 recognition of law, working in all the processes of evo- 
 lution, cuts away the crude conceptions which per- 
 meate all other religions of the way the Infinite One 
 reveals Himself and His purposes towards mankind. 
 
 Spencer says: "Religion, everywhere present as 
 
 a weft running through the warp of human history, 
 
 expresses some eternal fact; while it is always a truism 
 
 to say of science that it is an organized mass of facts, 
 
 41 
 
42 THE BELIGION OF THE 
 
 ever growing and ever being more completely purified 
 from errors. And, if both have bases in the reality 
 of things, then between them there must be a fun- 
 damental harmony/' 
 
 As the Religion of Spiritual Evolution is based 
 upon all the realities, as disclosed by science, and all 
 which can hereafter be disclosed, it is the one religion 
 which all men, who are educated to an understanding 
 of Cosmic Evolution, including the Ethical Process, 
 can accept, and no advance of human knowledge can 
 disturb the harmony between this Eeligion of the 
 Future and Science, because all Truth belongs within 
 the purview of the teachings of this Eeligion and it 
 denies no Truth. 
 
 In the opening chapters the author purposely speci- 
 fied many doctrines of other religions, including 
 Christianity, which the Religion of the Spiritual Evo- 
 lution of Man cannot admit as founded in the realms 
 of truth, and it would seem that the sooner those 
 who join in the organization of the Religion of the 
 Future shall emphasize in their work and teachings 
 that there is an absolute line of demarcation between 
 Christianity as a religion and the Religion of Science, 
 the sooner will the great majority of men and women 
 of intelligence, who have ethical impulses, join in the 
 wonderful constructive work now lying directly before 
 us. Whatever there be in the teachings of Jesus which 
 belongs within the scope of our new religion, let us 
 take it and use it and thus also of Buddha and 
 
SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION OF MAN 43 
 
 Plato and Voltaire and Thomas Paine, and all others 
 who sought the truth and wished to uplift humanity. 
 
 The broad underlying principles of the Religion 
 of Spiritual Evolution would seem to be these : 
 
 First All humanity of every race and color has 
 been evolved and is evolving under the same process 
 affected by the same laws and this process constitutes 
 the Divine Plan, the Will of the Infinite One, 
 respecting mankind. 
 
 Second This process ties all humanity together in 
 a brotherhood and sisterhood, which, of necessity, de- 
 volves upon the farthest evolved a great struggle for 
 the moral, intellectual and physical salvation of the 
 entire race of human beings, and thus the principle 
 object of the Eeligion of Spiritual Evolution must be, 
 in great love for our fellow-men, to. consciously assist 
 in carrying out the Divine Plan that the race shall 
 be advanced to higher spirituality. 
 
 Third That the worship of the Infinite One shall 
 be the spiritual outpouring of finitely intelligent souls 
 to the God of the Universe, in Whom dwells the 
 Infinite Good, the Infinite Intelligence and the Infi- 
 nite Power, Who controls the Cosmos and makes for 
 righteousness in the spirits of men, and Who is imma- 
 nent everywhere in the Cosmos and in the process 
 of the Cosmos. In this worship we will find an in- 
 finite love of God for man and a love of man for 
 God far above the conception of the love of a father 
 for a son or of a son for a father. 
 
44 THE RELIGION OF THE 
 
 Fourth That neither superstition, nor faith in 
 alleged verbal revelations, nor faith in revelation in 
 visions, nor miracles, nor alleged messages from the 
 Infinite One on plates of stone or of gold, nor belief 
 that any man became the mouthpiece of God, nor 
 that any people ever became "the chosen people of 
 God" shall be tolerated. 
 
 Fifth That scientific truth must always be sought 
 and when new truth has been unfolded in the advance 
 of humanity it shall become a part of all ascertained 
 truth to be accepted by all those who belong to the 
 organized body of the Eeligion of Spiritual Evolution. 
 
 Sixth That in the advance of scientific proof, such 
 faith in a future life for the souls of men as can 
 be rationally predicated upon the Spiritual Evolution 
 of man on earth shall be sought for, and accepted. 
 
 Seventh That, as the lesson of all political, eco- 
 nomic and sociological evolution as well as spiritual 
 evolution points to the great constructive power of 
 complete organization and united effort, the individ- 
 ual Spiritual Evolutionist, without surrender of his 
 Spiritual individuality must always endeavor to co- 
 operate in institutional unity with his co-religionists. 
 
 Finally In summation, that race salvation shall 
 ever be the supreme object of the earthly efforts of 
 those who accept this religion and through such ef- 
 forts and the rational worship of the Infinite One, 
 the individual shall find the only salvation for his 
 soul worthy of spiritual endeavor, namely, the spirit- 
 ual growth of his soul on earth and the right to 
 
SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION OF MAN 45 
 
 have his personality survive physical death, and there- 
 after to progress spiritually towards God. And that 
 the race of men through the untold centuries of man's 
 future upon earth shall ever climb the Upward Way 
 towards the Spiritually ideal so that when the final 
 evolutional pinnacle of earthly physical evolution 
 shall be reached the race shall be so perfected that the 
 downward swing towards a dying physical world shall 
 find man intellectually and spiritually able to pre- 
 vent any backward spiritual evolution, away from 
 the high estate then attained downward towards deg- 
 radation or rebarbarization. 
 
PART II 
 
 THE 
 
 ORGANIZATION OF THE RELIGION 
 OF SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 # 
 
 THE NECESSITY OF UNITED EFFORT 
 
 DIRECTLY in front of all of the farthest evolved, 
 who shall see that the Law of the Upward Way is 
 true, lies the great duty of the primal organization 
 of The Religion of Spiritual Evolution. 
 
 This book would fail greatly in its purpose should 
 it not convince the large majority of the ethically 
 inclined, advanced thinkers of humanity, that in com- 
 mon effort lies the co-ordination of ourselves with 
 the purposes of the In-finite One. 
 
 It must be too plain for reasonable controversy 
 that race salvation must come through the intelli- 
 gent united effort of that portion of humanity which 
 is willing to accept the underlying principles of the 
 Religion of Spiritual Evolution and, in strong con- 
 structive institutional unison, consciously work out 
 man's part in uplifting the race in high harmony 
 with the Divine Plan. 
 
 Huxley saw that organization "in common effort" 
 was the way to find race salvation. 
 
 In Evolution and Ethics he says: "Moreover the 
 Cosmic nature [animalism] born with us and to a 
 large extent necessary for our maintenance, is the 
 outcome of millions of years of severe training and it 
 would be folly to imagine that a few centuries will suf- 
 49 
 
50 THE RELIGION OF THE 
 
 fice to subdue its masterfulness to purely ethical 
 ends. Ethical nature may count upon having to 
 reckon with a powerful enemy as long as the world 
 lasts. 
 
 "But on the other hand, I see no limit to the extent 
 which intelligence and will, guided by sound princi- 
 ples of investigation and ORGANIZED IN COM- 
 MON EFFORT, may modify the conditions of exist- 
 ence for a period longer than now covered by history. 
 And much may be done to change the nature of man 
 himself. 
 
 "The intelligence which has converted the brother 
 of the wolf into the faithful guardian of the flock 
 ought to be able to do something towards crushing 
 the instincts of savagery in civilized men!' 
 
 It is inconceivable that any student of sociology 
 as a science can fail to conclude that the only ef- 
 fective way to spiritually transform mankind is by 
 complete strong organization of those who desire to 
 advance spiritually and to help all humanity to so 
 advance. 
 
 Another potent argument for prompt and effective 
 organization lies in the very nature of the work to 
 be done. 
 
 First of all, there must be essential harmony in 
 the creedless teachings of those who see the import 
 of the Spiritual Evolution of man, and such har- 
 mony can only grow up through institutional unison 
 
SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION OF MAN 51 
 
 of purpose and effort gained by organized association 
 with each other. 
 
 Second Only through broad persistent education 
 in the underlying principles of all evolution, and par- 
 ticularly Spiritual Evolution, can we expect to up- 
 lift our brothers and our sisters of the race to a 
 comprehension of the Divine Plan for mankind, and, 
 without the highest organization ever attempted in 
 racial evolution, we cannot hope to successfully ac- 
 complish the great work of freeing the souls of men 
 from the shackles of superstitution, irrational faith, 
 creed-bound ignorance and animalistic living. 
 
 Third Spiritual Evolution regards mankind as a 
 unit within the uplifting plan of the Infinite One 
 and working solely as individuals we will surely fail 
 to consciously assist the purposes of God in any ef- 
 fective way. 
 
 Fourth The practical application of the Eeligion 
 of Spiritual Evolution to the daily life of the race 
 demands essential agreement in defining the indi- 
 vidual and sociological acts of men which must be 
 approbated and encouraged and those which must be 
 reprobated and destroyed. Only by fearless, vigor- 
 ous united effort can we hope to take our religion into 
 every field of human endeavor and human conduct. 
 
CHAPTEK II 
 
 PRIMARY ORGANIZATION 
 
 How can we best organize to satisfy the high 
 Spiritual purposes of the new religion ? 
 
 Only by way of suggestion of what he believes to 
 be the inherent requirements of the upward struggle 
 for race salvation does the author offer tentatively 
 the ideas unfolded in this chapter. 
 
 Feeling that there are very many men and women 
 now educated to a point where they have become dis- 
 satisfied to join in the sectarian efforts of any or- 
 ganized religion and that these men and women have 
 been longing, as has the author, for the opportunity 
 to unite in some strong, intelligent, world-wide eth- 
 ical effort for the promotion of higher Spirituality in 
 mankind, the author believes that all such men and 
 women need only the constructive suggestion to im- 
 pel them to start definite organization of the Religion 
 of Spiritual Evolution. If this book shall induce the 
 coming together of all such persons in efforts to or- 
 ganize as broadly as man's necessities and race up- 
 lifting require, then one, who feels himself unworthy 
 of inspiring such a result, will find a long existing 
 desire satisfied. 
 
 52 
 
SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION OF MAN 53 
 
 These ideas respecting organization have appealed 
 to the author as valid, but are but crudely formulated. 
 In the first place, as President Eliot states, "The re- 
 ligion of the future will not be based on authority 
 either spiritual or temporal" The purpose of the 
 first part of this work if correctly interpreted will 
 have shown that scientific knowledge in its broadest 
 and highest sense must inevitably constitute the only 
 authority of the new religion. The Infinite One never 
 on earth gave power or inspiration to voice His com- 
 mands or to exercise any of His decrees to disciple, or 
 pope, or priest. There has never been an authorita- 
 tive church of God or an authoritative book of God. 
 Bibles of Buddhism, or of the Parsees, or of the He- 
 brews, or of Christianity, or of Mohammedanism, or 
 of Mormonism equally fade into the realm of myth- 
 ology, recorded traditions, folklore, national or racial 
 history, national poetry, and national or sectarian fic- 
 tion commingled with assumed revelations of the 
 Infinite One and assumed conduct of God, which the 
 Religion of Science cannot accept as authoritative for 
 many reasons, including the actual history of the Spir- 
 itual Evolution of man. Therefore it would seem that 
 in the primal organization of the new religion ive 
 must dearly provide that no -priest-like powers shall 
 be sanctioned in any man. 
 
 Yet we must have ministers who, in the generic 
 sense of the word, will be "servants" to preside on the 
 platforms of our temples and to perform other func- 
 tions of ministers. They will be teachers who will 
 
54 THE RELIGION OF THE 
 
 not only seek to educate their congregations and them- 
 selves in the wide realm of scientific truth, but will 
 direct the worship of the Infinite One as planned by 
 each congregation and in accordance with all ascer- 
 tained truth and with such rational faith as follows 
 truth. They will not only seek to teach truth, but 
 they will fearlessly stand, together with their congre- 
 gations, in the communities of men applying to every 
 institution of earth, whether it be governmental, edu- 
 cational, religious, charitable, sociological, economic, 
 or whatever its nature, the supreme test as organized, 
 does it further the spiritual uplifting of mankind 
 and if the verdict be that it does not they must of 
 necessity discuss the question, how shall it be 
 changed? Other activities of these servants of the 
 new Eeligion will appear by suggestion throughout 
 the entire book. 
 
 Second The universality of the Religion of Spir- 
 itual Evolution should be so clearly fixed in the 
 minds of its adherents that they will ever under- 
 stand that not only the individual conduct of every 
 human being is involved within its scope, but every 
 institutional activity of every race of men, and of 
 every nation must be reckoned with as affecting the 
 Spiritual Evolution of the race. Later we will see 
 what standards of conduct are required of men and 
 women and of institutions of this generation in or- 
 der to make them really worthy of being ranked 
 among the highest yet evolved under the Divine 
 
SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION OF MAN 55 
 
 Plan. But at present we seek suggestions respect- 
 ing primal organization. 
 
 Owing to its universality the new religion will 
 gradually create new institutions for race advance- 
 ment in well considered constructive efforts. That 
 many experiments may prove ineffective and futile 
 must not deter. Sociologically humanity has tried 
 many institutional experiments and yet is largely in- 
 effective for race advancement in many of those now 
 controlling most human beings. 
 
 Any general organization of the new religion 
 requires some plan whereby we can go ahead sanely, 
 sensibly and strongly taking human society as it 
 now exists and first learning how it can be changed 
 to further God's purpose of uplifting mankind; we 
 must then fearlessly, in strong love for our fellow 
 man, educate the great majority to see that "the 
 brotherhood and sisterhood" of humanity requires 
 certain new institutions to replace certain old ones. 
 We must convince and then construct. One who com- 
 prehends the Law of the Upward Way must see that 
 ultimately all society must be reorganized for race 
 salvation. It would be a strange soul that would 
 say that, as now organized, society requires no changes 
 to bring the race higher and constantly higher in 
 brotherly love and in strong unison with God's Plan. 
 And if changes are necessary one of the ever present du- 
 ties of the new religion requires persistent effort to 
 be exerted to secure such changes. Our organization 
 must cover this broad field. 
 
56 THE KELIGION OF THE 
 
 Third In our effort to uplift humanity we must 
 use every law of the spiritual process which we can 
 discern as within our reach. It is not within the 
 scope of this book to attempt to define the subordi- 
 nate laws operating within the Ethical Process and 
 which can be intelligently used in the new religion 
 to further the ascent of humanity upon the Upward 
 Way. Spencer as a matter of philosophy has ana- 
 lyzed some of these laws, although, because he saw 
 not the full ethical import of the process affecting 
 humanity, he failed to apply these laws to their high- 
 est purposes. 
 
 It will be a duty in our new religion to provide 
 institutions wherein all ascertained laws affecting 
 the spiritual growth of men shall be thoroughly and 
 scientifically studied and to define the ways to in- 
 telligently use these laws for race advancement will 
 be the paramount object of these institutions. Man 
 has used the physical laws of the universe in a myriad 
 of ways for his physical safety, convenience and com- 
 fort. The laws relating to the selection and best 
 propagation of plants and trees have given us through 
 man's intelligent choice our grains, our flowers and 
 our fruit. The laws relating to mechanics have given 
 us by man's intelligent choice the myriad of mod- 
 ern mechanically operated industries and utilities 
 which pervade civilization. The laws relating to 
 chemical and physical changes of matter have been 
 availed of through man's intelligence not only to aid 
 civilization in many ways, but to demonstrate the 
 
SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION OF MAN 57 
 
 kinship of the innumerable suns of the Cosmos. It 
 surely must be true that now we approach the time 
 when man's intelligence guided by high spiritual 
 purpose and desire will seek out every sociological 
 and ethical law and through full comprehension of 
 the power for righteousness evidenced in these laws 
 will consciously use them to constantly modify for 
 the better all conditions surrounding men both mor- 
 ally and socially. 
 
 Fourth It must be apparent that if the Law of 
 the Upward Way could have full sway over human- 
 ity, unimpeded by man's choice of animalism, deg- 
 radation, and of institutions which make against the 
 advance of humanity, each succeeding generation 
 would become better and stronger spiritually than 
 the preceding one. The upward climb towards racial 
 righteousness has no such constantly progressing his- 
 tory and none can be hoped for. The struggle to 
 gain the heights, in the past has shown many a slip 
 backwards, but the Spiritual Process necessarily im- 
 plies tliat the child ought to advance Spiritually be- 
 yond the father. How often in family history the 
 reverse is true is everywhere pitifully manifest, but 
 the duty of parents, and of the religion of the future 
 itself requires that the opportunity for a child to 
 learn the higher way should be given through every 
 possible activity of those who perceive that mankind 
 is and has been slowly struggling upward spiritually. 
 
58 THE RELIGION OF THE 
 
 For generations, perhaps centuries, the teaching 
 of the child the higher scientific truth, the great 
 import of the Spiritual Process and all that follows, 
 must be done outside of the governmental schools. 
 How it shall be done best; what institutions created 
 for it and how they shall be administered comes within 
 the consideration of the organization of the new re- 
 ligion. Whatever institutions the religion finds 
 amongst those adopted by any other religion which 
 can be modified and used by it, belong to it as a 
 heritage of the Ethical Process. The best which the 
 process has evolved can be made the steps towards 
 the "better" of the new religion. 
 
 All days must be profoundly days of worship in 
 the Eeligion of Spiritual Evolution, but undoubtedly 
 for a long time Sunday, being the accepted day of 
 rest from labor, will be the day of special gather- 
 ing together in its temples of all who profess the 
 religion. So Sunday Schools for the instruction of 
 both children and adults will be a necessity of pri- 
 mary organization. If organized worthily these 
 schools can be made wonderfully vibrant in the wor- 
 ship of the Infinite One and in educating the whole 
 people who will attend these schools to the truth of 
 the religion and to their duties to consciously assist 
 God in His plan for humanity, by better living and 
 stronger helpfulness to their fellow men. One can 
 see dimly that not only on Sunday but in the week- 
 day evenings there will be a field for rationally edu- 
 cating ourselves, and our fellow men and women, and 
 
SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION OF MAN 59 
 
 our children, and theirs in all the expanding knowl- 
 edge belonging to this religion. 
 
 Fifth The encouragement and creation of fre- 
 quent, clean, wholesome, interesting and instructive 
 amusements for old and young must be considered 
 in organization. The temples of the Infinite One 
 must be temples not only for Worship and instruc- 
 tion, but the germinating places for making the daily 
 life of the individual members of the religion, morally 
 clean, properly joyous, and full of desirable activi- 
 ties. The institutions of degradation must find an 
 overwhelming competitor in our institutions. 
 
 It is plain that the gradual lessening of the hours 
 of toil amongst those who manually labor has cre- 
 ated a new demand for filling the increased waking 
 hours of leisure with desirable activities, and the 
 moving picture shows and theaters are in part sup- 
 plying the necessity, oftentimes in a way which is not 
 remotely uplifting. As the new religion necessarily 
 enters into every field of human action, there lies 
 before all its adherents, including all those belong- 
 ing to it who labor for sustenance, an absorbingly 
 interesting, as well as a stupendous, task to ration- 
 alize and spiritualize not only the leisure hours, but 
 the hours of labor of those who manually toil, and 
 equally true and equally stupendous is the task of 
 performing the same duty in respect to those who 
 are rich and those who do brain work. 
 
60 THE RELIGION OF THE 
 
 Here the author wishes to say that humanity may 
 reasonably expect, when a large number of its mem- 
 bers has learned the Divine Plan and are seeking in 
 spiritual endeavor to uplift their fellow men, that 
 there will be a constantly increasing readjustment 
 of the conditions of human toil, and of the general 
 benefits and advantages accruing to the individual. 
 We must work toward the ideal, and a very crude 
 conception of the ideal calls for adjustments of con- 
 ditions which now permit some of our fellow men 
 to take inequitable benefits to themselves while others 
 suffer because of it. 
 
 If this means a higher socialism, with the Infinite 
 One in harmony, who will dare to advise against 
 working toward it. 
 
 Sixth These tentative suggestions will be per- 
 ceived to be merely stimulative to constructive activ- 
 ity of the consciences of those who see the necessity 
 for organization. In America we have a general 
 Ethical Society of instructive power; we have one 
 church, the Unitarian, groping its way into the very 
 portals of the temples of the Eeligion of Spiritual 
 Evolution; we have in Congregationalism, while 
 clinging to remnants of the religion of Christianity, 
 an ally of the Eeligion of the Future ; we have quite a 
 number of so-called independent "churches" which 
 should be ready immediately to join in the general or- 
 ganization; we also have amongst the Jewish race a 
 
SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION OF MAN 61 
 
 number of congregations which reject the old institu- 
 tions ; we have also in the so-called "higher criticism" 
 of orthodox Christianity an effort to reconcile scien- 
 tific truth with advanced Christianity which must of 
 its own force eventually bring great numbers into the 
 religion which truly reconciles science with rational 
 Worship of the Infinite One. 
 
 Finally: The author firmly believes that every- 
 where amongst educated people there are many who 
 will welcome the opportunity to join in the primary 
 organization of such a religion as has been outlined 
 in this book, and the expectation that comprehension 
 of the import of the Spiritual Evolution of man will 
 soon bring unison in a desire to organize The Re- 
 ligion which must follow such comprehension, is an 
 expectation based on the belief that the Infinite One 
 Himself, in His process, has sanctioned and encour- 
 aged such an organization. 
 
PART III 
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE FAMILY 
 IN SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 THE ETHICAL STANDARDS IX SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION- 
 ARE you aware that in most of your conduct and 
 your daily activities you have been, now are, and 
 always, while living, will be, affecting the Spiritual 
 progress of humanity ? 
 
 The author could not, if he would, nor could any 
 living person, define the ultimate standards of con- 
 duct which the process of Spiritual Evolution will 
 eventually require as the highest ethical conduct of 
 man. Of necessity such standards will be raised 
 higher by each succeeding generation. The Law of 
 the Upward Way gives God's sanction to this idea. 
 Spencer, a strict deterministic scientist, anticipated 
 the thought expressed. Discussing ethical evolution 
 he found always evolving amongst men certain "high- 
 est natures" (which the author has in this book para- 
 phased into "the farthest evolved' 7 ), and of these 
 "highest natures" he says: "What now in them is 
 occasional and feeble may be expected with further 
 evolution to become habitual and strong; and what 
 now characterizes the exceptionally high may be ex- 
 pected eventually to characterize all. 
 
 "For that which best human nature is capable of, 
 is ivithin the reach of human nature at large." 
 
 Spencer could not help seeing the unfolding of a 
 65 
 
66 THE RELIGION OF THE 
 
 process which tended towards the ethical advancement 
 of mankind. The quotation shows a glimpse of the 
 Law of the Upward Way and many of Spencer's 
 thoughts in his "Data of Ethics" disclose a partial 
 recognition of the Divine Plan for humanity. His 
 hampered and incomplete view that we must not at- 
 tempt to ascribe attributes to the "Cause of Things," 
 blinded him from perceiving the higher spiritual im- 
 port of the Ethical Process. 
 
 For a general standard of all human conduct the 
 best that we can do is to value it, in the light of 
 the spiritualizing process and apply to it the general 
 standard : Does it harmonize with the advancement 
 of the Divine Plan for humanity? Does it tend to 
 uplift humanity ? Of course correlatively the inquiry 
 is : Does it advance the individual spiritually ? 
 
 The conscience of an individual in ethical evolu- 
 tion may be educated to the requirement of personal 
 conduct far beyond what may be called the "commu- 
 nity conscience/' and again it may be untroubled 
 with acts which should receive the condemnation of 
 all. 
 
 Darkest Judaism, and many other religions, found 
 satisfaction of conscience in the sacrifice to God of 
 innocent virgins and children; Darkest Catholicism 
 found surcease of conscience in as cruel tortures of 
 "apostates" as ever savagery devised; Darkest ortho- 
 dox Christianity within the memory of living men, 
 
SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION OF MAN 67 
 
 in the fullest conscientiousness, withdrew from the 
 favor of God (its own assumed portion) and con- 
 demned to perpetual torture in a hell of blazing fire 
 and brimstone heretics such as the author, who in 
 like fidelity to conscience could not believe in the di- 
 vinity of Christ or the Divine inspiration of the 
 Christian bible in any of its numerous versions. 
 
 It must be too plain for controversy that what we 
 call conscience is a function of personality which 
 requires constant education toward a higher spirit- 
 uality to inspire in the individual conduct which 
 shall be worthy of God's purpose that mankind shall 
 rise gradually ever higher along the upward way to- 
 wards the Ideal. 
 
 The Thought of the ages, (not original with Je- 
 sus, but undoubtedly inspired in religious philosophy 
 by the spiritualizing process), "love toward God and 
 brotherliness to man" has long been the great fore- 
 shadowing of the way to race salvation. The Ee- 
 ligion of Spiritual Evolution brings strong virility to 
 this evolutional idea. It involves for the individual, 
 worship and service. It does not mean merely serv- 
 ice to co-religionists nor service for self-gratification. 
 It means constructive ethical service for all human- 
 ity based on growing unselfishness which ultimately 
 will transform the present crude distribution of the 
 benefits of human industry into substantially equita- 
 ble benefits between man and man and the whole 
 
68 THE EELIGION OF THE 
 
 world over, and also will transform the present un- 
 equal opportunities of enjoyment of life into better 
 and better opportunity for every man to share with 
 his fellow men education, travel, art, the changes of 
 Climate and all like opportunities which are ethically 
 ^ood. There are men today who would gladly give 
 such service unselfishly and intelligently. Evolution 
 itself decrees that always an increasing number will 
 gain the heights to which these have climbed in the 
 high altruism of the process of spiritualization. The 
 great service of loving sympathy and encouragement 
 both in words and deeds with those in sickness, 
 sorrow and distress is already well understood as up- 
 lifting alike to him who gives and to those who 
 receive. 
 
 The standard of unselfishness must ever be set 
 high in the bloodless battle for race salvation. Who- 
 soever shall unselfishly lose himself in service of his 
 fellow men shall find his soul worthiest of survival. 
 
 The Eeligion of Spiritual Evolution has no place 
 for mysticism or the occult; neither does it call for 
 asceticism or the hermit life. It does not set apart 
 its followers from those who do not understand and 
 accept its principles. To the contrary it requires the 
 most intimate association of its followers with their 
 fellow men and with every one of the activities in 
 which they engage. How can any man or any class 
 of men segregate themselves from the mass of hu- 
 
SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION OF MAN 69 
 
 manity and expect to bring to the race soul of all 
 humanity the uplift which must come by producing 
 a Divine ferment in the souls of their fellow men? 
 
 Do you wish to know whether honesty, truthful- 
 ness, sexual virtue, temperance in food and drink, 
 charity, and respect for the lives and persons of fel- 
 low men, are standards of conduct in the new re- 
 ligion? In firm conviction I say to you that these 
 are but stepping stones to constructive virtues which 
 the struggle for race salvation will evolve and give 
 name to. 
 
 You can be absolutely certain that no standard 
 of conduct which has yet evolved can measure the 
 highest standards yet to come, and whatever there is 
 which is now the most conducive to strong unselfish 
 spiritual living of the individual is strictly imposed 
 by the Religion of the Future. 
 
 Again let it be remembered that conscious unity 
 with the Infinite One in working out His plan for 
 humanity is a reward which will bless every man and 
 every woman who strives for the spiritual salvation of 
 the race. Higher work and better worship lies not 
 within the power of man. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 IMMORTALITY 
 
 THE SUEVIVAL OF HUMAN PERSONALITY AFTER PHYSI- 
 CAL DEATH 
 
 As far back in human history as any records go, 
 humanity has asked of itself the question: Does 
 death end all? 
 
 Always, wherever science has gathered the facts, 
 amongst all races, and throughout all recorded time, 
 it has found the belief, generally prevailing, that hu- 
 man personality does survive the physical death of 
 the individual. 
 
 So, also, far back of any human records, many 
 thousands of years, those early progenitors of man, 
 the cave dwellers, have left proof of the same uni- 
 versal belief. In some of the graves of their dead 
 are found food and cooking utensils as well as weap- 
 ons of war and of hunting. Also (most illuminating 
 of the budding of the spiritual growth of uplifting 
 love) they buried with their children the toys with 
 which the little ones had evidently played during 
 life. 
 
 However crude, however animalistic, however sens- 
 70 
 
SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION OF MAN 71 
 
 ual, however visionary, or irrationally ecstatic, the 
 idea of a future life may have been, it must be reck- 
 oned with in the underlying ultimate fact that it has 
 always served, feebly or strongly, to help uplift hu- 
 manity. It cannot be reasonably doubted that death 
 accompanied by belief in a hereafter has been a fact 
 of potent moment in the Spiritual Evolution of man. 
 Furthermore, whenever the individual has grown 
 to a height where he has pondered the problems of his 
 existence, his soul has ever asked of the Infinite 
 One, in spiritual yearnings, the destiny of his perr 
 sonality when the body, its earthly servant, shall die. 
 
 Today the Religion of Spiritual Evolution rejects 
 belief in the Happy Hunting Grounds of the prim- 
 itive races; it equally rejects belief in the sensual 
 Paradise of the Moslem and the Mormon ; and in the 
 Nirvana of the Buddhist; and also belief in the 
 ecstatic heaven of the apostle John. Likewise, it 
 discards credence in any hell of everlasting torment 
 or perpetual punishment either in the material hell 
 of fire and brimstone, taught in Christianity, or a 
 spiritual hell. 
 
 But this religion does not discard belief in immor- 
 tality. To the contrary, not only does it assert a 
 rational belief therein, but also it can claim, in all 
 reverence, that there is in the Divine Plan for human- 
 ity apparent proof of a pledge of the Infinite One 
 
72 THE KELIGION OF THE 
 
 that personality shall survive the death of the body; 
 at least the personality of every one whose soul yearns 
 to progress spiritually. 
 
 Eegarding those who, during earthly life, volun- 
 tarily devote their personalities to morally degrading 
 sensualities, or to vices of continuous dishonesty, or 
 to vices of continuous hypocrisy and untruthfulness, 
 or to conduct which oppresses their fellow men, or, 
 in a general sense, to conduct which tends to drag 
 humanity downward, it, at least, raises a question 
 whether such personalities are fitted to survive death 
 and enter the spiritual life beyond the grave. 
 
 Do you ask where the line shall be drawn? It 
 cannot be said that there is any such line, but the 
 thought is suggested that a process which makes 
 for righteousness apparently finds as unfit for survival 
 those souls who have no desire to voluntarily fulfill, 
 in some decree, the objects of the process. 
 
 That death marks a cataclasm in the history of 
 personality, is a fact of supreme moment, and if the 
 Infinite One, who has granted moral volition to man, 
 finds a soul blackened with voluntary degradation, 
 would it seem that His plan will perpetuate, in higher 
 life, such a personality. 
 
 What is God's pledge to the soul which yearns 
 for immortality, that it may progress in better right- 
 eousne.ss in the spiritual life beyond death, unham- 
 pered with physical wants and physical passions ? 
 
SPIKITUAL EVOLUTION OF MAN 73 
 
 The Infinite One, through his Divine Plan, made 
 men moral beings possessed of souls which, through 
 volition, are capable of spiritual advancement, and 
 His great desire, evidenced in the import of His 
 process, is that the souls of men shall voluntarily 
 choose conduct which conforms with His purpose 
 that the race of men shall slowly be uplifted higher 
 and ever higher in the moral scale. 
 
 But the individual cannot await the procession 
 of the race upward. In the great process, with his 
 contemporaries, he finds himself dominant for only 
 a few years in the purposely slow unfolding of God's 
 great design for all humanity. (Again we see that 
 Race Salvation is the supreme import of the Evolu- 
 tion of man.) 
 
 But how futile would be the whole plan, if death 
 ended the spiritual life of man. How impossibly 
 ineffective, how untrue to its object, if it destroyed 
 personality just when it had climbed a little way 
 toward God and yearned beyond expression to pro- 
 gress spiritually to far heights, not possible to the 
 day and age of its sojourn on earth. 
 
 To make the process of earth find its physical evo- 
 lutional rest in man, as its highest creature, and in 
 his personality, his spirit, as the unit of its advanc- 
 ing tide towards better righteousness and race salva- 
 tion, to give him, in the process, as an individual, a 
 little temporary place in which, under the impulse of 
 the process, he may voluntarily build up a character 
 which, under the test of contemporaneous environ- 
 
74 THE RELIGION OF THE 
 
 ment, is worthy of survival, to have the process 
 engender in him great yearnings to survive death, 
 so that the character thus built up may be farther 
 and farther advanced in knowledge and righteous- 
 ness in a spiritual life beyond death, and, then, to 
 destroy such a personality through the death of the 
 body, would be actual stultification of one of the 
 supreme objects of the process. 
 
 Belief in such an ending of personality is to the 
 author a rational absurdity. 
 
 We are entitled, as moral beings, to seek the pledges 
 of the process under which "we live and move and 
 have our being" and, to the author at least, the 
 pledge of immortality shines out as a veritable neces- 
 sity of the Divine Plan. He who builds his char- 
 acter in the righteousness of today is as worthy of 
 survival as he who lives in moral worth in the tomor- 
 row of the race, and the upward way of the race 
 must be earned through the individual as the unit 
 of progress. 
 
 In lowlier thought we can also search the realms 
 of science and philosophy for rational belief of the 
 immortality of human personality. 
 
 Scientific men of highest standing and pure mo- 
 tives, through strict scientific investigation of alleged 
 communications from those' who have died, already 
 offer the conclusion that some of the messages received 
 by them, through unquestioned psychics, are scien- 
 
SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION OF MAN 75 
 
 tifically more rationally explicable as true communi- 
 cations from the dead than upon any other 
 hypothesis. 
 
 That those who are investigating this field of phe- 
 nomena in pursuit of truth may succeed in thus 
 finding rational proof of immortality cannot be said 
 to be scientifically impossible. 
 
 Science has largely discarded the idea that the 
 human brain is true personality, and that when the 
 brain dies, personality necessarily dies with it. The 
 knowledge that the brain dies daily and that per- 
 sonality, the spirit of man, is a developing unit from 
 birth to death, has altered some conceptions of the 
 problem of immortality. 
 
 Science now tells us that in each brain there are 
 myriads of changes constantly taking place in the 
 decay and absorption of one set of brain cells and in 
 the constant formation of new brain cells to replace 
 those which die. So, too, the whole human body is 
 continuously a charnel house of untold myriads of 
 dying cells and also the birthplace of new cells alike 
 innumerable. Under the established order of evo- 
 lution, personality uses the constantly changing cells 
 of infancy, youth, middle age and old age, to the 
 gates of ultimate irremediable cell death, but it uses 
 them merely as instruments of earthly evolution, and 
 they cannot individually or collectively constitute the 
 spirit of man. 
 
 There is, therefore, no valid reason that, because 
 
76 THE RELIGION OF THE 
 
 the earthly instrument of personality dies, the spirit 
 of man dies with it. 
 
 We are not in the 'same scientific field in contem- 
 plating physical life and consciousness. The scientist 
 who cannot see this distinction has forgotten the very 
 important fact that in human philosophy conscious- 
 ness is the premier of all phenomena. 
 
 Huxley (who decidedly controverted materialism), 
 after stating the materialistic idea that there is 
 nothing in the universe but matter and -force, says 
 of personality (or its correlative, consciousness) : "In 
 the first place ... it seems to me pretty plain 
 that there is a third thing in the universe, to-wit: 
 consciousness, which, in the hardness of my heart, or 
 head, I cannot see to be matter or force or any conceiv- 
 able modification of either, however intimately the 
 manifestations of the phenomena of consciousness 
 may be connected with the phenomena known as mat- 
 ter and force. In the second place, the arguments 
 used by Descartes and Berkeley to show that our 
 certain knowledge does not extend beyond our states 
 of consciousness, appear to me to be as irrefragable 
 now as they did when I first became acquainted with 
 them some half-century ago. All the materialistic 
 writers I know of, who have tried to bite that file, 
 have simply broken their teeth. 
 
 "But if this be true, our one certainty is the exist- 
 ence of the mental world, and that of Kraft and 
 Stoff falls into the rank of, at best, a highly probable 
 hypothesis." 
 
SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION OF MAN 77 
 
 There is one great spiritual fact, which all who 
 believe in the survival of human personality after 
 physical death of the body must take into full account 
 and value supremely. The only thing which per- 
 sonality can take with it beyond the grave is character. 
 Through all the years from birth to death each human 
 being is building up a personal character which con- 
 stitutes the only treasure which can pass the portals 
 of physical death, and, whether the treasure be good 
 or less good, or bad or less bad, it must go with 
 personality. The great process has so decreed, and 
 the Eeligion of Spiritual Evolution warns and admon- 
 ishes each soul to at least try to make its character 
 worthy of survival. That there is any sudden perfec- 
 tion of character upon the passing of life from the 
 body finds no sanction at all in the process of Spir- 
 itual Evolution. We are simply ourselves with all 
 which that implies. 
 
 To what realm will the spirit of man go when 
 its embodiment of earth becomes unfit for its dwell- 
 ing place ? Who shall say ? 
 
 The spirit of a man, while embodied, in a moment 
 is projected, through memory (one of its functions), 
 into any land where the individual has ever been. So, 
 too, through garnered knowledge, it may go into far 
 lands of earth and dwell in thought upon a thousand 
 things which have not been physically seen. Again, 
 through the revelations of science, it may contemplate 
 
78 THE RELIGION OF THE 
 
 the sun and the moon and the planets of our solar 
 system, and then it may go on and on through bound- 
 less space, finding untold millions of suns greater than 
 ours. In abstract thought it may surround itself 
 with the wide realm, which philosophy opens up, 
 it may garner the great fruits of the discovery of the 
 laws which define the process of physical evolution 
 and the laws which impel in Spiritual Evolution. So 
 it must be clear, that the spirit of man is unlike his 
 body in being confined in its activities to a little 
 space of temporary environment. Man's spirit, 
 through the device of printing, may send a thought 
 into the spirits of millions of other men, both con- 
 temporaries and through future ages ; his body brings 
 him into physical speech with comparatively few. 
 
 Need it be said that a Divine Plan which gave 
 man's spirit such powers during its earthly embodi- 
 ment can be trusted in highest faith in the Infinite 
 One, to provide a higher environment for his person- 
 ality in the spiritual life beyond the grave ? 
 
CHAPTEK III 
 
 THE FAMILY IN SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 
 
 IN the development of unselfishness in human 
 character the family has been and is the primal school 
 of the spiritualizing process. Loving service, which 
 may blossom into uplifting power for humanity, 
 begins, or should begin, in the family. The natural 
 unit which includes the father and mother and their 
 offspring is such a unit as must be reckoned with as 
 long as the race of man exists. The Eeligion of Spir- 
 itual Evolution looks to the highest evolved family 
 life of today as its present best ideal of family life, 
 but at the same time it must be steadfast always in 
 seeking progress towards the higher type which future 
 development of increased spirituality in the family 
 will surely bring. Any student of race progress must 
 find in the best family life of the twentieth century 
 much of worth and uplifting force. 
 
 The ideal of one husband and one wife, united in 
 deep and strong unselfish love, seeking with clear 
 eyes the higher things of life, always yielding to each 
 other loving forbearance and unselfish loving service, 
 always seeking the best happiness of each other and 
 of their children, always uniting in parental love for 
 and sane parental instruction of their children, and 
 always ready to give loving service and assistance 
 
 79 
 
80 THE RELIGION OF THE 
 
 when required, to their own parents and other kin- 
 dred, finds many fulfillments in the family life of 
 America and, undoubtedly, in other lands. 
 
 Many who have found the deep indefinable union 
 which develops between the husband and wife, who 
 gradually grow into oneness of spirit and love, have 
 caught a glimpse of something so high and so sweet 
 they can well believe that, flowering in the progress 
 of the future, it will give an uplift of wonderful 
 power to those who thus bless their marriage with 
 such highest comradeship. 
 
 The process of spiritualization must gradually in- 
 crease the number who consciously, and with high 
 desire, seek and find such unity, until the influence of 
 their better happiness will fill the world with better 
 family ideals and serve to curb the animalistic ideas 
 and passions which have hindered the upward prog- 
 ress of the family and of the race. 
 
 The children of the family, also, are such a part 
 of that racial unit that, in the Religion of Spiritual 
 Evolution, their education and spiritual development 
 is of supreme importance. It is through the com- 
 ing generations the upward way must be climbed, and 
 therefore the training of the child to give loving serv- 
 ice and to build up worthy character and to wor- 
 ship the Infinite One in highest love and reverence, is 
 something quite vital to the progress of mankind. 
 Can there be any question that, in family life properly 
 
SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION OP MAN 81 
 
 controlled, the child can be trained so as to be fitted 
 to do his share in uplifting humanity ? If the parents 
 truly work for the moral welfare of their children, 
 teaching and requiring unselfishness and loving serv- 
 ice, at the same time giving like service to their 
 children, the reward of a united spiritually-minded 
 family will uplift both parents and children. Many 
 families, for many generations, have at least partly 
 found this blessing, and Spiritual Evolution teaches 
 the religious duty to bend every effort to thus unite 
 and advance family life, so it will help in the struggle 
 for race salvation. 
 
 The marriages which are unhappy and those which 
 are wrecked by wrong conduct of either husband 
 or wife, the children who go astray, or who make 
 their parents unhappy, or any other failure of fam- 
 ily life, in the ultimate analysis, can be assigned 
 in very large degree to the lack of that continuous 
 mutual love and mutual service which the Ethical 
 Process has demonstrated to be the ideal of family 
 life. When the Eeligion of Spiritual Evolution has 
 raised up in the hearts of any two who are about 
 to enter the married state, the high resolve that they 
 will crush down selfishness, and always live in the 
 highest comradeship, with mutual forbearance and 
 spiritual love, and will seek the higher unity of pur- 
 pose and effort which restrains animalism, selfish 
 pride and unethical desires, can there be any doubt 
 
82 THE RELIGION OF THE 
 
 that mutual happiness will come with the fulfillment 
 of such resolves ? 
 
 So, too, if children are reared in unselfishness to 
 give loving service to their parents and to each 
 other, as a religious duty, and are taught that thereby 
 they are consciously co-operating with the Infinite 
 One in a part of His Divine Plan for humanity, can 
 there be any question that they will develop personal 
 character of high promise in climbing the Upward 
 Way? 
 
PART IV 
 
 SOME MEDITATIONS RESPECTING 
 THE SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION OF 
 MAN AND ITS RELIGION 
 
AN EXPLANATION 
 
 IT has seemed best to the author to relieve the 
 constructive portion of this work from a myriad of 
 related ideas which throng the portals and aisles of 
 the invisible Temple of Worship, which the soul builds 
 up for itself in the contemplation of the great process 
 of God; and yet there may be suggestive power and 
 religious strength in the expression of some of these 
 reflections. Therefore, in this part of the book the 
 author gathers in paragraphs, which are only related 
 to each other through the main portion of the work, 
 a number of meditations which may be of more or 
 less value to the reader. 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 THE WORSHIP OF GOD FORESHADOWINGS THROUGH 
 THE PROCESS A PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE 
 
 I. THE WORSHIP OF GOD 
 
 Do you fear that you will lose something of the 
 sense of sublimity and of awe and of reverence for 
 God in learning the truths of the new religion ? Not 
 so; just as human conceptions of the universe have 
 been immeasurably extended since the time of Jesus, 
 so the conception of the eternal majesty and sublimity 
 of the Infinite One must grow far greater as you 
 contemplate the wonders of the Cosmos, including 
 the will of the Almighty shining forth in all the laws 
 of Cosmic Evolution. 
 
 Are the stars less inspiring now that you know 
 that they are wonderful suns blazing in glory through 
 illimitable space and evidencing the progress of a 
 process universal in the Cosmos? Is the beauty of 
 the wild flowers less entrancing because you know 
 that within the design evidenced in the great process, 
 they flourish and fade under the sway of natural 
 laws? 
 
 Is the grandeur of the mountains or the majesty 
 of the ocean less impelling now that you have learned 
 some of the laws under which they were formed and 
 exist? 
 
 85 
 
86 THE RELIGION OF THE 
 
 Is the innocent face of the babe less love-compelling 
 because you know the biological history of its ances- 
 try far back through millions of years to the lowly 
 amoeba ? 
 
 Is the love of God less to you because you must 
 accept the truth respecting His cosmos and His plan 
 for humanity ? 
 
 Comprehend, 0, my brother of the race! that 
 every sublime thought which has had the investiture 
 of truth for its inspiration, throughout all time has 
 come from God as a natural thing within the great 
 process of the evolution of man, as surely as did the 
 evolution of the earth as a planet or as does the growth 
 of the rose bush in your garden. Comprehend, 0, 
 my sister of the race ! that the wonderful mother love, 
 which illumines and purifies your life and which has 
 been greatly potent in uplifting mankind, comes from 
 the Infinite One through His plan as part of your 
 divine heritage, for your own uplifting and the uplift- 
 ing of your child. Surely, we will all worship the 
 Infinite One with inexpressibly higher love and awe 
 and reverence, the more we learn of His cosmos and 
 His wonderful plan which makes for righteousness. 
 
 II. FORESHADOWINGS THROUGH THE PROCESS 
 
 While never man prophesied by the direct inspira- 
 tion of God, yet the process of God would seem 
 of its very nature to bring into the souls of men 
 great foreshadowings of the operation and import of 
 
SPIEITUAL EVOLUTION OF MAN 87 
 
 the process. In this sense the Keligion of Spiritual 
 Evolution has had many prophets. 
 
 Whenever through all the past a philosopher, or 
 a poet, a priest or a layman has found and expressed 
 the thought that man's way always has been and is 
 upward, he has foreshadowed the Religion of the 
 Spiritual Evolution of Man. 
 
 Whenever one has taught the "brotherhood of all 
 men" he, too, must be held a prophet of the new 
 religion. 
 
 But, while we may honor all such teachers of the 
 past, and they are very many, going back in recorded 
 time far beyond Christ, yet we must steadfastly face 
 forward and upward in our struggle for race salva- 
 tion, and always reflect that higher spirituality than 
 ever has been, will be, and the coming foreshadow- 
 ings of race progress along the Upward Way should 
 be more and more helpful than any of the past. 
 
 III. A PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE 
 
 Every man and every woman should have some 
 intelligent, consciously formed philosophy of life. He 
 should, during all his existence on earth, never cease 
 to seek all ascertainable truth upon which to found 
 his conclusions respecting his own existence and every- 
 thing which pertains to it. 
 
 If his philosophy of life becomes fixed without 
 his ever thereafter holding an open mind to new facts 
 and new rational ideas, he is, indeed, a poor fool, 
 though he be a highly educated person. If he fixes 
 
88 THE KELIGION OF THE 
 
 either his religious faith or his spiritual beliefs upon 
 any particular "authority" and will not diligently 
 investigate and question the truth of such author- 
 ity upon rational grounds, and test its validity with 
 all the intelligence with which he is endowed, then 
 he affronts the Infinite One, who, in His plan, gave 
 man intelligence and rationality so that he thereby 
 might find the truth. 
 
 If he finds strong reason to doubt and abjure an 
 inherited religion as not truthful and as inconsistent 
 with the revelations of the working out of God's 
 process for man, as shown in the records of ascer- 
 tained truth, then, if he does not forsake the untrue 
 and turn to the truth, is he not either a moral coward 
 or a hypocrite ? 
 
 Again, if he is content with a philosophy of life 
 which relates so-called "personal liberty" to indul- 
 gence in animalistic appetites and desires, is he not 
 the blindest of philosophers, who really misses the 
 high import of man's evolution? 
 
 We need men and women with strong minds and 
 high moral purposes to go on with the work of uplift- 
 ing humanity, including themselves. Let us pray 
 to our fellow men that they seek the truths of exist- 
 ence without ceasing and let us work strongly, boldly 
 and with highest spiritual efforts for the salvation 
 of our race. No better philosophy of life than open 
 minded search for truth, rational worship of God, 
 clean living, and loving service to our fellow men 
 can be found. 
 
CHAPTEK II 
 
 THE MYSTERY OP EVIL THE DISCIPLINE OF SORROW, 
 AND DEATH 
 
 IV. THE MYSTERY OF EVIL 
 
 WHAT is evil within the great uplifting process? 
 The term must wholly relate to human conduct and 
 human character, and it would seem, in the last 
 analysis, that it is all which makes against the spirit- 
 ual uplifting of the human race and of men as 
 individuals. 
 
 Once the Divine Plan is comprehended and human 
 volition admitted, we can see in highest rationality 
 that evil, the antithesis of good, necessarily arises 
 from man's power to choose right conduct, which 
 will assist in carrying out the Will of God, shown 
 in the process which makes for righteousness, or 
 to choose bad conduct which makes against race 
 advancement and tends towards personal spiritual 
 degradation. 
 
 Moral freedom brings a choice of actions to man, 
 and the black current of evil which flows on in the 
 stream of racial destiny is created wholly by the 
 conduct of man himself. Neither devil nor fallen 
 angel nor power of darkness makes the evil which 
 tempts man toward degradation. It is his own uncon- 
 89 
 
90 THE KELIGION OF THE 
 
 trolled desires and passions which make up the sum 
 of so-called "temptation." 
 
 Animalism, as a necessity of survival of human 
 life, could not of itself be evil, but, modified by the 
 intelligence and passions of man, it becomes a power 
 against righteousness. So, also, intemperate vices of 
 drinking or eating owe their degrading power to man's 
 voluntary choice. 
 
 Vices of untruthf ulness, hypocrisy, irrational anger, 
 avarice, dishonesty, inordinate pride, gluttony, selfish- 
 ness and kindred degrading wickednesses of men all 
 arise because man misuses the greatest gift of the 
 Infinite One, his moral freedom. 
 
 Do you ask how the existence of evil can be recon- 
 ciled with the idea that God is infinitely good ? 
 
 Can you not see that all earthly evil is first against 
 mankind in hindering the advance of the race spiritu- 
 ally, and, therefore, is against God because it impedes 
 the fulfillment of His Divine Plan for man? Man 
 makes the evil of his race, not God. What would 
 moral freedom be worth if we did not need to struggle 
 against choosing those things in conduct which we 
 call evil? 
 
 I am aware that you may say that apparently there 
 are forces which make for evil, just as there are 
 forces which make for righteousness. Yet, again, 
 must we view the process of God in its totality and 
 see that the ultimately conquering forces are those 
 which tend to uplift humanity. The Power which 
 makes for righteousness is ever impelling men to 
 
SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION OF MAN 91 
 
 higher spirituality, and only man's own volition 
 brings to the race that which is unrighteous. In a 
 realm of physical law man alone of all the creatures 
 of earth intelligently chooses the forces of nature, 
 which he will bend to his service. In a realm of moral 
 forces he elects to which he will surrender his con- 
 duct, the uplifting forces or the necessarily opposed 
 forces which tend backward and downward toward 
 animalism and degradation. Is it not clear that, 
 if he had not moral volition, there would be no 
 evil, for then his conduct would not be moral, but 
 merely mechanical ? 
 
 Let us not waste our days in pondering the mystery 
 of evil, if it be a mystery. Let us recognize its exist- 
 ence as a matter of man's own volition, and then let 
 us attack it in every possible way and triumphantly 
 struggle against its power amongst our fellow men 
 and in our own personalities. The battle is well 
 worth waging. 
 
 V. THE DISCIPLINE OF SORROW AND DEATH 
 
 Within God's process birth and death are universal 
 facts which mark portals of personal existence through 
 which every human being must pass. Man has been 
 wont to welcome the new born child in joyous anti- 
 cipation of its earthly existence, and when death has 
 come, soon or late, sad hearts have mourned the pass- 
 ing of the loved personality into the unknown life 
 beyond the portal of death. 
 
 Disease, misconduct of loved ones and other trials 
 
92 THE KELIGION OP THE 
 
 of life, through the untold ages of the earthly journey 
 of the race of mankind, have brought sorrow and dis- 
 tress into the lives of countless millions. 
 
 The Spiritual discipline which sorrow and death 
 have enforced on humanity must be valued in any 
 analysis of the spiritualizing process. 
 
 He who has struggled against excessive sorrow and 
 despair because of the death of a loved one, and has 
 gained worthy peace, knows the discipline which he 
 has undergone, and he who meets the afflictions and 
 trials of life with courage, serenity and high faith in 
 the goodness of God's process has learned a great 
 lesson of the higher duty. 
 
 The Religion of the Spiritual Evolution of Man 
 teaches to all humanity the moral worth of encounter- 
 ing all the trials and afflictions of life with serene 
 spiritual courage and faith. It says to the individual, 
 mourn not unduly the translation of those you love, 
 from physical life through death's portal, into the 
 realm of spiritual life. It teaches to us all the great 
 lesson that the highest service we can give to those 
 who surround us in times of our sorrow and distress, 
 is to look beyond our own losses and afflictions to the 
 high destiny of our race and to the great spiritual 
 import of the plan of the Infinite One, and there find 
 surcease from the temporary trials and sorrows of 
 earthly life. 
 
 In highest faith we can look up to The Infinite 
 One for our safe refuge in every sorrow, and trial of 
 life. 
 
CHAPTEK III 
 
 VI. NOT PRAYER BUT SPIRITUAL ADORATION" 
 
 Do you think, because the Maker of Laws, whose 
 established order pervades a cosmos so vast that hu- 
 man comprehension of it shrinks into insignificance, 
 has ordained for man, that neither the prayer of the 
 savage nor of the Confucian, neither the petition of 
 the Buddhist nor of the Christian, nor the prayer of 
 any other religionist, can change His will in working 
 out under great laws the destiny of mankind, do you 
 think, therefore, that you are debarred from send- 
 ing out your soul in adoration to the Infinite One, 
 whose process gave you your personality ? 
 
 There are those whose egotism is so supreme that 
 in blindest faith they petition the Almighty to spe- 
 cially care for them, to guide and protect and feed and 
 clothe them. They fail to see that as "the rain 
 falleth alike on the just and the unjust," so God's 
 process, in every relation to every man, is wholly and 
 supremely impartial. 
 
 A Christian far evolved spiritually goes down to 
 death in a catastrophe at sea, notwithstanding the 
 prayers to God of himself, and of other Christians, 
 that his journey might be free from disaster, while a 
 brutal sailor, steeped in degradation, is saved because 
 he pushed the physically weaker Christian out of the 
 small boat which was overloaded and would not 
 hold both. 
 
 93 
 
94 THE RELIGION OF THE 
 
 The wreck of a transatlantic steamer a few years 
 ago gave exactly that test of the efficacy of prayer, 
 but a natural law, the survival of the strongest, deter- 
 mined the fate of each. Of course, a million appar- 
 ently favorable answers to prayer can be accounted for 
 rationally and truthfully by the operation of natural 
 law, and a million unanswered prayers alike find 
 their failure because they seek things which are denied 
 by natural law. My neighbor on the right prays for 
 rain because his fruit trees need it, while my neighbor 
 on the left, at the same time, prays for dry weather 
 because his hay requires cutting. They have equal 
 faith. Rain comes quickly by natural law, and the 
 prayer for the salvation of the fruit crop, in the 
 opinion of the owner of the trees, has been answered. 
 The Japanese pray to their ancestral Gods for vic- 
 tory against Russia, and the Russians, in all their 
 Christian churches, pray for victory to their armies. 
 Non-Christian Japan is triumphant, therefore Chris- 
 tians say, "God works in a mysterious way his won- 
 ders to perform," and some say, "Oh, the Russians 
 are not really Christians; they belong to the Greek 
 Church." The truth is that the best military organi- 
 zation and highest patriotism won the struggle, 
 irrespective of any prayer to anyone. 
 
 During the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, 
 fervent and sincere prayers in great faith went up 
 continuously from Lutherans, Scotch Presbyterians, 
 Methodists, and the Puritans of England and of 
 America, that Almighty God would guide them in 
 
SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION OF MAN 95 
 
 their religion and their acts. Equally sincere and 
 devout prayers, of like tenor, were addressed to God 
 by the divines and laity of the Church of England. 
 We must also concede to leaders and adherents of the 
 "Holy Catholic Church of Kome," during the same 
 time, just as sincere and devout prayers that God 
 would be their spiritual guide. 
 
 Surely, if prayer brought answers from God, such 
 prayers, through two centuries would bring the Divine 
 guidance, so that all of these Christian churches and 
 sects would not lend themselves to basest superstition 
 and cruelties unspeakable against poor, defenseless 
 women. Yet, if we are to judge of God's favoritism 
 to a religious sect through answering its prayers, only 
 a certain faction of the Church of England received 
 God's guidance during these centuries, and some of 
 its greatest exponents were equally culpable with the 
 other sects in the utter degradation of religious belief 
 which they sanctioned and encouraged. 
 
 Of course, evolved humanity, whether called Chris- 
 tian or infidel, knows now that "witchcraft" was 
 never a reality, but merely the imagined creature of 
 ignorant, distorted superstition; yet each of the 
 churches mentioned, persecuted, tortured, hanged and 
 burned many, yes, literally, hundreds of poor women 
 as "witches," or sanctioned and encouraged such acts, 
 as desired of God. 
 
 For one instance, in England, when the Puritans 
 were in power, Parliament issued a commission and 
 sent two Presbyterian divines into the County of Suf- 
 
96 THE RELIGION OF THE 
 
 folk, with the result that in that county alone sixty 
 persons were hanged for witchcraft in a single year. 
 In Scotland, at Leith, in 1664, nine women accused 
 of witchcraft were burned together. All over Europe 
 Catholic and Protestant Communities vied in perse- 
 cuting, torturing and burning human beings as "pos- 
 sessed" with witchcraft, and Puritan New England 
 did its share. 
 
 Great names of church history are forever debased 
 by these proofs of Divine guidance (?) in answer 
 to prayer. A long list of Catholic prelates and of 
 leaders of Protestantism must have been unfavorably 
 regarded by God, if we are to judge of the misguid- 
 ance of their souls, notwithstanding their fervent 
 prayers. John Wesley, Eichard Baxter (he of Saint's 
 Rest fame), Cotton Mather and many others, includ- 
 ing popes and bishops of Catholicism, sanctioned, 
 applauded and "conscientiously" advocated these per- 
 secutions. The history of this whole debasing record 
 can be read in White's "History of the Warfare of 
 Science with Theology," a book which every seeker 
 of truth should read. 
 
 The worst of the fearful record is that these 
 Christian persecutors found in what they call the 
 "Holy Scriptures," the foul suggestion which induced 
 their acts. John Wesley said: "The giving up of 
 witchcraft is, in effect, the giving up of the Bible," 
 but Science at last drove the believers in witches and 
 witchcraft out of the fields of human endeavor. Yet, 
 
SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION OF MAN 97 
 
 all the time they devoutly believed their prayers 
 for Divine guidance were being answered. 
 
 Is not the lesson obvious? Under the Divine Plan 
 man must work out his own destiny. He caa attain 
 moral power and strength to lead a righteous life and 
 to help his fellow men to advance spiritually by con- 
 sciously using the spiritual laws which God has placed 
 within his reach, and by always fearlessly seeking 
 truth, irrespective of claim of revelation which, of 
 necessity, is sheer hearsay to all save the one who 
 claims to have received such revelation, and to him 
 it is fraud or delusion. 
 
 While God's process denies the right to ask any 
 special interposition of Providence in any human 
 affair, it emphasizes the right of every human soul to 
 constantly send forth to the Infinite One the adora- 
 tion of spiritual love and highest worship. 
 
 An invocation which expresses spiritual love, high- 
 est reverence and all the yearnings of the soul toward 
 God is inspired by the Divine Plan itself. 
 
 We may learn, but slowly, all the compensations 
 which the new religion offers for mistaken ideals, 
 which the larger truth will not permit us longer to 
 cherish, but reflecting humanity has long seen that 
 prayer to God has had no objective force. 
 
 Now we can find the subjective power of the out- 
 pouring of our souls to God sanctioned by the Infinite 
 One and revealed in His process. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 NO CHURCHES PERHAPS SOCIETIES THE LAW OP 
 SPIRITUAL TRANQUILIZATION 
 
 VII. NO CHURCHES PERHAPS SOCIETIES 
 
 THE term, church, as defining a body of co-relig- 
 ionists, belongs peculiarly to the numerous antago- 
 nistic sects of Christianity, and as the Eeligion of the 
 Spiritual Evolution, of innate necessit} r , rejects the 
 religion of Christianity it would seem primarily that 
 no attempt should be made to appropriate the word, 
 church, either to represent the whole body of adherents 
 of the Eeligion, or any of its congregations or the 
 edifice in which separate bodies of its followers will 
 assemble for worship and instruction. For this rea- 
 son, the author has used the name, temple, for the 
 houses of worship of the new religion. While amongst 
 religions of the past, and some of the present, the 
 temples have been debased with sacrificial and other 
 degrading ceremonies and with priestly domination, 
 yet they have always been the sacred places of the 
 believers of the religion. Generically, there would 
 seem to be no reason why the term should not be 
 chosen to constitute the name of the edifice wherein 
 a congregation of Spiritual Evolutionists will worship. 
 
 As to the name which shall be given to a body of 
 worshippers who unite together at one place, a sug- 
 
 98 
 
SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION OF MAN 99 
 
 gestion may not be deemed amiss. The association of 
 a number of co-religionists, in one common effort, 
 finds the word, "society," as one accepted and appro- 
 priate designation. It may be that a better word 
 can be found, but if the constructive suggestions of 
 this book are acted upon by Spiritual Evolutionists, 
 some such designation must be accepted. There will 
 be local societies and general societies if any effective 
 organization is made. 
 
 VIII. THE LAW OF SPIRITUAL TRANQUILIZATION 
 
 In this age, in which great changes are taking place 
 in the religious views of humanity at large, it is, 
 perhaps, very natural that there should have arisen 
 sects and cults which base their tenets on a single 
 great spiritual law, comprising a part of the Ethical 
 Process under which humanity is advancing. 
 
 It is supremely significant that, no matter what 
 false premises such a sect may assign to utilize the 
 great law, its influence for good becomes operative 
 whenever humanity surrenders to its beneficent power. 
 
 So called, Christian Science, the New Thought, 
 mental suggestions by physicians to patients, and 
 the power of auto-suggestion in conquering disease, all 
 relate to a single beneficent law, which the author 
 terms the Law of Spiritual Tranquilization. 
 
 What follows is offered more as a suggestion of the 
 nature of this law than as its scientific formulation. 
 As a matter of scientific truth, it is fully recognized 
 
100 THE KELIGION OF THE 
 
 by physicians and psychologists that certain mental 
 states of individuals produce numerous disorders of 
 the functional activities of the human body. Worry, 
 anxiety, mental harassments, sorrow, and, in general, 
 nervous strain produced by any cause, tend strongly to 
 so disturb the entire nervous system as to produce by 
 reflex action indigestion, insomnia, and a long train 
 of other physical disorders, which may result, if 
 unchecked, in insanity or death, or a life of unhappi- 
 ness and misery. Also it is well known that the 
 mental condition of a patient may greatly aggravate 
 the severity of a disease or it may greatly assist in 
 recovery. These are facts of scientific observation, 
 quite universal amongst all peoples of earth. 
 
 Christian "Science" would say that all pain and 
 disorder is simply the product of "mortal mind," 
 but one must fancy that if this kind of a scientist puts 
 on a pair of shoes several sizes too small for his feet, 
 that the resultant pain arises not from "mortal mind," 
 but because of two laws of the Infinite One, the first 
 that two bodies cannot occupy the same space at the 
 same time, and the second that undue temporary 
 constriction of human feet will produce a condition of 
 pain which cannot be excluded from the consciousness 
 of the normal individual. Of course, the law con- 
 trolling the latter phenomena is much broader than 
 here stated. 
 
 As "mortal mind" must necessarily mean all that 
 lies within human consciousness, it rather staggers 
 one to contemplate a so-called "science," which would 
 
SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION OF MAN 101 
 
 obliterate human intelligence. That would be "Nir- 
 vana," indeed. If it is said there is some occult seg- 
 regation of one part of consciousness called "mortal 
 mind" from another part called "the thought of the 
 Infinite," then a sufficient answer is, that all that 
 exists is within "the thought of the Infinite," includ- 
 ing human pain and disease. 
 
 But Christian "Scientists" are using, with consid- 
 erable success, in the alleviation of diseases or func- 
 tional disorders created by mental disturbances, the 
 Law of Spiritual Tranquilization. So, too, with equal 
 success in like disorders, the followers of the New 
 Thought are using the same law. 
 
 Likewise, physicians have for ages used this great 
 law of healing by making tranquilizing suggestions in 
 treating diseases which owe their origin to nervous 
 disarrangements or are affected thereby. A mother 
 uses the same law when her child is hurt and she 
 suggests to it that the pain will soon go, and "kisses 
 the spot to make it well." Also, many a man and 
 many a woman has, by auto-suggestion, obtained the 
 blessings of this law. 
 
 Tranquilization of one's spirit may come through 
 many channels of suggestion, and then the benefits 
 of the law will come if the serenity of soul which 
 the law makes possible is attained. 
 
 In the Eeligion of Spiritual Evolution, it is most 
 desirable that we should learn more and more about 
 this law, and in its use that we should clearly ascribe 
 its beneficent power to the Infinite One. It is part of 
 
102 THE KELIGION OF THE 
 
 His Divine Plan that the soul may thus highly rule 
 in serene religious strength, the ever-sensitive nervous 
 system, and that amongst disorder and disease tran- 
 quil hope shall bring blessings to him who surrenders 
 to the potency of the law. 
 
 One can say to his brother of the race, or to his 
 sister of the race, "Lift up your soul, in high faith, 
 to the Infinite One, and fill it with the knowledge that 
 His Plan for mankind is righteous and the highest 
 good. Tranquilize everything within your conscious- 
 ness. Crowd out every thought which hinders the 
 attainment of serene, constant hopefulness. Then, 
 no matter whether pain wracks your body or disease 
 drags it downward toward physical death, you have 
 triumphed in your soul, and that is most worthy 
 within the design of God." 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 A RELIGION OF HAPPINESS AND OPTIMISM 
 
 CONCLUSION 
 IX. A RELIGION OF HAPPINESS AND OPTIMISM 
 
 IN the law of the Upward Way inheres great 
 spiritual hope and a pledge of ethical happiness to 
 everyone who will comprehend its meaning and will 
 join in furthering its divine potency upon the destiny 
 of man. When one seeking truth and willing to fol- 
 low its dictates has demonstrated to the satisfaction of 
 his intelligence that, under design of God, the human 
 race is ever progressing toward higher spirituality, 
 then, hoping for the better and working for the better, 
 become the sources of religious optimism and spiritual 
 happiness which cannot fail to bless the life of such 
 a one. 
 
 In a practical, way, the Eeligion of the Spiritual 
 Evolution of Man will open up vast and ever-expand- 
 ing fields of human endeavor for race-uplifting, which 
 will give happy, strong purpose to the spiritual life 
 of each person who truly seeks to carry out the objects 
 of the religion, and, likewise, will make happy and 
 hopeful all the daily life of the true believer in the 
 religion. 
 
 103 
 
104 THE RELIGION OF THE 
 
 When many shall join in united intelligent effort 
 to crush down and destroy the things which hinder 
 the spiritual progress of mankind and to build up 
 and foster all which tends to bring the human race to 
 higher spirituality, can there be any question that the 
 individual will find happiness and religious satisfac- 
 tion in helping on the great work ? Will not spiritual 
 life become broadened and the appreciation of nature 
 in all its phases become more satisfying when it is 
 comprehended that, within the process of God, purest 
 and highest love, as well as the sense of grandeur, 
 beauty and joy and ethical pleasure, well up in human 
 consciousness as part of the supreme fact that the 
 Infinite One is immanent in all His plan for man and 
 in all His works in the Cosmos ? 
 
 Will not the expansion of such ideas in the souls of 
 men bring into their daily lives a source of personal 
 happiness which will carry them through life's trials 
 and struggles with supreme faith in the ultimate good- 
 ness of all which exists and which will prevent a 
 surrender of their souls to despair or hopelessness ? 
 
 Doubtless we must slowly learn the better happiness 
 and many of us who are now living will fail to get 
 more than glimpses of its coming glory, which will 
 beautify the lives of those who follow us in life's 
 great stream, but this better happiness is as surely 
 foreshadowed in Spiritual Evolution as, in cosmic 
 evolution, is the continuity of human life into the 
 far ages of a time we cannot now measure. 
 
SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION OF MAN 105 
 
 X. CONCLUSION 
 
 In concluding this book, the author sends this mes- 
 sage to everyone who believes in evolution as a unified 
 process under which the Cosmos is unfolding, both as 
 a material universe and as a psychic universe. 
 
 If you have not already sought knowledge of the 
 full import of the evolution of man, if you have 
 not valued the progress of the human race, from 
 the ape-like men to the highest ethical natures of 
 today, if you have not seen the design of the Infinite 
 One in all evolution, I beseech you to begin anew your 
 search for truth, and with honesty and spiritual desire, 
 endeavor to bring into your own soul the proof of the 
 essential harmony between science and religion, which 
 surely exists, and if you find such harmony, do not 
 fail to become one of those who will teach it to all 
 mankind. 
 
 To the many who have perceived the truth respect- 
 ing the evolution of man, that our race is slowly 
 rising to higher spiritual life under the Divine Plan 
 for humanity, I ask: Is it not our common and 
 imperative duty to broadly organize a religion for 
 uplifting all mankind to which we can give highest 
 spiritual allegiance within the safe realms of scientific 
 truth? 
 
 I believe in my soul that God, through the Spiritual 
 Evolution of Man, has so ordained. 
 
 THE END 
 
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