these possibilities will be realized. You must look at the rudely outlined heroic human figure in the block of stone, not at the rough unfinished pedestal, if you would know Michel Angelo. So in the hydra and the annelid you must look at the possibilities of the nervous system before you or he think that digestion and muscle are all.

Once more the highest powers dawn far down in the animal kingdom. There are traces of mind in the amoeba, and of unselfishness in the lower mammals. If there were a goal of human development higher and other than unselfishness, wisdom, and love, we should have seen traces of it before this. But have we found the faintest sign of any such? Moreover, remember that a function continues to develop about as long as it shows the capacity for development. And during that period environment is a power making for its higher development. But is there any limit to the possible development of the three mental activities mentioned above? I can see none. Then must we not expect that environment will always make for these? And will environment ever manifest itself to man as the seat or instrument of a power possessing higher faculties other than these? Man must worship a personal God of wisdom, unselfishness, and love, or cease to worship. The latter alternative he never yet has been able to take, and society survive under its domination. So I at least am compelled to read the finding of biological history.

But let us grant for the sake of argument that man contains still undeveloped germs of faculties capable of perceiving and attaining something as much higher

than wisdom and love as these are higher than brute force. You will answer, this is not only inconceivable, it is impossible. Still let us grant the possibility. We notice, first of all, that it is against the whole course of evolution that these faculties should be other than mental, and what we class under powers pertaining to our personality. For ages past evidently, and no less really from the very beginning, evolution has worked for the body only as a perfect vehicle of mind, and for this as leading to will and character. And human development has led, and ever more tends, as Mr. Drummond has shown, to the arrest, though not the degeneration, of the body. It is to remain at the highest possible stage of efficiency as the servant of mind. These higher powers will thus be mental and personal powers. And how has any and every advance to higher capabilities been attained in the animal kingdom? Merely by the most active possible exercise of the next lower power. This is proven by the sequence of physical and mental functions. We shall attain, therefore, any higher mental capacities only by the continual practice of wisdom and love. That is our only path to something higher, if higher there shall ever be. But if we find that the God of our environment is a God of something higher than love and righteousness, will these cease to be characteristics of his nature and essence? Not at all.

I have learned, perhaps, to know my father as a plain citizen. If I later find that he is a king and statesman, with powers and mental capacities of which I have never dreamed, do I therefore from that time cease to think of him as wise and kind and good? Not

in the least. I only trust his love and wisdom as guide of my little life all the more. And shall not the same be true of God though he be king of all worlds and ages? It becomes unwise and wrong to worship God as the God of might only when we have found that he is a God also of something higher and nobler, of love; and after we have perceived this fully and worship him as love, we rest in the arms of his infinite power.

But now that the work has gone thus far, we can see that all development must take place along personal, spiritual lines; and are compelled to believe in a spiritual cause who knew the end from the beginning. And man's farther progress depends upon his conformity to this spiritual environment. And what is conformity to the personal element in our environment but likeness to him? This is my only possible mode of conformity to a person-to become like him in word, action, thought, and purpose, and finally in all my being. Very far from a close resemblance we still are. But we are more like him than primitive man was; and our descendants will resemble him far more close

ly than we. And thus man, conscious of his environment, and that means capable of knowing something about God, knows at least what God requires of him, namely, righteousness, love, and likeness to himself; or, as the old heathen seer expressed it, "to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly before God." Man is and must be a religious being. And he conforms consciously. Thus to be more like God he must know more about him, and to know more about him he must become more like him. The two go hand in hand, and by mutual reaction strengthen each other. I will not enter into the most important question of all,

whether we can ever really know a person unless we have some love for him. The facts of evolution seem to me to admit of but one interpretation, that of Augustine: "Thou hast formed me for thee, O Lord, and my restless spirit finds no rest but in thee." Granted, therefore, a personal God in and behind environment, however dimly perceived, and conformity to environment means god-likeness; for conformity to a person can mean nothing less than likeness to him.

The

Some of you must, all of you should, have read Professor Huxley's "Address on Education." In it he says, "It is a very plain and elementary truth that the life, the fortune, and the happiness of every one of us, and, more or less, of those who are connected with us, do depend upon our knowing something of the rules of a game infinitely more difficult and complicated than chess. It is a game which has been played for unknown ages, every man and woman of us being one of the two players in a game of his or her own. chess-board is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the universe, the rules of the game are what we call the laws of Nature. The player on the other side is hidden from us. We know that his play is always fair, just, and patient. But also we know, to our cost, that he never overlooks a mistake, or makes the smallest allowance for ignorance. To the man who plays well the highest stakes are paid with that sort of overflowing generosity with which the strong shows delight in strength. And one who plays ill is checkmated— without haste, but without remorse.

"My metaphor," he continues, "will remind some of you of the famous picture in which Retzsch has depicted Satan playing at chess with man for his soul.

Substitute for the mocking fiend in that picture a calm, strong angel, who is playing for love, as we say, and would rather lose than win-and I should accept it as an image of human life.” 1

This is a marvellous illustration, and in general as true as it is beautiful and grand. But that "calm, strong angel who is playing for love, as we say, and would rather lose than win," is certainly a very strange antagonist. Is it, after all, possible that our clear-eyed scientific man has altogether misunderstood the game? Is not the "calm, strong angel" more probably our partner? Certainly very many things point that way. And who are our antagonists? Look within yourself and you will always find at least a pair ready to take a hand against you, to say nothing of the possibilities of environment. "Rex regis rebellis." Our partner is trying by every method, except perhaps by "talking across the board," to teach us the laws and methods of this great game. And calls and signals are always allowable. The game is not finished in one hand; he gives us a second and third, and repeats the signals, and never misleads. Only when we carelessly or obstinately refuse to learn, and wilfully lose the game beyond all hope, does he leave us to meet our losses as best we may.

Let us carry the illustration a step farther. Who knows that the game was, or could be, at first taught without talking across the board? I can find nothing in science to compel such a belief, many things render it improbable. Grant a personality in environment to which personality in man is to conform and gain likeEnvironment can act on the digestive and mus

ness.

1 Huxley: Lay Sermons and Addresses, p. 31.