of great joy which is by and by to be realized by toiling Humanity, and
he announced ethical principles fit for the time that is coming. The
great originality of his teaching, and the feature that has chiefly
given it power in the world, lay in the distinctness with which he
conceived a state of society from which every vestige of strife, and the
modes of behaviour adapted to ages of strife, shall be utterly and
forever swept away. Through misery that has seemed unendurable and
turmoil that has seemed endless, men have thought on that gracious life
and its sublime ideal, and have taken comfort in the sweetly solemn
message of peace on earth and good will to men.

I believe that the promise with which I started has now been amply
redeemed. I believe it has been fully shown that so far from degrading
Humanity, or putting it on a level with the animal world in general, the
doctrine of evolution shows us distinctly for the first time how the
creation and the perfecting of Man is the goal toward which Nature's
work has been tending from the first. We can now see clearly that our
new knowledge enlarges tenfold the significance of human life, and makes
it seem more than ever the chief object of Divine care, the consummate
fruition of that creative energy which is manifested throughout the
knowable universe.




XVI.

The Question as to a Future Life.