The biologist who has attempted to carry the methods of his science thus far into the consideration of the phenomena presented in human society, now finds himself approaching a conclusion of a remarkable kind. If the inferences it has been the object of the preceding chapters to establish are justified, it must be evident that they have a very wide significance of a kind not yet considered.

It is not improbable that the reader, as he has advanced through the last three chapters, may have felt that one idea has assumed increasing prominence in his mind. Admitting, he may say, that our civilisation is to be viewed as a single organic growth, the significance whereof consists in the fact that the developmental process proceeding therein tends to raise the rivalry of life to the highest degree of efficiency by bringing all the people into it on a footing of equality; that the motive force which has been behind this development has its seat in that fund of altruistic feeling with which our civilisation has become equipped; and that this fund of altruistic feeling has been the characteristic product of the religious system associated with our civilisation—whither does this lead us? What guarantee have we that the development which has been proceeding is to continue? Do not the signs of the times indicate a decline in the strength and vitality of those feelings and ideas upon which our religious systems have been founded?